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I won’t lay out all my thoughts at this juncture but will say that I agree mostly with what Brian and Merry Bruns said above. I will, however, suggest an exercise that might help our two tribes (journalism and anthropology) understand one another better. So, please consider the following items.

1. Would any anthropologist care to name a current or recent issue in public policy in which better decisions could have been made if only anthropological knowledge had been considered? If so, how so?

2. Aside from helping shape public policy discussions or decisions, how would people benefit from anthropological knowledge that is currently being ignored outside of anthropological circles? I’m looking for specific examples.

3. If these questions miss your point, please feel free to set me straight.

–Boyce Rensberger

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Um. Both. And I’m always interested in learning how to write better so that I can write better. It’s that simple. Writing, after all, is a craft and a skill.

Simon is spot on, I think. And Brian and Merry make excellent points. As a ex-journalist, I intuitively understand how to make my work more relative to the world-at-large. I think more of us should be trained to engage (sorry, couldn’t find a better word) with journalists, rather than have knee-jerk reactions to media coverage of our work (if we are lucky enough to get coverage at all).

Next year, at Berkeley, Nancy Scheper-Hughes and I will be trying to organizing a conference – a critical dialogue, if you will – between journalists and anthropologists working in the same field. In part, I think, to get at the problem so thoroughly laid out in both this article and in the comments above, and to begin a generative conversation across disciplines. I believe that there’s a lot we can learn from each other, two disciplines at a crossroad in their development.

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As I see it, anthropologists won’t get covered responsibly by media unless they start understanding, er, its CULTURE, and hat drives it. If you want to operate successfully in a culture, any culture, you have to learn how that culture works.

Reporters have sets of requirements handed down from their editors handed down from the marketing dept handed down from the advertising dept… and to work the system to your advantage, you gotta understand how this works.

That said, I’ll mention that I’m writing a media guide for social scientists (to be publisher by Left Coast Press’s Mitch Allen), that includes tips from both media-savvy anthropologists and the science writers. It’ll be a practical, brief how-to guide, based on real-life scenarios.

Want to join in?

• If you’ve had good experiences with media-and know why they were good-let me know.

• If you had a bad expeiernce – but now know how to make it better – I’d like to hear that too.

You can reach me through the web site (and warning, this is a VERY very old site, and irregularly maintained, but it has some reasonable good media tips on it as well as my email link). link).http://www.sciencesitescom.com/CASC/mediaguide.html)

I got into anthropology (archeology) in 1982 for the pure love of it, and it changed my life, though I’m no longer in the field. But I’ve long seen that bridging the gap between a terrific, useful discipline and getting it out to the public is desperately important.

Merry Bruns

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1. I agree with Simon completely.

2. I find it ridiculously ironic that for a science that studies humans the anthro discipline possesses an incredible lack of understanding how to communicate with the general human population, and also just how beneficial and vital such communication is to furthering the discipline.

3. What is the harm in experimenting? Today there are so many new ways to communicate– many of them free! Why not give something new a try? What can be worse than becoming irrelevant by not trying at all?

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Have skimmed this conversation, and have a few thoughts from an outsider’s perspective.

Background: In undergrad in the late 1980s, I majored in psychology and minored in German, sociology, anthropology, and women’s studies (yes, I spent 5 years doing a 4 year degree, but I loved the learning!) I got all A’s in anthropology, even my only A+ in college (never even knew they could give A+’s before then). Loved taking classes in the social sciences (except economics, which didn’t make sense to me even then, and which seemed to be a sub-category that could easily be covered in psychology and anthropology, which I guess “behavioral economics” is lamely attempting to reinvent the wheel to do now, I don’t know… anyway, back to the subject at hand.) In undergrad, I was told by several professors not to try to become a professor – that it was a difficult career choice and likely to bring much angst and unhappiness. It’s not that they doubted my ability — they really seemed to believe this. That was in both anthropology and psychology. (Recently, in my late 30s I began a PhD in organizational behavior but got caught in some political fallout that was not of my making so I didn’t finish it; a familiar tale, I’m sure.) I knew that I enjoyed learning about other cultures, though, so after undergrad I upped and moved to Germany on my own for 18 months, and then lived on my own in the UK for 11 years, and Sweden, France, and the Netherlands for 3 months each. (I’m an American.) Among other things, in recent years I have been a cross-cultural trainer to company executives and their families who were being moved from one country to another for the typical 3-5 year expat assignment. So I’m not a completely ignorant outsider to your field, and I certainly “get” the amazing variety and subtlety and importance of different cultures/groups/societies, but my last real exposure to actual anthropology/anthropologists was probably in 1989.

[Except for my complete devotion to watching the archeology tv show Time Team when I lived in the UK. Anyway, there archaeology is an entirely separate field to anthropology, as I was sternly told by my friend who did a master's at Oxford in archaeology under Mick of the stripey-sweaters. :-)]

My thoughts about having more popular anthropology articles and outreach:

My perception of anthropology is that it is very fragmented internally. Many different schools, different ways of looking at things, different terminology. You can go from one similar university to another, and the anthropology areas will be set up entirely differently. This describes other areas of the social sciences too, but anthropology seems to be especially disjointed and confusing.

Anthropology appears to be about disparate areas of knowledge, from art to archaelogy to biology to politics to religion to culture to economics to folklore to linguistics (and so on). These areas of knowledge are also covered by other fields, and it doesn’t necessarily make sense to the outsider what the point is of their being sub-fields of anthropology too, in addition obviously to being areas of study in their OWN disciplines, or having a more seemingly-logical fit within other broad disciplines.

Anthropology does honestly use high-falutin’ terminology sometimes (like ‘hermeneutics’, aaugh!) and the typical writing style and thinking style seem to be quite convoluted and specialized. (Even on my first visit to this blog a few months ago, this perception was overwhelming — and it’s off-putting to the layman. Even though the people whose entries I read on here seemed to be very intelligent, thoughtful, funny, etc. – much of it was in a jargon that I couldn’t fathom and that I didn’t want to try too hard to figure out. Though I did look up hermeneutics again in the dictionary.)

More than most social science/science subjects, anthropology seems quite circular, descriptive rather than predictive, self-reflexive (aaugh!), and navel-gazing. Stories for the stories’ sake. Individual experiences (of the fieldworker) for individual experiences’ sake. Like 35 people each describing an artwork in an essay. Which is fine, but what does it tell me, really, that is applicable to my life? (Beyond knowledge for knowledge’s sake.) Might be illuminating, might capture a few facts, might touch my heart, but what use is it really, besides being a diversion and taking the place of other reading I would do for enjoyment, such as novels or photography books or whatever. [Now, please don't be annoyed with me here - I am giving you some stereotypes, and this is just a 'quick and dirty' download of my first thoughts on the subject -- but I believe that I would fit into your "popular anthropology" 'target market' as a college-educated, interested layperson who is keen to keep up on various fields' academic 'progress'/research.]

In undergrad, I took 2 seminar classes in cross-cultural psychology, which were not regular offerings by the department, just one-offs. It was a pretty new area then, in the mid-1980s. The classes were fascinating to me. Recently I had a look on the internet to see where cross-cultural psychology has gone over the last 25 years or so, and it seems to have meandered along, with a few very dedicated people pushing forward, but with some strands sputtering out altogether in the last few years. I think ALL psychology should be cross-cultural psychology in some senses, as the familiar accusation that most psychology findings in the 20th century were specifically based on research on middle-class, white, male, American 20-year-olds, and are not nearly as generalizable across humanity as is typically assumed, is very accurate (in my opinion).

But, taking a step back, I’m still genuinely confused as to which social science gets to study what about humanity/the human experience/the human animal. Who gets the individuals, who gets the small groups, the large groups, the nations, the ethnic groups, the religious groups, the corporations, the age segments, the languages, the social classes? Or do all the social sciences study the same things, using hopelessly specific and ridiculous terminology, refusing to peer over the garden wall and see who else is planting the same crops?

Back in my undergrad years, I was fascinated by sociobiology and took a few biology and genetics classes “for the non-science major”. And I loved my bioanthropology class. Now those two areas don’t seem to exist much anymore, but now there is evolutionary psychology (talking a little bit about the same stuff?) Where is the progress? What is the connection? I’m certain that you guys have a great handle on the answers to my stupid questions (stupid because of my ignorance), but to the majority of (American and British, anyway) people who go to college, I would wager that the more fringe fields are not that interesting to them even whilst they are studying for their degrees (degrees in English or chemistry or art history or politics or whatnot), and then, after they leave university, the ongoing, confusing specialization and fragmentation makes such fields even less understandable or relevant to all but 0.05% (or less) of the population.

I also want to say, contrary to what appears to be the accepted view in the other reader comments above, that I don’t think many people, actually, in the “west” (especially the US) are *that* interested in other cultures. Yes, they might be interested in vacationing in another climate. Or in trying different cuisines. Or in enjoying an art form that is mainly from a certain country (anime, German opera, kabuki theatre, whatever). Or they are interested in historical/archeological finds, but it’s all in the distant past. Most Americans, even college-educated ones, don’t understand that much about other cultures, have any idea why it’s important or relevant to them to learn about other cultures, would prefer not to have to deal with people from other cultures if they can at all help it, and almost feel it’s unpatriotic or unmodern or something equally inane to be too interested in other places and ways and folk, and don’t take too kindly to approaching their own culture from a bird’s eye or comparative viewpoint. Therefore, you don’t just have the hurdle of finding a topic that can be described well and accurately in a ‘punchy’, relatively short layman’s article without using much clunky terminology — you also have the hurdle of finding anthropology topics that (American, especially) laypeople would honestly want to read about. In the way that they want to read about Dawkins’ extreme athiesm promotion, or astronomers’ musings on the existence of alien life, or what the top ten foods for antioxidants are, or the Hadron collider experiments at CERN, or what Psychology Today has to say about the mental-health effects of being bullied in the workplace, etc.

Put yourself in the place of a North American college-educated skimmer of internet news stories or of monthly general periodicals — someone who works outside of academia, someone who never took even one anthropology class, someone who probably would be hard-pressed to name more than 4 countries in Africa (for example). What do you have to say to him/her? How does the field of anthropology matter in his/her life? What does anthropology do that psychology and sociology don’t? How can you convey what you want to say in clear, simple prose? How can you get them to expect your articles to be different from National Geographic photo essays or Smithsonian magazine lite-bite-of-knowledge features?

Well, that’s my two cents’. I hope I haven’t offended anyone. I value scholarship and fieldwork highly. I adore fringe fields. ;-)

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“As a social anthropologist, I can’t help noticing that they are also well-connected with powerful institutions, both inside and outside government.”

Good point, John. Can’t forget about the politics of it all.

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As a social anthropologist, I can’t help noticing that they are also well-connected with powerful institutions, both inside and outside government. Is there any anthropology department, anywhere, that offers what the Kennedy School at Harvard (where my daughter is now doing a master’s in public policy) offers its students? By which I refer to (1) a continuing stream of cabinet officials, big city mayors, other leading politicians and pundits, who visit the school not only to speak but also to participate in brown bag lunches and other get togethers to which the students are invited; (2) a carefully cultivated and highly influential alumni network; and (3) access to internships with top-ranked think tanks, consulting firms and Congressional and White House staffs. Not every student will get every plum; the competition is fierce. But every student will graduate with friends who got the plums this time and know how useful it is to lend each other a hand.

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I can understand the aversion to mass media, and to journalism. I understand the fact that anthropologists are concerned about getting it right, and about making sure that the correct interpretation comes across–and they are worried about the ways in which their ideas/information will be incorporated into larger media circles.

The only problem: there really is no way to perfectly control meaning. So that means anthropologists can either remain silent and keep things under control, or they can start to participate more frequently in these discussions. The only way to influence meaning is to actually take part in the continuous discussion.

I hear plenty of views about international development and politics from the likes of political scientists and economists…but not too much from anthropologists–who often have a pretty different perspective to offer.

The site “Contexts” was already mentioned above. I think that is one possible model that we anthros could look into for some ideas and inspiration.

Also, in my opinion, since we ARE media producers, I think that a part of our methods training SHOULD be media production. This means classes in film, classes, in photography, classes in web design, and yes, classes in writing as a part of the standard canon of teaching. Why not?

Writing especially. A lot of anthropological writing is pretty damn opaque and boring–and this isn’t something new. Renato Rosaldo spent a lot of time talking about that in his 1989 book “Culture & Truth”. Anthropologists have to write all the time–why isn’t there more of a methodological focus on the craft of writing. It’s not as if good writing just happens automatically. I think that one or two creative writing classes might do wonders. Open up the possibilities.

ckelty wrote:

“I don’t think current anthropology is so resistant to being “news-ified” or that the resistance to simplification is the problem or that the public understands anthropological theories less than it does quantum mechanics (!). I think the problem lies in the failure to clearly an carefully outline the “intellectual merit” and “broader impacts” (to use the NSF’s language) of any given piece of work.”

I agree with you that the problem is not whether or not the public can “understand” anthropological theories. In my opinion, anything can be explained…as long as you don’t write in jargon ridden nonsense. Anthropology is certainly NOT quantum mechanics.

I am not sure if the problem has to do with a lack of intellectual merit. I think that those journal articles are published for a specific audience, and in many cases are not applicable or relevant to wider audiences. But that does not mean that anthropologists have NOTHING to contribute–there are anthropologists working all over the world, on all kinds of issues. There is no lack of relevance, but there is a lack of Op-eds and articles that speak to different audiences. This is a matter of finding various ways to communicate information to diverse audiences.

Why do economists and political scientists have so much pull when it comes to international politics etc? Because they’re out there saying something? Because they’re publishing magazines that people actually read. Because they publish books that larger audiences actually find interesting and accessible.

In order to take part in these discussions we have to be willing to actually make some mistakes. Maybe that’s the roadblock.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtGSXMuWMR4&feature=player_embedded

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- Hire good science writers to write and distribute press releases. Believe me, there are plenty of quality science writers looking for work. Journals could easily pay a few of them to write press releases on the top two or three papers per issue. Current Anthropology does this and I’m grateful for the service. Not many journalists (probably almost zero) read the primary anthro journals, let alone secondary journals in the field. We need to be led to the fountain.

- Post those press releases on Eurekalert.org, which is run by AAAS, and on other services science reporters scan for news, such as Newswise.

- When preparing press releases, try to relate the work to current events. Make it relevant.

- If you have the aptitude and inclination to write for a popular audience, DO. Write and submit opinion pieces for national newspapers, Nature, Scientific American, and Science. We read these. New Scientist and Scientific American and Scientific American Mind run articles written by researchers (usually they are heavily edited). It’s cheap labor for magazines to do this, and more and more of them are probably heading in that direction.

- Prepare for some disappointment. Yes, some journalists will get it wrong. Sometimes you won’t like our pithy language or our need to strip away the caveats and get to the heart of the issue. Well, that’s the price of admission.

- Let me say it again. FIND WAYS TO MAKE YOUR WORK RELEVANT. What does it tell us about something happening now that’s important to large groups of people? What currency does the work have? I once wrote about some studies of infanticide in baboons – and the researcher was willing to draw inferences about human behavior from his work. That made the work newsworthy and interesting.

Hope this helps –
BV

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- Hire good science writers to write and distribute press releases. Believe, there are plenty of quality science writers looking for work. Journals could easily pay a few to write press releases on the top two or three papers per issue. Current Anthropology does this and I’m grateful for the service. Not many journalists (probably almost zero) read the primary antrho journals. we need to be led to the fountain.

- Post those press releases on Eurekalert.org, which is run by AAAS, and on other services science reporters scan for news, such as Newswise.

- When preparing press releases, try to relate the work to current events. Make it relevant.

- Write and submite opinion pieces for big newspapers, New Scientist, Nature, Scientific American, and Science. We read these.

- Prepare for some disappointment. Yes, some journalists will get it wrong. Sometimes you won’t like our pithy language or need to strip away the BS and get to the heart of the issue. Well, that’s the price of admission.

- Let me say it again. FIND WAYS TO MAKE YOUR WORK RELEVANT. What does it tell us about something happening now that’s important to large groups of people? What currency does the work have? I once wrote about some studies of infanticide in baboons – and the researcher was willing to draw inferences about human behavior from his work. That made the work newsworthy and interesting.

Hope this helps –
BV

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