Thread by @nannakaalund

The English-speaking folks here might have noticed something very unusual has happened in the Danish media regarding science communication/HEI this past week. I thought I’d give an English summary of what’s been going on, because it is wild 1/
#histsci @BSHSNews #AcademicChatter

The danish broadcasting company, DR, (our BBC) really wanted to engage younger audiences. DR had noticed that young folks watch a lot of videos on YouTube (😂!) and they wanted to get in on that. 2/
#videnerfandemeikkeetsynspunkt

Last year DR released a mission statement on their plans to reach young folks online “We want to show the world of the young, as it is, and not as the adults think it should be”. dr.dk/om-dr/nyheder/… (see translation of screenshot in alt text) 3/

One of their new programs is called ‘Ellen Imellem’ (roughly translates to ‘Or in between’). They invited a broad range of researchers and politicians for an hour long interview, which was then condensed to 8 or so minutes and released on their YouTube channel. 4/

So far so good. But, the show has a twist. Unbeknownst to those who were interviewed, the interviewer acted as a mouthpiece for someone else - a ‘conspiracy theorist’ who was watching the interview from another room, and feeding the interviewer questions through an earpiece 5/

Those where interviewed were deliberately kept in the dark about this setup. They thought they had been invited to speak on topics of their expertise.

For example, @PCKjaergaard was invited to speak on evolution, but unknowingly received questions from a creationist 6/

@DustAnja was invited to speak on astrophysics, but unknowingly received questions from a flat-earth’er. 7/

#scicom #AcademicChatter

It’s important to emphasise that those being interviewed had *no prior knowledge* of this format. They thought they were sharing their expertise, and didn’t know they were being set up.
And this was done deliberately by DR. 8/
#videnerfandemeikkeetsynspunkt

DR calls this satire. They believe this is what young people want, and this is how to reach and educate young people about important topics. That’s obviously extremely patronising. It’s really peak ‘how do you do, fellow kids’ 9/

It’s also hugely damaging to #scicom in Denmark. We already have a situation where individual researchers have been targeted in public and politicised attacks on their research findings/methods. This is, of course, similar to what is happening in other countries 10/

A lot of these attacks have taken place on SoMe, and in the tabloid press. But DR is supposed to be different. It is funded through our taxes, and is supposed to provide public service programming dr.dk/om-dr/fakta-om… 11/

The way DR produced Ellen Imellem, by deceiving participants to produce a ‘satirical’ show for YouTube fundamentally feeds into the anti-intellectual, ‘fake news’, movement. It legitimises fringe opinions by putting them in the driver seat - by letting them run the interview 12/

And it is going to have consequences for sci com. When researchers can’t trust DR to be upfront about the aim of their interviews, fewer researchers are gonna put themselves out there. It’s just too risky, especially for younger researchers. 13/

Now, the researchers who were interviewed for Ellen Imellem have filed official complaints, and the union is involved. But DR is doubling down and refuse to acknowledge they deceived the participants. They are still airing the show. 14/
#histsci

The big Q is: who will be willing to spend their time and resources to put themselves out there, to speak about their research and share their expertise, when you risk being made the butt of a joke. #AcademicChatter 15/end