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nceas.ucsb.edu
The map of human impacts to marine environments invites exploration and linking. |
The latest episode of the
Directions in the News podcast (a must-listen show for any journo who's into mapping and GIS) compared recent media coverage of two new maps related to scientific research and data:
1.
Global map of human impacts to marine ecosystems, published Feb. 14 by the National Center for Ecosystem Analysis and Synthesis: The National Science Foundation also sent out a
press release on it. As the podcast notes, this map received
widespread media attention.
2.
Social vulnerability to hazards, maps published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences -- where the full article and maps are available only to paid subscribers. National Geographic was one of a very small handful (well, three, that I've found) news orgs that picked up on this story, and they used a more intuitive and compelling headline:
New Hazard Maps Show Most At-Risk Communities. You can also see
snapshots of the maps at National Geographic.
Directions in the Media editors Adena Schutzberg and Joe Francica discussed this conundrum: "Press coverage of the first study was considerable, with the map distributed far and wide on the Web and beyond. Coverage of the second was limited to the scientific and geographic press. Why the disparity?"
To me, the answers seem obvious: Access and options. It's easy to link to the marine impacts map. You can download a high-resolution version and explore it via Google Earth. You can dig into the data. There's also an animation showing the map on a rotating globe.
In contrast, whenever you hide anything behind a subscriber wall that prevents open examination and direct inbound links, you're actively discouraging coverage by journalists and bloggers. And if you really want to get coverage, make it easy for journalists to dig into your data to find the most relevant angles.
I hope the NAS decides to open access to the social vulnerabilities maps and the supporting data. This really is just as newsworthy as the marine impacts map.
