ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how people's increasingly complex world is communicated bit by bit to the people who matter— the chosen publics or stakeholders— and looks at the media strategies that can be employed in this process. It focuses on specialist, discipline-specific and sometimes dense information, which presents the greatest challenges to simple, relatable and un-jargonistic communication and knowledge transfer. Translating complex topics is therefore about making the complicated uncomplicated, the long short and the specialised mainstream, and doing it in such a way that people's publics are talked to and engaged with, not just informed. As scientists discover, engineers invent, the environment changes, health advances, laws are written and businesses make money, a diverse range of media strategies is needed to inform and engage important stakeholders and audiences. Australian universities and research institutes have recently developed the country’s largest independent news and commentary site written by academics, with editorial help from a small, professional group of highly accredited news editors.
