Raul Pacheco-Vega, PhD » bridging media and academia

Independent Power Producers Conference (#IPPBC09) livetweets

Raul Pacheco-Vega — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:15:30 +0000

I am speaking on a panel on social media at the Independent Power Producers Conference of British Columbia in Vancouver (held at the Hyatt Regency) and we are tweeting during the event. The hashtag is #ippbc09. I am using ScribbleLive to capture the livetweetage.

Message at Midway (Bill Weaver) #ggrc09

Raul Pacheco-Vega — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:45:38 +0000

I asked Bill Weaver whether he’d like me to liveblog his talk, and I mentioned that I’d be liveblogging but also adding my own commentary to his speech, so here are my notes and some semi-verbatim transcriptions of Bill’s speech.

Message at Midway

(10/21/2009)

8:43	Bill Weaver (Media That Matters)

8:44	Bill has been in the media business for almost 40 years, mostly documentaries, etc. One of his big passions is Media That Matters. Happens at Hollyhock. Kind of off the grid, away from the cocktail parties.

8:44	The goal is to have deeper conversations about what we’re doing in the world – that’s really necessary. it’s a lot of fun and what we find is that it’s a great foundation for meaningful projects and collaborations. Today Bill is going to talk about one.

8:45	Chris Jordan – internationally renowned photographer and TIFF presenter. He presents great photo collages. Chris’ work is almost perfect media, in the words of Bill.

8:46	Bill asks – how the heck do we find the motivation to find solutions to enviro problems given that we have so much work. Chris Jordan invited Bill and two others to join at Midway.

8:48

Midway is mainly known as a bird sanctuary (albatross). Chris went there to take photos, but in a different state (dead). 5 tonnes of plastic get into the stomach of albatrosses (sp?) per year. They search for food, find the plastic floating on the ocean, and eventually they become so full of plastic that there is no other nutrition. At least 40% of the chicks have fatalities due to death by plastic.

Besides documenting this tragedy, they spent a lot of time on how media could be used to give out this message.

8:50	Chris Jordan – makes photographs of mass consumption – unveil social issues that are invisible at the first glance.

8:52	– We are watching one of Chris Jordan’s small documentaries – where he speaks about how he craves for change, and how he witnesses this craving for change.

8:55	Bill asks – what is our media diet? What toxic messages are we being fed? It keeps rolling in his mind – what new possibilities can media and journalism offer in these times?

8:55	Bill believes that media is the magic of today. art is one of the most refined forms of this magic (agreeing with Chris) – if we want to build resilience in our cities and ourselves we should support the arts! The arts incubate new ways to shape our world.

8:57	We have to make sacrifices so we can survive. As we go into this day, let’s think about the albatross and its sacrifice and let’s see if we can build a new story. Rauls comment – very empowering presentation by Bill Weaver.

8:57

Day 2 of Gaining Ground: Resilient Cities #ggrc09 [live-tweets]

Raul Pacheco-Vega — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:03:20 +0000

I have been attending the 2009 Gaining Ground conference, with the theme “Resilient Cities”. Day 1 (October 21st) had speakers like Paul Hawken (notable author on business and sustainability) and Sarah Severn (Nike). Unfortunately, there was no direct way to capture the live notes that attendees were submitting on the microblogging platform Twitter. Thus, I am taking it upon myself to creating a live-tweet iFrame on here (using the liveblogging platform ScribbleLive).

Bridging academia and media (Circle of Blue | Water News)

Raul Pacheco-Vega — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:11:09 +0000

One of the reasons why I started a blog that was primarily focused on my research was to bridge the traditional chasm between “ivory-tower academia” and “on-the-street journalism”. It’s been a challenge for me to remain a traditional academic, whose opinion is sought after as an authoritative scholar in a field, for several reasons. First, one of my research areas has focused on the study of transnational networks of activists. I have studied environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) and their influence strategies for a decade and I have experienced, first hand, their passion and enthusiasm. It’s hard not to want to take an activist role.

I used to experience the same conundrum with regards to being immersed in the world of new media. I debated whether my writing and energies should be focused purely on disseminating my research findings to the academic world. However, I have realized that, by virtue of bridging my worlds, I have received positive, constructive and well-informed feedback about my scholarly endeavors. I am not the only one who is working on sharing his research findings via social media and new media outlets.

I recently came across Circle of Blue, a strong network of scientists, journalists, scholars focused on water news. Circle of Blue is associated with the Pacific Institute (and co-founded by Dr. Peter Gleick, whom I consider an authority in water research). Gleick is also writing a blog for Circle of Blue where he shares commentary not only about his research but also water projects, etc. I find this quite encouraging for someone like me, who (despite my relatively long career) would be considered in traditional academia an emerging and promising scholar.

I still believe I will keep this blog primarily focused on broadcasting and sharing my own research findings, creating a framework to think about new research ideas and exposing the world to my thoughts on the issues I am thinking about. I believe the model presented in Circle of Blue is an interesting one and I’m looking forward to making use of this online resource on water news.