Engaging with the Press in Social Computing and Human-Computer Interaction

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Scholars in science communications use the term “public scholarship” to describe the act of scientists’ two-way engagement with lay stakeholders in order to communicate newsworthy research to a broader audience. Recent discussions at CSCW [1] have highlighted the importance of public scholarship, which can include:

• Maintaining your personal website (and including PDFs of your camera ready publications that are not locked behind a paywall, in accordance with this ACM policy)
• Discussing your own and others’ research findings publicly on social media (e.g., Twitter, where journalists often find and interact with researchers. However, the 2022 Musk acquisition of Twitter has introduced a great deal of uncertainty about where communities will remain, with platforms like Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, etc. contending to be the “next Twitter”)
• Writing public-facing blogs about your research (e.g., here at the CSCW publication on Medium, your personal website, etc.)
• Writing op-eds for popular press publications (e.g., The Conversation, a media outlet which has partnerships with some universities)
• Engaging with the press as an expert

The purpose of this article is to provide guidance on engaging with the press — which can be quite intimidating and mysterious if you’ve never done it before! Recommendations presented here are derived from a set of interviews conducted with HCI researchers, journalists, and public relations professionals [2,3]. In that study, HCI researchers most often enjoyed working with the press, since most journalists are conscientious, thoughtful, and talented people who are fun to speak with and who can help to share the stories of science with great skill and finesse. There are exceptions to that rule, however, so it’s good to be prepared.

Use the following strategies and knowledge to help you structure your interactions and expectations, resulting in better news stories and relationship building with journalists.

Talking about your research vs. contributing an expert perspective on current events (or others’ research)

• Sometimes journalists want to write a story about your specific research paper. In this case, you can expect to be quoted several times throughout a news article, and your interview with the journalist may be highly influential to the shape that the story takes.
• Much more commonly, however, journalists are interested in collecting a set of expert perspectives on current news events or emerging technologies. In this case, you are likely to be quoted only once (if at all). Be aware that your entire interview could be boiled down to one short phrase or sentence, and your contribution might be juxtaposed against other experts who agree or disagree with you. Or, you may not be quoted at all, however your contribution could still be influential to how a press story is being developed or framed.

Working with your university’s Public Relations (PR) office

• If you are interested in trying to attract the attention of journalists for your own research: Some universities or individual departments have communications or PR teams focused on publicizing the work of their researchers. If you believe your research is mature enough to be shared with the public and newsworthy, you can contact your press office and collaborate on a press release. Though there is no guarantee this will work, it is more likely when: (a) the research relates to something currently being discussed in the news; and/or (b) the research is brand new/newly published (and therefore newsworthy on its own).
• Sometimes, universities also have media trainings or tip sheets available to faculty and graduate students if requested. Check with your local institution to see if they have additional resources available.
• Keep in mind, there are many possible ways for your work to be discovered by the press. Journalists might find your research through social media, blogs, or conference proceedings, even if there was never a press release.

Prepare for interviews with journalists

If you are contacted by journalists about your work (perhaps after a press release) or to contribute an expert perspective, make sure to do some prep work ahead of the interview.

• Look up the journalist and the publication to ensure that it is reputable and you would feel OK having your name appear in that venue. If not, decline the interview.
• Some journalists may have a particular “spin” or “agenda” for the story they have in mind. This is not intrinsically problematic; their spin is likely interesting and highly engaging to their intended audience! However, it can sometimes differ from the story that a researcher might feel is appropriate.
• Do some work in advance to think about: what is your bottom line that you want to communicate to the general public?
• Imagine possible questions the journalist might ask. Take notes to cue the types of answers you could provide, and practice verbalizing your responses out loud. Develop key phrases and metaphors that will help a general audience to understand the issue(s), and make sure that these phrases are engaging and accessible to lay people. (This is likely different from how you often talk about things with other researchers!)
• If you (or the journalist) are pressed for time, you can possibly provide a statement over email instead of participating in a live interview over phone or Zoom. Email allows you to be concise and curated with what you say, however many journalists will prefer to speak with you (even if only for 5 or 10 minutes) because the colloquial tone of spoken expressions is often more relatable for the public than carefully composed written statements.

Incentive alignment

Have an explicit conversation with the journalist about incentive alignment. This can happen either over email before you agree to the interview, or you might have a brief chat about this at the very beginning of a phone or zoom call. The goal is to find out if your goals are aligned, or even if you are the right person for the journalist to talk to.

• Politely ask: What does the journalist want for their story? What’s their word limit? Are they talking to other experts? Is there a particular angle they’re trying to cover, or are they still in an exploratory stage and trying to figure out what the story is?
• Then, express your hopes for the story: what do you think the story could be about? How might your contribution play into that? Is this compatible with the journalist’s ideas?
• A crucial consideration is understanding the bounds of your own expertise. Do you feel that you have adequate expertise to comment on the issue at stake, or are there other experts you might recommend to comment–especially if, after finding out what the journalist is looking for, you don’t feel qualified to speak to the issues at hand?
• You might find that you have similar or conflicting goals. If your goals aren’t aligned, then you are empowered to decline the interview or end it early (and graciously!) — and this is a better outcome than “just going along with it.”

During interviews with journalists

• Grab your prepared notes and keep them handy ahead of the interview. During the conversation, you can continue to jot down questions that you have been asked, or ideas you want to make sure to discuss before the end of the call.
• Start by establishing a positive and collaborative rapport with the journalist. Try to be excited rather than nervous to discuss this important topic. You’re ready for this! You prepared for it!
• As you continue speaking with the journalist, make sure that you are communicating your prepared bottom line. If the journalist asks a question that you feel uncomfortable answering, try to reframe the question or offer a new one:
• “I realize this isn’t what you were asking me, but I think the more relevant question at stake here is …”
• “I’m not sure I can answer that question, but what I do know is …”
• Be concise! Journalists cannot usually report on all nitty gritty technical methods, so it’s best to keep the interview focused on main takeaways and the “big picture.”
• Use the conversation to try to shape how you want your work to be presented, but understand that there are differing international norms for how journalists can or cannot show you a draft before it is published. There is always risk that you can be quoted in a way you might not approve of; be careful what you say!

After the interview

• You almost certainly will not see the draft if you are working with a journalist on a tight timeline, e.g. daily newspapers in the USA. In other countries or situations, journalists might show you quotes in advance with opportunities to correct them. If there’s time, some journalists working in longer formats or magazine articles may allow you to review drafts, however there is no professional obligation or standard mandating this.
• You likely won’t be notified when the article goes live.
• Check their news site periodically in the days following the interview (and consider setting up a Google News alert for your name).
• You may notice details that seem wrong in the published article; you can reach out and request a correction.
• Be nice and develop a good relationship with the journalist if you like what they did! They might want to work with you again in the future.

It is important that you foster an awareness not only of benefits and high quality strategies for public engagement, but also the risks. In [2], HCI researchers described experiencing miscommunications such as fabrication, cherry picking of results, omission of critical scientific details, or press articles where the motivation for research was misportrayed as an actual result. Media incentives can also cause the press to exaggerate or sensationalize results, report inaccurate claims, or misattribute work. Moreover, modern web affordances can exacerbate miscommunications: if a press article propagates incorrect (or not-quite-right) information, that story could be rapidly re-published by other media outlets or spread virally across the Internet. A final risk to be aware of is the potential for harassment campaigns. Some HCI researchers have had their work targeted and mocked by disgruntled users or political groups: if your results upset a certain group of people, it is possible that they will retaliate and launch coordinated attacks against your social media accounts.

The situations described above were rare among participants in [2,3]. In fact, most participants were overall highly positive about their experiences and would do it again! Nonetheless, understanding the risks will increase your preparedness to engage effectively with the press.

We hope you can use the information presented in this article to be intentional and strategic in your efforts to spread the word about the excellent research being conducted by the CSCW and HCI community!

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Written by C. Estelle Smith (CSCW 2023 Communications Co-Chair). Special thanks to Professors Casey Fiesler (2023 General Co-Chair), Jessica Vitak (2023 Treasurer), and Nicholas Diakopoulos for their suggestions and edits to this article.

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References

[1] Gilbert, Sarah A., Casey Fiesler, Lindsay Blackwell, Michael Ann DeVito, Michaelanne Dye, Shamika Goddard, Kishonna L. Gray, David Nemer, and C. Estelle Smith. “Public Scholarship and CSCW: Trials and Twitterations.” In Conference Companion Publication of the 2020 on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, pp. 447–456. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1145/3406865.3418589

[2] Smith, C. Estelle, Eduardo Nevarez, and Haiyi Zhu. “Disseminating research news in HCI: Perceived hazards, how-to’s, and opportunities for innovation.” In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1–13. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376744

[3] Smith, C. Estelle, Xinyi Wang, Raghav Pavan Karumur, and Haiyi Zhu. “[Un] breaking News: Design Opportunities for Enhancing Collaboration in Scientific Media Production.” In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1–13. 2018. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173955