Category Archives: Research

Introducing the inaugural SciComm Identities Project Fellowship cohort!

The University of Rhode Island’s Metcalf Institute, Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, and the URI Science and Story Lab are excited to introduce the first cohort of SciComm Identities Project Fellows. Out of a competitive applicant pool, thirteen Fellows were selected to participate in this innovative science communication fellowship for pre-tenure faculty of color. The 2023 Fellowship will focus on the intersections of climate change and energy, and Fellows study issues that range from data-driven sustainable transportation to institutional barriers of energy poverty. Fellows come from diverse ethnic backgrounds ranging from Indigenous North African to Cuban, and show a strong history of personal commitment to science communication and inclusivity of underrepresented communities. Many are first-generation Americans and the first to attend college in their family.

All of the Fellows have shown a specific emphasis on improving engagement and science communication with either Black/African American, Asian, or Latinx communities, with a common theme being education and outreach to K-12 students of color. “I believe the SCIP fellowship will help me facilitate a more inclusive program of research,” says Dr. Dominic Bednar, a new Fellow and Assistant Professor at Arizona State University. “I’m interested in being a part of the future of peer-reviewed science communication products beyond academic articles that may actually reach stakeholders in the community and policy makers.” Check out the rest of the Fellows here!

Uzbek journalism educators visit Knight Center, J-School

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Meeting with Journalism School director Tim Vos

For the past two weeks, the J-School hosted representatives from the Journalism & Mass Communications University of Uzbekistan as part of a capacity-building environmental and health reporting project funded by the U.S. Embassy in Uzbekistan.

Knight Center director Eric Freedman developed the project and secured the grant.

At the State News

Nozima Muratova, who led the delegation, is the vice rector for research and innovation at the 4-year-old university in Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent. Mukarram Otamurodova is a Ph.D. student who teaches an environmental, health and science course. Dilnora Azimova, who earned her master’s degree in MSU’s Health and Risk Communication Program, is a project consultant.

With journalism librarian Kathleen Weessies

They gave guest lectures in environmental reporting and health & risk communication classes, met with Michigan environmental and health communicators and reporters, and led a brown bag discussion of Uzbekistan’s media landscape for the MSU Center for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies.

Meeting with Steve Hanson, Associate provost and Dean of International Studies & Programs

They also visited the Detroit News, Crain Communications, Detroit Public TV and the State News and met with MSU’s dean of International Studies & Programs.

In addition, they toured three environmentally significant sites: MSU’s Horticultural Gardens, Saugatuck State Park and the Granger landfill in Lansing.

Freedman is scheduled to visit their university later this month under the State Department grant.

Study released on predatory “scholarly” journals in journalism and mass communication research

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Eric Freedman

A new article by Knight Center director Eric Freedman and Professor Bahtiyar Kurambayev of KIMEP University in Kazakhstan explores how predatory journals use deceptive and unethical tactics to recruit scholars as ostensible editorial board members and manuscript reviewers. Two such journals listed scholars without their consent or knowledge. Others asked unsuccessfully to be removed from the journals’ posted list of board members and reviewers.

Predatory journals mislead authors with promises of meaningful peer review and editorial control when, in reality, the publishers charge high “article processing fees” and articles appear with little or no editing.

Prof. Bahtiyar Kurambayev

Freedman and Kurambayev used a survey and interviews to examine the practices of Insight-News Media and Journalism and Mass Communication – whose title is deceptively similar to Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, the flagship publication of the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication.

The findings have practical implications for research in journalism and mass communication, especially for academics in developing country with insufficient English-language proficiency and who face publish-or-perish pressures.

The study is the first of its kind to focus on predatory journals in journalism and mass communication and appears in the latest issue of the Journal of Scholarly Publishing.

Tech to the rescue

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From electronic “noses” that can detect the scent of native Australian lizards to the DNA of individual trees to acoustic devices that capture the sound of gunshots, new technologies are helping investigators track down and prosecute wildlife traffickers and poachers.

Eric Freedman

But they also raise some troubling ethical questions.

In a new article in the environmental magazine Earth Island Journal, Knight Center director Eric Freedman explores the role of scientific advances in fighting global wildlife crimes, the theft of endangered plants and illegal fishing.

In 2018, a band of poachers who had been illegally loggng in the national forest poured gasoline on a wasp nest near the base of a prime maple, set it afire, and fled when they were unable to put the flames out. The fire grew into a massive blaze that ravaged more than 3,300 acres of public land. Photo by US Forest Service-Pacific Northwest.