I started doing “external engagement work” as a postdoc, when I set up a blog to cover the 2012 elections in Taiwan (an experience I wrote about for Issues and Studies). As a result of this experience I started to receive periodic requests for media interviews. I continued to develop my online footprint through Twitter, editing the China Policy Institute blog (which subsequently evolved into a more sophisticated product featuring analysis by some of the world’s top experts) and convening another Taiwan blog to cover the 2016 elections.

Over time the more media I did the more opportunities presented themselves, both in terms of being asked for comment and writing op-eds. I came to see engaging the media as an important part of academic life. Academics create knowledge, but then share it with a tiny number of peers at conferences and in pay-walled journals. That strikes me as a terrible result all round. In the hope of stimulating discussion about external engagement in my own field of China studies, I published two articles in the China Quarterly on working with the media and using social media (forthcoming working paper version).

Through these activities in the past 5 years I developed an understanding of how print and digital media work, at least from the perspective of an academic seeking to engage in these activities. However, I had very little exposure to working with broadcast media, which is why I applied to the British Science Association (BSA) for a Media Fellowship. Thanks to support from the BSA and the University of Nottingham, I secured a placement working with the BBC for a month during the summer. My placement was with the BBC radio science unit, headed by Deborah Cohen, a journalist with a commitment to breaking down barriers between scholars and the media to the benefit of science communication at large. Continue reading →