From Scientific American, Press release, July 5th 2011:
Blog Network Launches on ScientificAmerican.com
Today Scientific American launched a new blog network which unites editorial, independent and group blogs under the magazine’s banner. The community of 60 bloggers provides authoritative information and insights about science and technology, and their roles in global affairs. The blog network, overseen by Blog Editor Bora Zivkovic, who serves as moderator for the community, encourages discussion and facilitates the exchange of ideas with both the bloggers and Scientific American readers.
Zivkovic, known for his own “A Blog Around The Clock,” a blend of chronobiology, science, media and education among other subjects, has invited a diverse group of voices for the network. Bloggers range from graduate students, who are launching their careers, to veteran science writers such as John Horgan, Director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology.
Renowned writers including Jennifer Ouellette (“Cocktail Party Physics”), Darren Naish (“Tetrapod Zoology”) and Scott Huler (“Plugged In”) join veteran Scientific American bloggers John Platt (“Extinction Countdown”) and Jesse Bering (“Bering in Mind”) on the network. The format of the blog allows for great diversity in tone and topics. Many of the bloggers focus on the bridge between science and other fields such as philosophy, sociology, music, art, gender and race, hip-hop culture and literature.
“In its 165 year history, Scientific American has built a reputation as the leading publication for science in the general media,” says Zivkovic. “The goal of the blog network is to provide a new platform for people in the science community to exchange ideas and interact with the SA readers in a dynamic way.”
The Scientific American Blog Network features three new SA editorial blogs. @ScientificAmerican provides news, updates, highlights and anecdotes from the Scientific American newsroom while “The Incubator” highlights the best work by students in science writing and journalism schools. The “Network Central” blog will feature highlights from the blog network each week. Existing SA editorial blogs such as “Observations,” “Solar at Home,” “Anecdotes from the Archive” and “Expeditions” remain. The network also features new blogs by Scientific American Editors Davide Castelvecchi (“Degrees of Freedom”), Anna Kuchment (“Budding Scientists”), and Scientific American Mind Editor Ingrid Wickelgren (“Streams of Consciousness”). There are future plans to launch additional staff-authored blogs.
The Scientific American Blog Network is hosted on its own landing page, blogs.scientificamerican.com.
Links:
http://twitter.com/#!/sciamblogs
About Scientific American:
Scientific American is at the heart of Nature Publishing Group’s consumer media division, meeting the needs of the general public. Founded in 1845, Scientific American is the oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S. and the leading authoritative publication for science in the general media. Together with scientificamerican.com and 14 local language editions around the world it reaches more than 5 million consumers and scientists. Other titles include Scientific American Mind and Spektrum der Wissenschaft in Germany. For more information, please visit www.scientificamerican.com.
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I looked through a number of blogs, some of which were refugees from last year’s advertising debacle over at ScienceBlogs. Interestingly, there appears to be no blogs about climate.
The filter selector has no category for it. In “Energy and Sustainability”, as well as “More Science”, I looked also, but found none on that topic. Perhaps the powers that be at SA realize that climate is not a topic for the meek, as it often gets very ugly and contentious, and it just isn’t worth the hassle.
Or maybe, climate is falling off the serious science radar at SA?
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SA-disgusted; Discontinued years ago, after being a subscriber for ever.
like many here I was a 30+ year subscriber of SA – the Amateur Scientist has provided 3 generations of science fair experiments and who can forget Gardner’s math games?
to me there was no one thing but after the savage attack on Bjorn Lumborg and the trashing of Piers along with the new owners demand that only those who have piled it higher and deeper were qualified enough to pontificate in their pages
aside from professional publications down to only a few periodicals that I actually subscribe to and I’m afraid that Skeptical Inquirer (that I’ve taken since it was the Zetic) is going to be next fot the same AGW nonsense (although it was fun watching the mailman when my Mother Jones would arrive the same day as American Rifleman)
As a business, this bog-collective makes sense. I suspect that for joining the SA Family, the blogster gets a cut of ad-revenues, while having his advertising efforts and accounting costs handled by the parent. The real problem is that regardless of what the SA says about editorial independence, there will be a force to follow the philosophy of SA. The force will build with time, as SA decides it only “needs” 35 (or whatever) blogs, and all those who wish to be in the lineup will be those that please SA.
This is an interesting and inevitable evolution of the blogosphere. As print outlets dry up, the blogosphere gets more active. By the MSM taking over the blogosphere, the one area where “truth”, unvarnished and suspect at times, but passionately seeking the truth according their perception, will be coralled. The blogosphere has been a place where one’s opinions could run free, even if (as I have been guilty of) comments were sometimes intemperate and plain wrong. As passions and the moment rule on blogs, sometimes the details get so out-of-line that comments are cringe-worthy (even to the writers). Once in the SA-type family, we can be assured that that will end: an “manager” will forestall anything heretical for “fact-checking” or possible legal reasons that would never have stopped the blogger (as he generally has neither reputation nor wealth to lose). Revenue-chill, if not libel-chill, will smooth the blogs into something the AAAS would approve of, i.e. into non-controversial mainstream.
For those would-be journalists and reporters, this consortium-cum-collective will be a positive career move. For SA, they get all sorts of smart researching for, essentially, free: you get $X for whatever you put up, regardless of what you put into it. SA has lassoed another clutch of stringers. No pensions or health-benefits for them. For the purists amongst us, this may be an alarming development. Who is really pulling the strings when it comes to a blog? Chevron (hah!) never had the pull that Greenpeace did and does. The SACC will corrupt through kindness and money. It can’t be helped.
In the science fiction movies the Umbrella Corporation has come to represent the control of all of our lives that some groups have without our understanding. The SACC blogosphere concept will have a greater impact on the ‘sphere than we might realise at this time. Mainstream meets rebel: you know how that meeting ends.
They can’t have climate bloggers because they decided to drop The Amateur Scientist, and they’ve realized that all climate scientists are amateurs.
Wow … not an insignificant development …
As a side note, have never ever subscribed to any of these ‘science’ journals … but instead, many, many electronics trade journals (e.g. Microwaves and RF, RF Design, ECN, EE Times … then there was always QST and Aviation Week and Space Technology etc available in the library) … spent one summer poring over all the back issues of the Proceedings of the IRE (“Institute of Radio Engineers”; predecessor to the IEEE) from the 1930’s forward in spare time at tech library work … it’s what RF guys do ‘for fun’ …
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