With the aim to provide a platform to budding journalist toimprove their skills and develop professionalism in Science Communication, the PushpaGujral Science City, jointly with Vigyan Prasar, organized Internationalwebinar on Science Journalism.
The webinar was attended by more than 100 participantsincluding young journalists, as well as, students and teachers of Journalism& Mass Communication from different Universities & colleges across thecountry.
It was supported by Vigyan Prasar. The developments andadvancements in science communication and digital media have benefited thesociety and the common man in creating scientific temper and in the fightagainst COVID Pandemic and social evils, like superstitions, etc., whilegenerating self-confidence, courage and faith in themselves. Science outreachthrough Electronic and Social media is, therefore, need of the hour, this was sharedby the experts in the webinar.
Dr Neelima Jerath, Director General, Science City, in herwelcome remarks, said that Science Journalism has been progressively developingin India in terms of quality and quantity. It is for science communication toeffectively place public interest at the heart of ‘how’ and ‘what’ ofscientific knowledge produced, shared and applied. Digital science magazines,social media, feature services and programs have led to progress in the field.Hence, there is a growing need for digital media skills among journalists andcommunicators.
Dr. Rintu Nath, Scientist F, Vigyan Prasar, during his talksaid that reporting and disseminating scientific content through print,digital, electronic, and social media needs to be taken up on a large scale andVigyan Prasar is constantly making endeavours in this direction. Time has cometo realize that empowering people with relevant information will go a long wayin creating a society where everybody will reason and act scientifically.
Ms. Kathryn Tuccelli, an alumni of Purdue University and CommunicationAnalyst & Content Strategist at OXY, USA, delivering her key-note talk on‘Effective Science Communication in a digital world’, said that the digitalmedium of mass communication is the most effective to get in touch with peopleliving in the remotest corners of the world and delivering messages to definedtarget audience comprehensively. She discussed modern methods of digitalcommunication and how AI is playing an important role in sifting content foraudiences with varied requirements.
A panel discussion on ‘Transformation of CommunicationMedia: Print to Screen” was organized at the occasion. Ms. Nishat Nayla, SDGEducator, Bangladesh, spoke on how digitalization of journalism has improvedlives of people of Bangladesh. Mr. Dustin Wenzel, an alumni of University ofTexas at Austin, USA, and a Communications Consultant, in his interesting talk,said that it was a proven fact that there exists no parallel system that holdssuperiority over the far-reaching and efficient delivery mechanism of massmedia. He discussed the nuances of writing stories for various digital mediums.Mr. Rajeev Bhaskar, Chief Editor (Digital Platform), Punjab Tribune, said thatnews web portals play an important role to spread scientific news and stories.The panel discussion was moderated by Dr. Neelima Jerath. The panel discussionconcluded that Science Communication is undergoing great transformation as moreand more people are adopting social media/digital platforms, in addition toprint media, to share scientific communication.
An Essay Competition on Swatantrata ka Amrit Mahotsav wasalso organized as a part of ongoing celebrations of the 75th Independence Day.About 200 essay entries were received from participants. Out of these, the five best entries were awarded to Shruti from Saarthak Government IntegratedModel senior Secondary, Panchkula, Gurjasveer Singh Varaich from Govt. HighSchool, Bhotna Barnala, Yuvraj Singh from Army Public School Unchi Bassi,Hoshiarpur, Dharampreet Singh from St. Soldier Divine Public School Jalandharand Gurdeep Singh from Govt. School, Kambwala, Ferozpur. Winners were awardedcash prizes.
Mr.Sheeraj Batish thanked Vigyan Prasar and all speakers & audience for theirtime.