2006 Communications Committee Report
The overall objective of the Communications effort of
the APS is to promote the physiological sciences in general and The American
Physiological Society in particular, by highlighting Society programs, the
research and educational accomplishments of individual APS members and the
science published in APS journals and presented at APS meetings and
conferences.
Journal Release Program
Over the past year, the Communications Office has
produced 30 press releases based on scientific papers appearing in nine
journals. That was an increase of 50% over last year and included releases
based on articles published in two additional journals. Several releases
were particularly well-received by the media this past year, including “fMRI
looks at early romantic love” (JN), “the physiology of Lance Armstrong”
(JAP), “obesity-causing viruses” (AJP-Regu), “tomato juice halts emphysema
development” (AJP-Lung) and “the secret of Ritalin’s 1-2 punch” (JN).
Conference Releases
Over the past year the Committee and Communications
Department have endeavored to highlight conference activities beyond just
poster presentations. This expansion resulted in a total of 30 press
releases being written based on lectures, programs, and symposia.
Society Releases
APS makes a special effort to publicize its award
programs, the individual award winners and their institutions. This past
year also included several releases about the APS effort to aid Hurricane
Katrina victims involved in physiology.
Besides the full range of awards, other special
projects included distributing releases announcing the APS position paper on
use of animals in laboratory teaching, and the publication of the Resource
Book for the Design of Animal Exercise Protocols. Special efforts are being
made to follow up with local media outlets on Education’s “Frontiers in
Physiology” program, which brings middle and high school teachers to
university research settings and then encourages curriculum development and
local teacher team involvement.
Over the past year, the Committee, in conjunction with
the Communications Staff, began development of a “Calendar of Physiology”
that will highlight the physiological connections to recurring holidays,
events, traditions, seasons, etc. that can be used in a variety of ways for
public communication. One of the first implementations of the Calendar idea
occurred in earlier this year when a program was initiated aimed at making
“Groundhog Day” a date that is linked to physiology, with APS being the
primary media source.
Using some innovative marketing tools, major stories
were written in USA TODAY, Associated Press, Pittsburgh-Post Gazette and the
Dallas Morning News. In addition, several broadcast outlets used audio and
video, including a live ABC-TV network feed featuring APS Porter Committee
Chair Greg Florant that was sent to all ABC affiliates. One unexpected
benefit of this effort was to prompt media interest in the upcoming APS
Intersociety conference on “Comparative Physiology 2006: Integrating
Diversity” that will be held in October in Virginia Beach.
An article on romance that was published in the May
2005 issue the Journal of Neurophysiology reappeared close to Valentine’s
Day 2006 in many forms—most notably on television segments on CNN, CBS and
the syndicated ScienCentral service–which prompted inclusion of Valentine’s
Day on the physiology calendar. In addition to articles that link this
tradition to behavioral physiology, Valentine’s Day can also serve to bring
articles on cardiovascular physiology to the media’s attention.
The Office also developed a press release on
physiological horse research for the “Triple Crown” season.
The public information site,
http://www.phyiologyINFO.org, was
officially launched in late 2005, and is meant to make information on
physiology and the Society more enticing and accessible to the public.
This Communications Office regularly updates the Press
Room section, which contains published articles, as well as radio and
television audio and video clips that can be accessed easily,
http://www.the-aps.org/press/physiology_news.htm.
Communications EB 2006 Workshop
The Committee held its fourth workshop at EB 2006 in
conjunction with the Public Affairs Committee, entitled “Ground-Floor
Communications: Creating a Buzz about Science through Community and
Constituency Outreach.” Communications Committee Chair Hannah Carey
introduced the workshop this year by noting that physiologists have to
become more active at getting the word out about the good things physiology
has done for society, why physiology is important, and why physiologists
love their work. “We need to be advocates for our own good work,” Carey
said. Physiologists need to talk to friends, relatives, neighbors and
eventually to members of the media and public to explain the value of
science and to speak out on some of the hot topics, including evolution,
stem cell research and the use of animals in research, she said. All the
PowerPoint presentations from the EB06 Workshop are available online at
http://www.the-aps.org/press/news/EB06Comms-PAsymp.
There was a lively question and answer session at the
end of the session with audience members asking questions such as: how
scientists have handled the issue of animals in research; whether scientists
at UC–Davis are using blogs; how scientists can do this work without seeming
like shameless self-promoters; and is it a good idea to invite legislators
to the laboratory?
The Committee will sponsor a workshop at EB07. The
Committee has proposed bringing two nationally recognized journalism
“headliners” to the workshop—Joe Palca of National Public Radio and Rick
Weiss of the Washington Post. Both are award-winning journalists who took
very different paths to their present jobs, where they’ve each been for
almost 15 years. A senior science reporter at NPR (and backup host to NPR’s
“Talk of the Nation Science Friday” program), Palca was a TV health producer
at CBS, an editor at Nature and a senior correspondent for Science magazine.
Weiss, who covers genetics, molecular biology and other life science topics,
has spent his entire journalism career in print journalism, starting at
Health and Science News magazines. Previously, he was a licensed hospital
medical technologist.
The Committee has developed hot-linked research modules
on obesity, comparative physiology, and laboratory animals’ contributions to
medicine. This year it added “The Environment and Physiology.” Other modules
in preparation and under consideration are: hypoxia, cardiovascular disease,
aging, exercise, and the physiology of food.
The APS Timeline of Physiology is in its second
printing, having been updated just prior to Experimental Biology 2006. One
of the most popular items at the APS booth at EB, as well as other
societies’ conferences, the Timeline has proved to be a wonderful printed
ambassador for physiology.
The Communications Committee suggested that the APS
Sections develop their own timelines. The Endocrinology and Metabolism
Section completed the first sectional timeline which is posted on the APS
website: http://www.the-aps.org/press/endotime/index.htm. Other sections
have been encouraged to develop Section Timelines for their specific
disciplines. In order to add incentives for more Section Timeline
submissions, the Committee is developing ideas how to distribute them.
The “Communications Resources for Members” is available
on the APS Website, Press Room link. These resources will be expanded to
include tools such as PowerPoint presentations that can be used by members
to convey to the public what physiology is and how physiology affects their
lives and those of all organisms including their pets, food, animals, etc.
The Committee oversees selection of an APS-sponsored
AAAS Mass Medial fellow each year, which encourages an informed exchange
between science and journalism. The 2005 Fellow, Kirsten Sanford, wrote two
articles for The Physiologist, the second of which was offered to AAAS as a
reprint. Sanford, a PhD candidate at UC-Davis in Molecular, Cellular &
Integrative Physiology, spent seven weeks at WNBC-TV in New York. Sanford
and the science podcast she developed with a colleague were recently
mentioned in the June 2006 issue of The Scientist as an example of some of
the science podcasts currently available for download.
This year’s APS-sponsored AAAS Fellow is Erin Cline,
who has completed her dissertation defense at Stanford in the area of
Cellular and Molecular Physiology. She is spending eight weeks at the Los
Angeles Times.
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