Wanted: Workshops For Journalists To Understand Technical Language So They Can Write About Science More And Intelligently!

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We need Italians to tell us what we Filipinos need!?

Above: A foreign journal has just published the results of a study with Manila respondents, “Challenges Of Communicating Science: Perspectives From The Philippines[1]” (Journal Of Science Communication, vol 19, issue 01, 2020, 21 pages), published by MediaLab of Italy. The authors, Kamila Navarro and Merryn McKinnon, conducted an online survey and semi-structured, investigative interviews, “to examine the challenges faced by local scientists and science communicators when publicly communicating science in the Philippines.”

And there, right at the conceptual stage of the study, lies the problem!

In case you did not notice, I repeat… “scientists and science communicators when publicly communicating science in the Philippines.” Those scientists and communicators are in the academic and research institutions – they are not media people. They are communicating hard science – they are not popularizing it!  ( (superimposed image from me)

We need to popularize science.

Since I am both a science writer and science editor, I’m interested in transforming technical language into popular language, so that the layman can understand and maybe apply what scientists have found in studies. This is not the subject of the study reported, so the results are not relevant to me.

Even the University of the Philippines Los Baños where we find the College of Development Communication, DevCom, has not been conducting studies on how hard science, in the jargon of scientists, can be made attractive reading matter for the general public. I don’t know what DevCom has been doing all these years in terms of communicating science to the people, aside from conducting their own studies.

The researchers say, “Early records of science and technology stories in Philippine print and broadcast media are scarce.” Even now, I can tell you that they are scarce – probably all technical papers published in technical journals are not transformed into popular articles the public can appreciate and apply.

Their (respondents’) answers revealed issues which have been echoed in other international studies. However, challenges of accessibility and local attitudes to science were magnified within the Philippine context.

“Magnified within the Philippine context”? I doubt it. Scientific papers are the same throughout the world – very hard to bite into by ordinary molars (mortals)!

The problem in the Philippines, as well as in other countries,  is that there are no courses or even workshops that help communicators and journalists understand technical language so that they can intelligently write about what they read.

Yes, as the authors observe, PH media maintain science sections like Health or Technology, but these appear only once or twice a week.

Even Agriculture Monthly[2], a dedicated magazine published by Manila Bulletin, does not follow up findings in aggie research to translate into popular language. No, there is no PH publication reporting on the latest science for people to appreciate and apply in their lives.

Hmmm. I can be the one-man band writer, editor & layout artist of a science magazine if anyone has publishing funds. Email me: frankahilario@gmail.com@517

 


[1]https://jcom.sissa.it/archive/19/01/JCOM_1901_2020_A03?fbclid=IwAR07iCsClh1MrtJBhBe83Q7GF5AEq-zO8Kok-6JV8bR2jFMele8MNmFxS3QArticle

[2]https://www.agriculture.com.ph/


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