Yesterday I
gave an in-company-training The art of blogging at the environmental research school Sense in the Netherlands . Our
question was: How to start a blog? None of the 32 participants had experience; half
of them were intend to start a blog.
According
to me, the best way to start a blog is getting inspired by a great idea, or
rather, by a strong drive to change a certain abuse. And one of the best
examples I have seen is the site/movie/blog/tweetaccount Theygotodie from
epidemiologist Jonathan Smith, lecturer
at the Yale School of Public Health (US ). Smith investigates the epidemiology
of HIV and tuberculosis (TB) among mine workers in South Africa . These diseases are
preventable, but many miners still die from them.
During his Phd research, Smith realized that nothing will change if he only
publishes in peer reviewed journals. So he decided to mobilize people to
improve the working conditions for the many thousands of people who continue to
work in South Africa ’s
mines. He first made a 4-minutes-movie (trailer), to attract
funding for a larger project, a one-hour-documentary in which he should follow he life of four miners. He succeeded and now his group has a professional site
with video’s, blogs and tweetaccounts. These provide
news about the miners (some of them are already dead), and about the campaign- and research results.
So Smith’s’
blog is embedded in a broader strategy to change an injustice, using science and other means. That seems successful: more awareness makes it more likely that mine companies and politicians improve the
working conditions. And also more likely that the research - visible changing an injustice - can continue.
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