No one in today's era of technology wants to be belonging to past dawns, but wants
to move ahead to the noon of the future. Today, social media is being used aggressively
by medical publishers to promote knowledge, spread ideas and create platforms, where
they can communicate their message. Social media helps guide them to create discussions
amongst colleagues and across the globe on latest topics in their fields of medicine.
It helps journals increase their scope by broadening the readership with a larger
population viewing the recent journal articles. Social media has seen rapid growth
in popularity in the last few years. There is widespread use of sites such as facebook
and twitter amongst medical journals and a growing number of well-established blogs
and internet forums that are aimed specifically at medical journals such as that for
Circulation, British Medical Journal, New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, JCVA
etc. Cobwebbed, by the desires to reach the masses, most established as well as upcoming
journals, put their best foot forward and leave no stone unturned in putting the journal
articles for enhanced viewership. None of them, but don’t realize that further down,
there is a trap!! In promoting the journal, we are spending time, energy, money to
be seen online and stay hooked on to the social media for very fast journal article
updates! But, are we gaining or loosing?
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a
trail.”
Ralph W. Emerson
THE PROS OF SOCIAL MEDIA
It's hard to oppose the social media blitzkrieg adoption of newer technology all of
which are great drivers of change in medicine. Social Media is one such technology
which has had a massive effect on making the world increasingly shrink to become a
hub of global knowledge reach more people and increase readership. This makes us all
medical professionals across the world, sail in the same boat of social, international
knowledge but which is not without paradoxes! It's hard to oppose the social media
storm, but we need to focus at least half as much attention on a quietly worsening
viewership crisis!!
Explosion of social media
The online information environment has evolved from a world in which users searched
information (web 1.0) to a world where they are now able to generate and spread information
themselves (web 2.0). This has shifted the focus from content-centric to user-centric
information environment, leading to no explicit direction of information flow, with
the reader interacting through social media with all three namely the sources, the
medium and importantly with each other and leading to no contact with the direct supplier!!
A lot of work by the researchers needs to frame the implications of the explosion
of new social media and web technologies in the specific context of risk and benefit
to the journal status.
It is important at all times to be aware of the journals online image and how it can
impact its professional standing.
THE CONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media applications like
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
, and
Youtube
are extremely popular and its use is growing exponentially [Figure 1]. However, it
is time-consuming. It has replaced human meetings and behavior and interactions. Thus,
though being online is an advertisement, it has led to the offline basic intricacies
woven around human emotions and bonds going for a toss! “Googling emotions” and “sharing
them online” is weakening human bonds, and one shudders that the “hard copy” replaced
by a “soft copy” of the journal, brings about a fission of fear of deterioration in
“active journal” reading without a “hardcopy” in hand.
Figure 1
Networking of social media application
THE CONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA
The budget being used while putting a medical journal on social media is of utmost
importance. Dr. Ryan in a Google interview on “The scope”[1] said about the famous
journal Circulation going on the Facebook and Twitter with the aim of improving the
scope of readership that most readers felt that a low budget strategy was not a good
platform to read an article. An article may be hit by thousands, but read only by
a few tweets. The viewers get the message, but the primary article as it is, is safely
stored in their phones and never read!! And the journal has spent effort and money
to put it on the phone!
SOCIAL MEDIA – A PARADOX
Social media opens the era of citizen and collaborative journalism, wherein professional
journalism can both create new medical news collaboratively and interactively with
the public, but it also uses the latter as “feat – on the streets” eye – witness reporters,
whether it is with social bookmarking or twitters hash-tags! Effective social media
communication requires clear identification and thorough understanding of the target
audiences. It needs appropriate management of information provision, so that it optimally
enhances the journals status amongst the readers.
MAINTAIN PROFESSIONAL BOUNDARIES ON SOCIAL MEDIA
The American Medical Association[2] and the Federation of State Medical Boards[3]
provide basic instructive guidelines for the use of social media, in which it emphasizes
the need to protect patient privacy and confidentially and to maintain a professional
journalism discipline. It is imperative for a medical journal to keep professional
and personal activity separate. Facebook users have no control over what the readers
may post about them! It is important to remain within their professional ethics and
discipline to enhance its image.
FUTURE CHALLENGES IN MEDICAL JOURNALISM USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
A personal and professional touch to the social media campaign is required for all
“online success” without a personal face to it. Instant interaction with the “reader's
online queries” whether on the blog or on a tweet is the need of the hour. Engaging
the readers in a journal accounts conversation involving multiple organizations helps
bring more authors to spread more research knowledge and take it up also on public
health issues. Involving the public is important Researches in medical fraternity
must be explained to the masses through social media. All this is what will make medical
journalism savvy on the social media.[4]
The mannerism in which one delivers the PDF on the gadgets is important too! Lengthy
pages, small fonts are not the preferred technique by the viewers. What is seeked
in an article is minipodcasts through brief interviews, short video commentaries or
through infographics as well. Most readers follow only much evolved strategies on
social media and most of them, may read the journal online or in the mailbox. This
paradox is challenging.
CONCLUSION
Awareness and interest in social media, though it has hit medical journalism like
a bulwak in recent years, is still in its infancy. A prompt call for social media
guidelines to prevent unprofessional content and breaches in patient confidentiality
is the need of the hour. Further research is essential to harmonise the ethical aspects
of clinical manuscripts, being seen on Facebook and other sites, for which as suggested
by Leiker et al.,[5] it is important to establish dual online identities, to separate
personal and professional identities.
An evolved and ethical use of social media will take medical journalism UP Sky High
for as told by Buddha
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, but the life of a candle
will not be shortened.” Medical education shared on social media too is like the candle
that never decreases by being shared.