Keynote speech “Statistics need Stories” in Rusland

Op 22 mei 2017 hield Martine Bouman de opening keynote op de conferentie “Social Science & Health Innovations: Making Health Public", in Tomsk, West Siberie. Het congres werd georganiseerd door Tomsk State University in samenwerking met o.a. Maastricht University, Faculteit Health, Medicine and Life Sciences (CAPHRI).

Tijdens de internationale  conferentie presenteerden en discussieerden sociale wetenschappers en (bio)medische wetenschappers over gezondheidsinnovaties voor publieke gezondheid.
Tijdens haar keynote “Statistics need stories: the urgency of media approaches in public health“ hield Martine een pleidooi voor meer samenwerking met mediaprofessionals en het gebruik van populaire media en storytelling formats om kwetsbare groepen in de maatschappij te bereiken.

Zie hieronder het abstract van Martine’s Keynote:
The media’s role in setting the health agenda has grown substantially over the past few decades. Health issues are not considered relevant unless they are made visible. Information about health issues has to compete with thousands of other communication messages. If the attention of our target audience is to be caught and held, especially when that audience is not yet interested in health issues, it is no longer sufficient to rely solely on the rationality of our health message. Other, more emotionally appealing and popular communication methods also have to be brought into play. Using storytelling can make health issues more accessible. Integrating health issues in popular media formats (in theater, film, music, television, new media, or experience parks) is known as the entertainment-education (EE) strategy. The idea of ‘entertainment with an added value’ poses a big challenge for science, policy and practice. With a rapidly changing media landscape the distinction between media creators and audiences is becoming increasingly diffuse. Social media (e.g., Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Skype, YouTube, MySpace, Pinterest, Instagram, blogs) have become an integral part of our daily lives. This creates an unique opportunity to make public health more participatory and more 'public. This also contributes to the emergence of new classes of online professional creatives, serious game designers, social influences and community owners. Which roles do these media innovations play and how can they contribute into 'making health public'. How can media - through encouraging storytelling, and entertainment - contribute to empowering publics? Martine Bouman will share her experience and research on the entertainment education strategy and on creating a crossover between public health and the creative media industry. She will illustrate this with examples and  film fragments. 

Lees hier meer over de conferentie.