To engage or not to engage? Why the buzz about social media?

“Are we just talking to ourselves?”
(Nishai Pillai, facilitator at Planet Under Pressure)

A major stream of discussion at Planet under Pressure (PUP) has been how we communicate science. Many of the challenges facing the planet are not about technical solutions but rather how we communicate and negotiate science into political debates.

The CGIAR Consortium Office and its 15 research centers have been aggressively using social media in the last few years to ‘get the message out’. There has been much debate about the effectiveness of social media to ‘get the messages out’, but maybe we are not using these new tools to their full potential. Maybe we need to reflect further on how we can best use social media to have greater impact. It is not just a matter of making noise. How do we convince our scientists that investing in social media makes a difference to their work, that is not an additional burden, but integral part of their work? Read the original article…

Tags CGIAR Consortium Communication communication for development social media