Support Organizations for the Engineering Community (1985) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
5. Society at Large
5. Society at Large
Pages 49-60
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 49... ...
Yet most Americans have little idea of what engineers are or what they do. Moreover, as critical social policy discussions increasingly involve technology and engineering {e.g., toxic waste disposal and reprocessing, nuclear safety, military weapons systems, space program options, robotics, recombinant DNA applications!
|
From page 50... ...
Conventional public relations approaches will not work with today' s science-and-technology j ournalists who are already flooded with press releases and phone calls "pitching" products, processes, and programs by the thousands. The single most important step the engineering community can take to help improve media coverage and at the same time, to help overcome the barriers of misunderstanding and mistrust between the engineering community and the media is to provide journalists with ready access to reliable, credible sources of information.
|
From page 51... ...
Public information offices at leading technological institutes often have similar listings of their faculty members. In addition, the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force cites as "one useful model" the Media Resource Service of the Scientists' Institute for Public Information.
|
From page 52... ...
The single biggest problem in overcoming this information gap is the media's lack of easily accessible sources, responsible experts who are able and willing to answer, articulately and factually, media questions on the fast-breaking developments in this increasingly technological society. At three recent science/technology workshops for general assignment reporters in Pennsylvania, Sharon Friedman, journalism professor at Lehigh University and organizer of the workshops, reported that most of the participants cited a lack of background and information sources as their chief problem in covering these topics.
|
From page 53... ...
As Howard Simons of the Washington Post has pointed out, science writing is a specialty that is many specialties. Even when an outlet decides to hire an articulate scientist, how will it decide which one to hire: the biochemist who knows recombinant DNA research but gets lost in geology, or the geologist who understands oil and gas reserves but knows nothing of aerospace?
|
From page 54... ...
As already noted, the primary need felt by journalists covering science and technology is for increased and more reliable sources of information. Despite the current fashion of blaming media coverage for the public's misconceptions, the recent report by the previously mentioned Task Force of the Twentieth C entry Fund declared: "If news organizations exaggerate the health risks of new diseases, nuclear power accidents or toxic waste spills, the fault is probably in their sources of information, not their way of operating." The single most important step the engineering community can take to improve media coverage of engineering is to make its expertise accessible upon request from journalists.
|
From page 55... ...
Although it is understood that not every telephone conversation will bring ideal results, the effect of thousands of such conversations over several years will lie improved mutual understanding and, not insignificantly, improved media coverage. To succeed in this approach, the engineering community must overcome certain attitudes that have served to reinforce its isolation from the public at large: · A narrow, short-term view that seeks recognition only for engineering achievements selected lay professional societies and institutions and refuses to discuss anything else.
|
From page 56... ...
In addition to public information offices of engineering societies, the National Academy of Engineering, and technical institutes, such mechanisms include the Media Resource Service of the Scientists' Institute for Public information OSIRIS; the Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellowship program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science ~AAAS ~ i the Vannevar Bush Fellowships in Public Understanding of Technology and Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology OMITS; media seminars sponsored by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing; and the Media Roundtable program cosponsored by SIPI, AAAS, and the Association of American Universi tles. Engineers can provide invaluable information and understanding to the media and, through the media, to the public.
|
From page 57... ...
It's all those people with computers in their basements. It's my seven-year-old's second-grade computer class." Network television has not yet matched this coverage, but the increase in radio, television, and cable news broadcasts offers greatly expanded opportunities for reports on developments in the engineering community.
|
From page 58... ...
· Use SIPI's Media Resource Service as the centerpiece of the network to coordinate referrals to appropriate professional societies, the National Academy of Engineering, technical institutes, the Industrial Research Institute, and corporate public relations offices. Any or all of these approaches require the development of a roster of available resource personnel by major organizations within the engineering community and a plan for communication and coordination among these groups.
|
From page 59... ...
The network should also provide expert engineering resources for existing and future mechanisms that offer seminars and classes in science and technology for journalists. These mechanisms include the Science Media Fellowship Program of the ALAS; the Vannevar Bush Fellowships in Public Understanding of Technology and Science at MIT; the media seminars of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing; and the Media Roundtable program cosponsored by AAAS, the Scientists' Institute for Public Information, and the Association of American Universities.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.