For the occasion of the SCAR PAIS conference in Trieste, APECS Italy is organizing a workshop about the use of Social Media to effectively communicate science to the wider public.

INTRODUCTION

Often, it seems, the ability to communicate our research is undervalued, or at least not given the importance it deserves. However, especially in a society in which “science culture” is not generally taken into account (just think of the popularity of falsehoods such as the “correlation” between vaccinations and Autism, “Stamina therapy”, or the idea that climate change is a hoax), the ability to render the results of our research comprehensible to the society at large is fundamental.

Involve, impassion, educate. These are the three objectives that every researcher should have in mind when concluding a project.

Today, thanks to the existence of social networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, this goal is much more within reach. The power of these instruments is in the hands of all of us, and this is especially evident when “hyped results” from “fake science” go viral. It is necessary then to reverse this trend: to do what we can to make “good science” go viral, and involve the members at large of these social media communities. How? The goal of the workshop that APECS Italy is organizing alongside the PAIS conference aims to address this “How?” by providing practical tools to participants in order to be able to successfully share their own research.