There are two papers out on science and medical blogging. The first is concerned with medical blogging, and I vaguely remember filling in the questionnaire some time ago. It is also reported on the blog of one of the authors, who also makes good use of lecture slides. There’s some interesting findings although the relatively small numbers, due to a response rate of 42% may make these results atypical. Ironically, given the media track record in science reporting, this is from a section entitled Journalistic Activities.
More than half of the responding medical bloggers have published a scientific paper (43/80, 54%), 35 (44%) bloggers have published a book or a chapter in a book, and 32 (41%) have published a newspaper article. Highly educated bloggers were more likely to have published a book or a chapter in a book (50% vs 14%, χ21= 6.19, P= .01) and a scientific paper (62% vs 21%, χ21= 7.57, P= .08) than those with lower levels of education. When it comes to best practices associated with journalism, the participants most frequently reported including links to original source of material and spending extra time verifying facts, while they rarely tried to obtain permission to post copyrighted material.
Female medical bloggers were found to get permission for posting copyrighted material more often than male bloggers (U= 386, n1= 25, n2= 44, P= .03). Bloggers who have published a scientific paper were more likely to quote directly other people or media than those who never published such a paper (U= 506.5, n1= 41, n2= 35, P= .016). Blog writers who were blogging under their real name were more inclined to include links to original sources than those writing under a pseudonym (U= 446.5, n1= 58, n2= 19, P= .01).
Kovic I, Lulic I, Brumini G
Examining the Medical Blogosphere: An Online Survey of Medical Bloggers
J Med Internet Res 2008;10(3):e28
http://www.jmir.org/2008/3/e28/
The second paper is about the role of blogs in academic science, and is effectively a call for institutions to engage with blogs as a new communication medium, although there are potential problems with the natural tendency of institutions wishing to control their public image, and the perhaps inhibitory consequences of blogging becoming part of a job, rather than a personal altruistic outpouring. I fully agree with this statement:
Scholarly journal articles are not intellectually accessible to most of the population, and are often behind an expensive pay-wall. Conversely, science blogs are freely accessible, interactive, and are generally written for a lay audience. Although only a small percentage of the 38% of 12- to 17-year-olds who read blogs may be reading science blogs, blogs clearly have the potential to reach an age group where excitement about a future career in science could be ignited. An excellent example of an educational, fun, and accessible science blog is The Panda’s Thumb, where evolutionary biologists tackle questions about evolution in easy-to-understand ways, and science teachers are an important part of their audience (http://www.pandasthumb.org/).
Batts SA, Anthis NJ, Smith TC (2008) Advancing Science through Conversations: Bridging the Gap between Blogs and the Academy. PLoS Biol 6(9): e240 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060240