As scientists look for new ways to engage with the public, blogging has become a major tool for that outreach. Scientists are using blogs for a giant variety of purposes, from advancing their research to connecting to the public with their science. It is impossible to give an exhaustive list of everything that scientists are doing with blogs, but the following are a few very different kinds of science blogs built for very different kinds of audiences:
- Statistics and programming blogs: R-bloggers (aggregator of R blogs), Cross Validated (stats stuff, not precisely a blog)
- Blogs focussed on researchers within the blogger’s field: Dynamic Ecology (ecology stuff), Research Blogging (aggregator of generally technical discussions of the scientific literature)
- Outreach-oriented blogs: Deep Sea News (marine biology), Bad Astronomy (astronomy mostly), Scientific American (lots of specific blogs to choose from here)
The advantage to you of having such a large blog universe is that there are countless blogs for you to mine for ideas for your own outreach efforts. What are right blogs for you to look at for ideas? The ones that are potentially interesting to your audience. In your investigation of your audience on Twitter, keep an eye out for any blogs that come up (science-related or otherwise). What about those blogs might be appealing to your audience? Is is something about the content? Tone? Layout? Something else?
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