Rio 2016 Olympic Games

For the next 17 days, I'll be working at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. This will be my 10th Olympic Games, including Winter, Summer, and Youth, since Sydney 2000. At every Olympic Games, I have multiple roles and agendas.

Since London 2012, I have been working with the IOC Young Reporters' Programme, led by Anthony Edgar, who is the IOC's Head of Media Operations. Understanding how the media work is one part of this work and it's really ethnographic, as I work among the journalists. I also use the opportunity to develop my own practice as a journalist, but I'm not nearly in the same category of those people who work on assignment after assignment, day after day. Over the years, I have got to know quite a few of the best journalists that come to the Games and they have an extraordinary work ethic.

Most accredited people at the Games - if not everybody - has a very specific role to play and often only see a fraction of what happens around an Olympic city. Part of what I try to do in my research, is obtain a holistic sense of the operation, which means going to sports, press conferences, local neighbourhoods, and understanding how the city runs the Games. 

I'll also give a talk at a conference while here, and interview a lot for the media. It's a full on fortnight. The last 8 Olympic Games are being written up in my next book, Sport 2.0, coming out with MIT Press next year. It's the end of an era - the first decade of social media - and it's fantastic to be at yet another Olympic city. This will be my third book to write about the Olympic Games, but it goes much broader than that, into all things digital, from social media to virtual reality.

There's no better way to get to know a city and its community than to examine it through the lens of the Olympic Games and I look forward to leaving Rio a little more of a Carioca than before I came. Show time. 

My Photographs from the Games

The Drugs Won #Rio2016

Here's the latest doping article I was involved with, produced by VICE magazine. It's a pretty thoughtful and unusual piece, doing a lot of interesting historical work.  I wasn't aware that my colleague Dr Paul Dimeo lost his role on US Cycling anti-doping due to speaking out. It's an unfortunate situation in the world of sport, that it only utiizes like-minded people to hold such roles. Imagine a democracy where everyone thought the same thing. Societies progress by setting up tensions between competing views. Very little can progress on the anti-doping issue, without some agitators calling into question the effectiveness of the mission, every step of the way.

Is the Olympic Ideal over? (No)

This week, I interviewed for BBC Newshour Extra on the state of the Olympic movement. We covered everything from the role of arts in the Olympics, the rise of e-sport, the importance of nationalism and, of course, the doping debate. It is a really fun programme, with some pretty serious issues covered. Take a listen here

Young Science Reporters #ESOF16

Over the last year, I've been involved with organizing the European Science Open Forum, through my role on the European City of Science programme. We've produced events all over the region, from performances, to talks, and installations. One programme I have been particularly proud of is our Young Reporters programme. We've had students from Salford and Manchester universities, along with A-level students from UTC Bolton, reporting activity around the conference.

Our students have had an amazing time, meeting Nobel laureates, leading science editors, and covering content from graphene to e-doctors. It's been a fantastic week and such a great experience for all. Here's one of their videos:

BlueDot Festival

This weekend, I had the chance to speak at the BlueDot Festival, an amazing science, art, and music festival at the Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre. My talk was part of a programme of events curated by Josh McNorton at FutureFest and I focused on the era of human enhancement and how it's playing out in the world of sport. 

The Great Science Share

This week, I took part in the Great Science Share, an event that formed part of the European City of Science in Greater Manchester this year. It was essentially a scientific conference for and by kids. Schools came from all over the region and showed what they had been doing in science.

I took along Ethan who helped me give a short talk to children about my journey through science. It was a wonderful day and such an amazing experience for all involved, a real highlight of my year.

Why we need a World Pro-Doping Agency

Last night, I was at the British Library taking part in a panel on doping in sport. Doping seems to be in the news all of the time at the moment, with revelations about Russian involvement and is made worse by the allegations of corruption in sports federations. 

I have spoken in so many debates about doping and, inevitably, i tend to be the one who, now let me get this right, people love to hate. Yes, that's the way round I think. I argue for doping in sport. I argue that the present anti-doping system is out of sync with our emerging culture of human enhancement. I argue that we need to re-think everything.

I have been saying this for 15 years and nothing has changed. Officials still claim unbelievably low levels of doping in sport. Athletes claim it is much higher. Athletes keep getting abused, but still bear the brunt of the sanctions. 

I don't have a solution to the problem, but neither does anti-doping. In my system, the world of sport takes on more responsibility for steering athletes to safe forms of performance enhancement, invests into helping them make performance gains, ensures an appropriate relationship between athletes and their advisors - including physicians.

I am told that my system is too onerous on the sports world, that it is inconceivable to ensure a high quality of care in a developing country which lacks even the infrastructure to develop sport. I am told there are not enough resources and yet NBC paid $8b for the next 16 years of Olympic coverage. The lack of resource in anti-doping undermines its credibility and it cannot attend to its duty of care to athletes more widely without approaching this from a public health perspective. Yet, in the wake of the Beijing 2008 test results, the IOC wants federations to figure it out. I don't understand this at all, but suspect it will not go very far to solving the problem.

In my world, athletes are under medically supervised doping. they will still be at risk, but they will know more about those risks and be better equipped to diminish their impact on health. This alone is reason to make doping legal, but there is an even stronger claim to be made in relation to what we ask athletes to do, which is transcend human limits. They can't do this without technology. Doping is one means by which an athlete can do this, but there are others. 

Here's an article which I published 10 years ago, setting out the case for a different model and here's the final video

Is it fair to ban all Russian athletes from #Rio2016? #olympicsummit

Yesterday, I was interviewed on live Russian tv, following the IOC anti-doping Summit, which took place in Lausanne. The outcome of the summit was as good as it was likely to get for Russia - the Olympic team is ok to compete, but a blanket ban on track and field athletes, with the right for individuals to prove their innocence. The means by which they do this is still a bit unclear, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport will be the key legal vehicle through which to do this. 

My view is really simple, the Russian situation is a symptom of a broken system and there have been and will be others that will fall foul to similar circumstances. I am completely against state sponsored doping as it was previously known, but supportive processes to allow athletes to enhance their performance through supervised and safer means is a better way to protect athletes and a level playing field. It will be a different kind of equality to that which we have now, but it will be more transparent, fairer for all, and ensure we no longer look upon sports performances with suspicion.

Academia 2.0

Yesterday, I went to Warwick University to give a talk about using social media for research and impact. It was an event organized by Luke Robert Mason, focused on young scholars mostly. The question that I am often asked at such meetings is how much time I spend doing social media. The answer is usually that it is hard to quantify, but that it's not just time spent communicating.

My time spent using social media is time spent doing the kinds of things that we need to do as academics, to stay ahead of the curve. A lot of it is about discovery - finding out about new projects, initiatives, headlines, research, networks - which feeds into wider processes of research that I undertake. Usin social media means I also use email much less than I used to. Instant messaging through WhatsApp or Facebook are now critical ways for me to contact students and colleagues.

However, the main reasons I use social media a lot have to do with the underlying principles of its ethos - it is user centred, so you can decide what you want to say, rather than rely on the media to interpret it for you, it is the place where people are discovering learning opportunities - and it allows us to grow our communities more effectively. 

All of these things are crucial to doing research and so using social media is a no brainer for me.

here are the slides

My life in #scicomm

This week, I gave a talk within the British Science Association Masterclass on Science Communication, which took place in Manchester. I decided to present something that was autobiographical, as I wanted to talk about the diverse ways into #scicomm. 

In essence, I started #scicomm work as a PhD student, first designing websites to get ideas out, but also quickly starting to write about my ideas for the media. Most of those ideas were very closely connected to my PhD research, but not always. From here, I moved into a School of Media, which led me from science into an arts context, in which I could spend time bringing the two together. I did this by teaching at a range of art schools, while also trying to work with artists who were interested in exploring scientific ideas.

During that time, art works became a part of the means of science communication for me, but not necessarily within its service and I have always advocated a form of disruptive science communication, which does not focus simply on the scientific accuracy or information.

Over this period, I became closer to producers, curators, and art directors, which then brought me into their world and, since around 2009, I have been involved with some such activity.  As a producer of creative work - film, media art, bioart, and more, - science communication has become more of a place to stimulate the involvement of others and I now sit on various steering committees where I can do that most effectively.  

The key message for me is that, wherever you start in science communication may be very different from where you will be in 10 years, so don't get too hung up on being a particular kind of communicator. Also, find ways to bring together the original research and the communication activity, as much as possible. This means starting to think about collaboration very early and pushing out ideas when they are not fully formed. This feels risky, but it's crucial to make things happen and to keep innovating.

I also talked about how science communication can happen in all kinds of spaces, from industry conferences to going into schools and doing workshops. The opportunities are incredibly diverse, but we don't all have to do everything.

National Bird #sheffdocfest

My second appearance at Sheffield Documentary Film Festival this year was part of a discussion about National Bird, a film dealing with the complexities of drone warfare. It takes the perspective of thee drone operators, who put themselves out on a limb by talking about their experience and concerns about such work. 

It was a complex and far reaching discussion in which I covered the relationship between military and civilian drone applications, the idea that losing the human from the field of combat may diminish some aspect of our capacity to take moral responsibility for destruction brought by drones. Other philosophers have made this case and the views of protagonist Lisa Ling, who was with us, made it all the more apparent.

Machine of Human Dreams #sheffdocfest

Today, I took part in a conversation focused on the ideas within a documentary directed by Roy Cohen called Machine of Human Dreams. It focuses on the story of Ben Goertzel and his work to make a robot which could demonstrate Artificial General Intelligence. It was a great chance to re-visit some of the early ideas around the AI research world and we covered so much ground, from Deep Blue vs IBM and the Turing Test, to a future in which all human jobs become automated and where we need to figure out what will be left for us to do.

It was fantastic to take part in this event and fantastic to see how a neuroscientist who took a documentary film module while at university found a way into telling one of the most complicated stories in science today. Very grateful to Erinma Ochu, who worked with Wellcome Trust to curate this programme of events, which gave me a chance again to be at the amazing and inspiring Sheffield Documentary Film Festival.

Superhumans vs Superheroes #cheltscifest

This week, I was in Cheltenham for another amazing science festival. It was a fantastic chance to share a stage again with Emeritus Professor Kevin Warwick, whose company I have enjoyed many times. I also met the fantastic Mark Miodownik. Together, we unravelled the world of superheroes and explored how closer we have come to making them a reality. I talked about the promise and peril of technology, the number of ways in which we are already superhuman, and how the idea of what it is to be a superhero has changed over time. Here's what I did.

e-sport can drive digital innovation

This week, I spoke at Oxford University on the subject of e-sport, focusing on governance and a vision for its contribution to society. I feel strongly that e-sport can be a way of recovering intergenerational relationships - children who are lost to gaming - and that it can be a way of building careers and competitiveness in digital innovation. Here's the talk.

Should blood doping be legal in sport

This week, I featured in an article on doping within the magazine Men's Health. My quotes:

“Athletes are in the business of attempting to transcend human limits,”

“Especially at the elite level, sport is inherently a relationship between technology and nature,”

“Sports organisations have a moral obligation to ensure that they are investing in the safest forms of performance enhancement for athletes,”

“Managing the health and safety risks associated with performance enhancement – that’s the priority.”

Anti-Doping is set up to fail

While in Lausanne last week, I interviewed for SportCal on the doping debate, in a week where more positive tests were revealed, this time from the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games samples. Callum Murray did a good job of pulling together my views on where we are and why anti-doping can't work. Sir Craig Reedie offered a brief reply to the article, noting the years of engagement WADA has had with me on this subject.

Throughout these years, i've always tried to find common ground as a starting point. It's sometimes hard, as my view often is seen as fundamentally contrary to the spirit of sport. I completely reject this. I am passionate about sports, I care about their role in society, and I want the best for athletes. I just don't think anti-doping does that.

Reedie's proposal - outlined in his response - is to bring more money into anti-doping through media sponsorship may change that, but it still feels like a drop in the ocean, when at the heart of the problem is a question about the future of humanity and our biotechnological future.

Sport 2.0 #sportfuture

This week, I am in Lausanne for the Sport Future Rendezvous 2016 conference, organized by good friend Professor Jean-Loup Chappelet at the University of Lausanne. I took the chance to talk about the biodigital interface, the growth of e-sport, biotechnological change, ingestible sensors, and virtual realities. But the big controversy, as always, was my views around doping, which did hijack the futures debate a little. In any case, here's my presentation.

 Thanks to Michel Filliau for the photograph.

How corrupt is sport? #AntiCorruption

Last night, I took part in the Grayson Debate, an annual event of the British Association for Sport and Law. I was asked by Dan Saoul, for whom I have spoken before at the BASL conference. The other speakers were the world leading sports lawyer Michael Beloff QC and former elite cyclist David Miller. 

The event operated by Chatham House rules, as much of what was said was of an extremely sensitive nature, but here's the skeleton of my talk, which covers some of the main points. I focused on the processes that enable corruption and attempts to mitigate against them. 

I don't know how corrupt sport is, but we have to assume that corruption is a feature of any institutional system and constantly work towards improving checks and balances to diminish its occurrence and impact. 

My Position

“Sport’s still haven’t come to terms with what kinds of entities they are and this catastrophically restricts their ability to function as ethically conscientious entities (support from EU). Until every single member of a sports club gets to vote on the position of their global leaders in their sport, these organizations will not be in a position to act in accordance with the ethical standards they require, and will remain organizations highly vulnerable to corruption.”

Improving Football Governance through Supporter Involvement and Community Ownership

-       12,000 grassrootssurveyed, 73% feel completely ignored at national level, 39% at local club level

Vulnerabilities in Sport

• Power $150b value ($700b betting market)
• Reliance on good will / volunteerism
• Life course of individuals in power – fragility of athletic career and national interests eg. Son of Saddam Hussain was IOC President.
• Global community – collapse of common ethical framework.
• Ambiguous bottom lines – enhancing performance / keeping athlete healthy
• Corruption News (corruption sells news)
• Stakeholder ambivalence eg. One athlete falls, just sponsor another)

Forms of corruption

• Cheating (doping, max fixing)
• Governance (contracts, nepotism, conflicted interests, training eg. referees)
• Political (human trafficking, quiet diplomacy, domestic interests)

Solutions

Transparency International recommendations:

• o   Anti-corruption guidelines and appropriate responses
• o   Ethical compliance
• o   Independent non-executive directors
• o   Due diligence and transparency on appointments/partners
• o   Implement multilateral agreements
• o   Whistleblower system
• o   Stakeholder involvement
• o   Bidding standards
• o   Budget transparency

-       Big data – performance tracking to identify unusual behaviours

In 2013, the EU’s Expert Group on Good Governance produced their own version of Principles of good governance in sport, which included this definition:

The framework and culture within which a sports body sets policy, delivers its strategic objectives, engages with stakeholders, monitors performance, evaluates and manages risk and reports to its constituents on its activities and progress including the delivery of effective, sustainable and proportionate sports policy and regulation.”

Is the Corinthian spirit dead?

I don’t believe in ghosts, but a traffic light system may be appropriate to identify risk of corruption, a bit like investment risks. If you are AAA then you are in good shape.

How to create an impact with science communication

Last week, I gave a talk for the spring conference of the Heads of University Biosciences focused on how best to develop science communication to achieve impact from research. Here's the talk:

Science Communication: The Pathway to Impact from Professor Andy Miah

The British Government Inquires Into Science Communication. Here are my thoughts

Today, the first evidence session of the Select Committee inquiry into Science Communication takes place at 215pm. The focus is the NERC team and the #BoatyMcBoatFace phenomenon. In a nutshell, this involved a research council inviting the public to name a new boat. The internets had a bit of fun and voted for the funny one, not the most historically serious and important one. In the end, NERC went with 'Sir David Attenborough' - who just turned 90 - but then the Internets campaigned for Sir David to change his name to #BoatyMcBoatFace. We all lolled. So, today, NERC is outlining what happened. Aside from that, here's what I submitted as evidence to the Committee.

To watch the live hearing at 215pm GMT, click HERE

Science Communication 2.0:
Priorities Going Forward 

Written evidence submitted by

Professor Andy Miah, University of Salford, Manchester.

Chair in Science Communication & Future Media

Summary

1.     Examine how the Research Excellence Framework ‘Impact’ category can be better audited to measure and reward science communication work.

2.     Consider how best to embed DIY science communication into university training courses, particularly around using social media channels for communication.

3.     Audit the work of university press officers and their relationships with science journalists.

4.     Assess the extent to which science communication in public engagement events such as science festivals, meets the higher expectations of science communication – based around the ‘upstream’ model.

5.     Find ways to support best practice in the science communication industry to diminish the economic black hole of such work, which relies heavily on the good will of scientists to undertake such labour.

6.     Examine the involvement of citizen panels within funding councils.

7.     Take into account how media consumption habits are changing for the younger generation – the next generation of science audiences – particularly around mobile media.

“the UK public are as enthusiastic about science as they have ever been”… but misconceptions about how scientists work, concerns about how well science is regulated and a low level of trust in mainstream science journalism.

To understand why a lack of trust in science media is apparent, it is crucial to come to terms with the dramatic changes in media consumption and communication that have taken place over the last decade. Furthermore, it is important to take into account how science communication has evolved methodologically and whether science journalism responds to this effectively enough. This submission of evidence focuses on the following key points:

·      The Impact of Media Change

·      Recognition and Reward for Science Communicators

·      The Expansion of the Science Communication Sector

In 1985, the Bodmer Report highlighted the importance of science communication through public engagement and, since then, research in science communication has flourished, with the creation of dedicated scientific journals and University Chairs in the field emerging in several institutions around the UK.

Research discoveries have drawn attention to the inadequacies of the conventional model of science communication, which assumed a deficit in the public’s comprehension of science that needed to be filled. This assumption has been criticised heavily for inadequately characterising who are the public and for its presumption that they lack knowledge. Furthermore, this unidirectional approach to science communication is now considered an inadequate basis on which to educate. Instead, learning must involve more than simply receiving information, and integrate aspects of participation, experience, and co-production.

These insights have led to a shift from ‘deficit’ to ‘dialogue’, which recognises the importance of conversation, which is now a core part of what science communicators are doing – not just explaining work but, but conversing with audiences about it and involving them in the production of findings – as evidenced by the rise of citizen science projects.

Within the field of communication, more generally, we now see the consequence of this shift, particularly in how the media industry has evolved (Miah, 2005). Today’s dominant media are those that prioritise sharing and co-production of content. Notably, social media has transformed the media ecosystem and, along with it, the expectations of audiences. Traditional formats of journalism must find ways to adapt, but this is just beginning to happen. Examples of such platforms as Storify, Snapchat, and Facebook Instant Articles, speak to this shift, but science communicators and science journalists are not using these formats very much yet.

Audiences are no longer content with just consuming journalism, but want to play an active part in its curation. Science journalism may be inherently resistant to this, as it relies on the authoritative figure of the scientist to verify knowledge. In this respect, diminished trust may be a product of the shift in mainstream journalism towards co-creation, which may not have happened as much within science journalism. It is also important to come to terms with the relationship between the public and the media – we are in the wake of a decade of distrust about our media industry, epitomised by the Leveson Inquiry and the rise of Wikileaks.

However, achieving dialogue is not sufficient to address the concerns of the Inquiry about how to better develop trust in science. Focusing on the state of science journalism misses a big part of the picture. Rather, the state of the art in science communication methodology recognises the importance of ‘upstream’ engagement with the public. This means involving and empowering the public in decision making processes in advance of the science industry deciding where it makes investments and, despite a few attempts to embed such an approach in science over the last 10 years, it is still not a core part of how science works.

The pressures on journalists has also grown in recent years and this may have been to the detriment of science journalism. Editors expect their staff to be capable of producing work across media formats now, rather than just working as specialists. Radio is now a visual medium; writers are now also photographers. Staff numbers have been cut across newspaper platforms and yet content is expected to be developed for many more digital environments than was previously required. In turn, this has led to a greater reliance on science publicists to help produce stories, which may also contribute to diminishing trust.

Alongside this, the world of science has become much more astute at managing media stories, which may help the science industry control their narrative, but doesn’t necessarily help audiences trust science journalism or science at all. A good example of this is synthetic biology, which hit the headlines in 2007 when Craig Ventor ran a UK lecture tour, book launch, and made the front page of tabloids with research that was still in development, rather than fully realised.

Equally, there are cases where the debates around a science story seem to betray trust and this shifting sand of science stories may be an inherent problem. For example, in 2005, I was invited to comment on a story for the BBC about mitochondrial DNA transfer, an experimental technique to address the seriously debilitating consequences of having dysfunctional mtDNA. The report shows how the scientists involved made great efforts to state that any resulting, modified egg would ‘never be allowed to develop into a baby’ (BBC, 2005). Yet, a decade later, MPs have approved such use for assisting the creation of healthy lives (Mason & Devlin, 2005). While I believe this is a sensible decision in this case, for the public, it can create a sense of uncertainty about whether any new discovery and the limits to which it may be put, can ever really be trusted.

In the United Kingdom, we have a number of institutions and communities who may be better unified in their work on science communication. These include: The Science Media Centre, The UK Science Festivals Network, FameLab, The Science Museums Group, Debating Matters, Sense About Science, The MAKER Movement and, this, year, the European City of Science programme in Manchester.

There is also a range of other events/institutions who are in the business of communicating science, even if they do not identify themselves as science communication organizations. This includes a range of art festivals around the UK, such as Future Everything, Abandon Normal Devices, Future Fest, to name a few. On this point specifically, the relationship between art and science – from STEM to STEAM education – is a crucial way to make more out of the science communication opportunities within the UK – which themselves are ways of engaging the science media in a more meaningful way. Making more of bringing these two spheres together, would be a formidable way of building more opportunities to undertake science communication work.

Finally, it is crucial that the Committee takes into account the growing number of freelance science communicators around the UK, which are well supported by the BIG STEM Communicators Network, but which are presently undervalued and under supported financially and institutionally. Even the most successful Science Festivals around the UK do not have sufficient investment around them to financially remunerate their contributors and, more widely, there is an economic black hole around science communication that needs to be filled, in order for the community to grow and be appropriately valued for their work. A sound basis for engendering more interest within the university community is to build on the Research Excellence Framework’s interest in recognising ‘impact’, though more effective mechanisms of evaluating aspects of science communication within it should be developed.

In sum, the different approaches towards science communication, research impact, public engagement, public involvement, and citizen science, must be better differentiated and supported, to optimise their value and promote more opportunities to nurture trust in science communication and science journalism.

 

References

BBC (2005) Embryo with Two Mothers Approved, BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4225564.stm

Mason, R. & Devlin, H. (2015) MPs vote in favour of 'three-person embryo' law, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/feb/03/mps-vote-favour-three-person-embryo-law

Miah, A. (2005) Genetics, cyberspace and bioethics: why not a public engagement with ethics?, Public Understanding of Science, 14(4), 409-421.

Biography

Professor Andy Miah is Chair in Science Communication and Future Media, at the University of Salford, Manchester. He is 2015 winner of the Josh Award for Science Communication, and works with a range of news organizations, including the Press Association special interest group in Social Media. He is Advisory Board Member to the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester, and Board Member to Manchester 2016 European City of Science. He is a member of the Scottish Government’s Ministerial Advisory Group for Digital Participation and has contributed to various European Parliament inquiries into future technology and communications.  He can be reached by email at email@andymiah.net and followed on Twitter http://twitter.com/andymiah