Communicating with

the Public

“Silence to Voice”:

by Chris Mfor Nur437 - Professional Issues in Nursing

Plattsburgh State Universityspring 2009

Clay Shirky article

The optional reading was about the decline of print media. Essentially, Shirky says that because of social and economic forces of the Internet, the newspaper business model is doomed to failure.

Shirky says reporters have been in a state of denial about the situation for at least a decade.

How does this reading apply to our topic “Silence to Voice”?

Although Gordon and Buresh have a chapter called “Letters to the Editor, Op-Eds, and Blogs,” blogs are addressed in one paragraph. Most of the chapter is about Letters and Op-Eds—print-media-mediated communication.

I would like to suggest that Gordon and Buresh are the journalists-in-denial that Shirky refers to.

Let’s take a look at the situation…

Newspaper/magazine reading

Here’s the results of the survey I gave our graduating class…

Of 28 nursing students, the vast majority read printed news less than weekly, and only 2 read printed news 3-4 per week or more.

I have no reason to believe this class isn’t representative of young people and young health care professionals.

Pinrt subscriptions?

As you would expect from the reading numbers, subscriptions to print sources in our class are extremely low. The vast majority of students have zero subscriptions…

This is why print media is going to die.

Newspapers are already dying. This is newspaperdeathwatch, a blog. On the left you can see a list of metropolitan newspapers that have closed…

Magazines are already dying. The blog MagazineDeathPool tracks closures of magazine rather than newspapers…

It isn’t only small publications, either. Just around the time of our spring break, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer printed its last edition. And the The New York Times has had to sell its New York office building due to cash flow problems…

Journalists like Buresh and Gordon point out that newspapers have websites where your Letter to the Editor can get archived for the ages.

But look at the website subscriptions for our class—print subscriptions aren’t moving onto the web, they’re just dying.

And without web subscriptions, news media won’t survive on the web, either.

So, where do nursing students get the news?

Web text (not web video, surprisingly) and TV

So where

does that leave us?

When I was younger and trying to explain branding to my mother, she explained it back to me better…

When she first was out on her own, she always bought King Arthur Flour because that’s what her mother taught her to do to get quality flour.

In the days before high levels of regulation, branding was a self-generated seal of approval…

For nurses today, branding is in part creating on online presence.

This blog post from the director of a marketing agency that manages Fortune 500 companis says it all: “Manage your online reputation or I will”

Right now, the media environment of the web is laissez-faire. Like King Arthur flour, you need to brand yourself because you can’t rely on an expert like a NYTimes editor to put a stamp of approval on your Op-Ed.

Doctors get it.

This web post from KevinMD, one of the most widely read medical blogs, makes the same point.

If medicine (and hospitals) get it, nursing needs to as well.

Sohow do you do that?

The marketing director at Dose of Digital recommends 3 tiers of web presence to master. Tier 1 includes mostly Web2.0 sites.

Web2.0 - connectivity…

“Web2.0” was coined by technology guru Tim O’Reilly in 2005

Britannica becomes Wikipedia

Personal websites change to blogs

“Stickiness” becomes syndication

So, do nursing students know Web2.0?

This graph shows the results of my survey of graduating nursing students.

As you can see, knowledge of terms associated with Web2.0 is low. Facebook is the only website known by the entire class.

Furthermore, as future nurse leaders, BSN students should be prepared to promote and explain Web2.0.

As the survey results show, our future nurse leaders cannot explain Web2.0 technologies, although their ability with Web1.0 technologies is not as low.

And now for something completely different…

So, because of the survey results, let me leave PowerPoint for a moment…

http://nur437.blogspot.com …demonstration of Web2.0 using GoogleReader to explain RSS, blog syndication, Del.icio.us, ResearchBlogging.org, and re-publishing.

Let me show you what happens when nurses do not manage their online presence.

DrugTopics is a pharmacy magazine. An NP wrote a poor letter to the editor of Drug Topics. Here’s a portion:

“I have a real problem with generics for my patients, family, and myself. I was taught and have read that certain generics such as those used in warfarin and cardiac therapy should not be used. “Even the slightest difference could prove harmful. An oncologist here in town will only use brand Coumadin for her patients. I witnessed my father's blood pressure soar after only a few days on a generic and quickly return to normal after he took an extra dose and then went back to brand. I find various generic antidepressants have little to no therapeutic effects on the majority of my patients.”

The NP’s letter to the editor prompted the following blogged response from a pharmacist: “My friends, this night I will convince you that all Nurse Practitioners should be stripped of their prescribing authority… I have a real problem with Nurse Practitioners for my patients, family, and myself. I was taught and have read that some Nurse Practitioners don't know what the word ‘bioequivalent’ means and should not be used… I know an oncologist who refuses to let his wife or anyone he cares about see a Nurse Practitioner. And one time, I witnessed a patient who was treated by a Nurse Practitioner, then died. Many other people have died after seeing Nurse Practitioners as well. One other time, a person I know being treated by a Nurse Practitioner went code blue at the hospital, only to quickly return to normal after being attended to by a physician. I find various Nurse Practitioners to have little to no therapeutic effects on the majority of my patients… So there you go Jeanne, I just proved Nurse Practitioners are dangerous and should be avoided. The same way you took down over two decades worth of real world data and scientific evidence regarding generic drugs in 143 words. Or I just pulled a bunch of shit out of my ass, one of the two. Either way, our letters are remarkably similar, yes?”

There are two important points here: (1) if the NP had published in a Web2.0 medium instead of a Web1.0 medium, she could have tracked and responded to this pharmacist; (2) the off-line principles of self-presentation (like knowing your audience) apply online as well.

Let’s take a look at a few Web2.0 nursing websites to see how nurses are doing…

Youknowyouwanna.net

Rather poor…

Nursingshow.com

Better, but the nurse in this photo still looks a little cliched, and this website is actually to support a business…

evidencebasednursing.blogspot.com

Here’s an excellent blog by professionals, publishing professional material for a professional audience…

Hmmm…blogs…

is that all there is?

No, TV ranks second to web-based text in our nursing student survey.

Buresh and Gordon address appearances on radio and television as well (although they don’t mention web video and podcasts…)

A video interview exercise will follow this PowerPoint presentation.

Finally, Buresh and Gordon address integrated campaigns, such as the SEIU Prevent Needlestick Injuries campaign. SEIU coordinated journalists to release news articles timed with their campaign, which included rallies, lobbying, toolkits with talking points and example Op-Ed articles, and pre-packaged video.

All these components of an integrated campaign can be adapted to a Web2.0 environment. In fact, Web2.0 as a medium has a natural affinity for organizing and campaigns:

“Information, knowledge, and culture are central to human freedom and human development. How they are produced and exchanged in our society critically affects the way we see the state of the world as it is and might be; who decides these questions; and how we, as societies and polities, come to understand what can and ought to be done... This new freedom holds great practical promise: as a dimension of individual freedom; as a platform for better democratic participation; as a medium to foster a more critical and self-reflective culture; and, in an increasingly information dependent global economy, as a mechanism to achieve improvements in human development everywhere.” –Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks

Remember:whatever

the medium of communication,

manage your brand

ReferencesBenkler, Y. (2007). The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and

Freedom. Yale University Press. Retrieved March 30, 2009, from http://www.jus.uio.no/sisu/the_wealth_of_networks.yochai_benkler

Buresh, B. & Gordon, S. (2006). From Silence to Voice: What Nurses Know and Must Communicate to the Public (2nd Ed.). ILR Press.

DrugMonkey. (2009, Mar 19). Nurse practitioners: All the attitude of a physician, none of the skills. Posted to http://drugmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/03/nurse-practitioners-all-attitude-of.html

Monaco, J. (2009, Feb 1). Generics are not the same [Letter to the editor]. Drug Topics, February 2009. Retrieved March 27, 2009, from http://drugtopics.modernmedicine.com/drugtopics/Community+Practice/Letters-to-the-Editor-February-2009/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/578173

McNutt, J.G. (2008). Web 2.0 tools for policy research and advocacy. Journal of Policy Practice, 7(1), 81-85. Retrieved March 2009 from CINAHL Plus.

O'Reilly, T. (2005, Sept 30). What is Web2.0. Posted to http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

Pho, K. (2009, Mar 25). Create and control your online presence. Posted to http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2009/03/create-and-control-your-online-presence.html

Richman, J. (2009, Mar 3). Manage your online reputation or I will. Posted to http://www.doseofdigital.com/2009/03/manage-youronline-reputation/

Shirky, C. (2009, Mar 17). Newspapers and thinking the unthinkable. Edge. Retrieved March 20, 2009, from http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/shirky09/shirky09_index.html

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