2005 Communications Committee Report
The APS Communications
Committee had a productive year towards its mission of promoting the
physiological sciences. Through highlighting Society programs and member
research, developing outreach materials about physiology for APS member use,
and planning programming to help members communicate their science, the
Communications Committee has continued to increase the visibility of our
science to the general public.
During 2004–2005, the
following members served on the Committee: Chair, Andrea Gwosdow
(until December 2004); Hannah Carey, who assumed
the chair position in January 2005; Gregory Fink, who rotated off the
committee in December 2004; Judith Neubauer; Gary Sieck and Michael Romero.
Stephen Dodd and Francis Belloni began terms of
service in January 2005. Ex-Officio members who have participated in
Committee activities over the past year include William Tallman (Public
Affairs), Margaret Reich (Publications Director), Alice Ra’anan (Public
Affairs Officer) and Virginia Miller (APS Council Liaison). Chairs of the
Joint Program Committee and the Awards Committee are also ex-officio on the
Committee. The Communications Committee
receives outstanding staff support from Stacy Brooks (APS
Communications Specialist) and Mayer Resnick (APS
Communications Officer). The in-house APS communications team is
comprised of Martin Frank, Marsha Matyas, Reich, Ra’anan, Linda Allen,
Brooks and Resnick.
The Communications effort of the APS is
accomplished by two main groups:
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APS Communications Committee:
The committee’s responsibility is to initiate programs that empower
individual APS members to promote physiology and APS activities; to
develop materials to assist members in communicating their work to the
public and the media; to seek opportunities to promote physiology to new
audiences; and to oversee the APS-AAAS Mass Media Science and Engineering
Fellowship.
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APS Communications Office: The Communications Office develops
press releases based on APS journal articles and APS conferences; alerts
local media outlets about APS member accomplishments including the APS
awards program; monitors “clips” that track media pickup of APS news;
develops and maintains the Press Room on the APS website; provides support
in development and execution of Committee initiatives; and supports
programs of other APS departments.
Communications Committee Activities in 2004-2005
This year, the Communications Committee met once via
conference call, as well as at IUPS and through frequent listserv
discussions. The Committee worked to develop programs intended to: 1)
empower APS members to serve as
ambassadors for physiology and the APS; and 2) assist them in
communicating their work to the public and the media. To this end, the
committee offered its third symposium at IUPS 2005, and is currently
developing a symposium for EB 2006 addressing grass roots outreach. These
are outlined briefly below.
Communications Symposium at IUPS 2005:
“Developing and Implementing a Communications Strategy: The Basics for the
Basic Scientist.” This symposium provided an overview of the
key elements required to translate a basic science message into a strategy
for communicating science to the public. Four presentations focused on
different aspects of developing a basic science story into one that is
“user-friendly” in terms of the general public. The symposium concluded
with a brief question and answer session. The panel included a print
journalist (Rosie Mestel, Los Angeles Times); the executive director
of a state biomedical research organization (Gale Davy – Wisconsin
Association for Biomedical Research Education), an institutional public
relations Officer (Robert Nellis – Mayo Clinic Communications), and a
Communications Officer from a professional scientific society (Mayer Resnick
– APS). They discussed how to make research attractive to the news media,
and how to best communicate with the general public. Further information
on the presentations can be found at
http://www.the-aps.org/press/conference /eb05/05writeup.htm. The
Communications symposium attracted a variety of attendees, including
graduate students, junior and senior faculty, emeritus scientists.
Approximately 50 people attended.
Proposed Communications Symposium at EB 2006:
"Ground-floor Communications: Creating a buzz about Science Through
Community and Constituency Outreach." The goal of this symposium, which
will be sponsored jointly by the Communications and Public Affairs
Committees, is to demonstrate how scientists can work as champions for
research and increase community awareness of science. As a member of a
community, the researcher has a unique opportunity to be a resource about
research science for reporters, politicians, and the average citizen. The
intent is to cover three areas of community outreach: outreach to local
media, relationship development with community political leaders, and
“direct-to-neighbor” communications.
Communications Resource Modules: To
facilitate communicating physiology to the public, the Communications
Committee has begun a proactive outreach program developing topic-based
resource modules on a variety of physiological issues. These units include
new research papers linked primarily from APS journals, statistical data and
a list of APS members who can serve as expert spokespersons. The
information can be modified to a number of uses including story ideas for
the media and general audience resource documents. The modules are posted
on the APS Press Room site (on the “Disease/Condition Hot Research” page and
will be on the Public Information Website currently in development, and will
be available at APS booths at conferences and meetings. Thus far, the
Committee has developed modules for obesity, comparative physiology, and the
use of laboratory animals. Other modules in development or planned include
environmental physiology, hypoxia, aging, hormones, sleep, exercise and
heart failure.
“Guide for Members.” Materials for APS
member outreach resources in the Press Room is housed under the “Guide for
Members” page. This page is being expanded to contain more resources for
APS members to use in their individual efforts to promote physiology. It
provides tips for media interviews, summaries of past Communications
Symposia that assist members in promoting physiology, information about the
APS Communications Office, and other helpful information. A Resource Module
Template will soon be available to encourage members to propose new modules
for development.
Timeline of Physiology: The APS Timeline of
Physiology underwent its first printing before EB 2004. It remains one of
the most popular items at the APS booth and has been received
enthusiastically by APS members. It is now available in HTML format on the
APS website and the poster is available for purchase in the APS Store. A
second printing of the Timeline will occur in summer 2005. The Committee
has invited APS Sections to create complimentary Timelines that focus on
specific sub disciplines, in effect creating living documents that chronicle
the major advances in a particular field within the physiological sciences.
The APS Website will be the home base for these documents, that will be
designated, for example the “Timeline of Neurophysiology,” or the “Timeline
of Gastrointestinal Physiology.” These additional Timelines will be used to
promote particular areas of physiological research to the public, the media,
in educators and students, and others in the scientific community. This is a
great opportunity for APS members who have an interest in the history of
their particular discipline to develop an exciting and informative vehicle
that highlights past, present, and future advances in their field. APS
Sections are also urged to keep the Communications Office apprised of
upcoming anniversaries or other events that mark major milestones in their
fields that might be newsworthy. For example, the APS Communications Office
developed a press release in fall of 2004 to mark the 100th
anniversary of the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Ivan Pavlov, the first
physiologist to receive an award of this magnitude.
Public Information Website: In Spring of 2004,
the Communications Committee recommended the development of a separate, but
linked, public website that would be a more user-friendly and informative
site than the main Society website. This site is intended to be an
interface with the public and would supplement the Press Room site to be an
attractive and informative resource for the public beyond the news media.
The Communications Office Staff, under the direction of Stacy Brooks, began
work on this project in fall of 2004, with input from the Committee. Work
is now in progress on the APS Public Information Website, which will
be a collection of information and resources, most of which is already
available in a number of different areas on the website, about educational
activities of our members and the research published in APS journals.
APS-AAAS Mass Media Science and Engineering
Fellowship: The Communications Committee oversees the selection of an
APS-sponsored AAAS Mass Media Fellow each year. This program
encourages an exchange between science and journalism. In 2005, the
Committee evaluated 18 fellowship applications and recommended funding for
Kirsten Sanford, who is a PhD candidate in Molecular, Cellular & Integrative
Physiology at UC-Davis. Sanford will spend 10 weeks at WNBC in New York.
Communications Office Activities in 2004-2005
Journal Release Program. Over the past year,
the Communications Office produced 20 research releases from seven APS
journals. In March, the Communications staff met with APS journal
Editors-in-Chief and the in-house copy editing staff to discuss how these
groups could increase their involvement in identifying hot topic research.
Since this outreach, contributions of newsworthy research to the
Communications Office have increased substantially.
Conference Releases. The Communications Office
performed media relations (including press release development) for three
APS conferences in 2004 and 2005: “Immunological and Pathophysiological
Mechanisms in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases” conference; “The Integrative
Biology of Exercise Intersociety” meeting; and “IUPS 2005.” A total of 30
press releases were written for these conferences. Of these
conferences, IUPS received the most media attention. Fifteen press releases
produced approximately 110 clips through early May. To further increase
conference publicity, the Communications Office will be enlisting the help
of conference organizers in developing complementary resource modules that
feature research from APS journals.
Society Releases. The APS Communications Office
publicizes most of its award and fellowship winners along with other Society
news in an effort to increase recognition of excellence in research and
achievement in physiology. Twenty-five releases were written and locally
distributed about APS programs and Society and member news.
 Measuring
Results. APS subscribes to a clipping service that searches newspapers,
magazines, the internet and other media outlets for articles that mention
APS or its journals or conferences. The clips received help in tracking the
source of APS media coverage, be it from the Communications Office,
promotional efforts or from another source. The number of clips that each
story receives also helps us gauge trends in media topics of interest.
The graph shows an upward trend in clips that came from
both Communications Office press releases and other sources, in three
consecutive first quarters. In Q1 2005, clips attributed to Communications
Office press releases (119) equaled 29 percent of the total clips (419) that
the Society received. This number increased from 11 percent (25/212) in
2004 and 10 percent (15/140) in 2003. Part of the increase in clips from
other (non-Communications Office) sources is due to APS’ leadership in the
“public access” forum and the “Biotech Week” family of newsletters scouring
APS Articles in PresS for abstracts for their audience.
Some of the media outlets that carried stories about APS and physiology
include the New York Times, Reuter’s, Cincinnati Post, WebMD,
The Scientist, CBS News.com, and the Austin-American Statesman.
APS Press Room. The Communications Office has
reorganized some of the elements of the Press Room webpage to make it more
concise and user-friendly. (http://www.the-aps.org/press/)
Changes include a new “Resources” section to house the resource modules and
other outreach materials currently in development by the Communications
Committee; a reorganized “Press Releases” area that is more user-friendly
for journalists and lay public alike; and “Journalist Information” area
where reporters can join the mailing list or register to attend an APS
conference.
Looking Ahead
In 2005-06, the Committee will continue to strategize
for new outreach opportunities to enhance the visibility of physiology and
the APS to the public and larger scientific community. To that end, the
committee is eager to hear from individual APS members about their ideas on
how to promote our exciting discipline and how they would like to contribute
personally to the Communications effort.
Hannah V. Carey, Chair
Council Actions
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