We live in an era where information flow is overwhelming. To inform the public about what’s going on in science we have to be develop our social media skills in addition to being good at "selling" our research to the media. In other words we have to be good at science communication. Our team has focused on these issues and we have learned a few things that we hope can make it easier for next years team (under trouble shooting). We have also made a media-plan that might help future teams to see how to spend the time, and how to get in touch with the media. Below we've listed just about everything we've done related to media.

TV

• NRK (the National Broadcasting Company of Norway). We have contacted both the news and the science program Schrödingers katt.
• Østlandssendingen (A part of NRK that only cover local news for eastern Norway)

None of these has made programs about iGEM as far as we’re concerned. We were filmed during the meeting with Drew Endy and the NTNU-team in Trondheim, but we’ve not managed to find out where and at what time it was broadcasted.

Newspapers and Journals

• Aftenposten (one of the biggest newspapers in Norway). We wrote an article for the science part of the news paper that was positively received. It has not been published. We have also been in touch with them to try to get an interview, but without sucess.
• Varden (a local newspaper for one of the participants). No response.
• Østlandets Blad (a daily newspaper for the eastern region of Norway).
• Teknisk Ukeblad They wrote the following about us the (01.08.14): http://www.tu.no/industri/2014/07/31/skal-fa-bakterier-til-a-fungere-som-organer
• Genialt (issued four times a year, it is the information from the Norwegian Biotechnology council) → The website of the Norwegian Biotechnology Advisory Board http://www.bioteknologiradet.no/2014/08/designer-bakteriefabrikk/ (21.08.2014). The article was also published in their printed magazine, Genialt, issue number 3 2014.
  
• Argument (a news paper issued by students) We will have an article printed in the next issue of Argument. This issue will be issued in middle of October, and therefore the article will not be linked to from our wiki.
• Farmatid (the journal of The Norwegian Association of Pharmacists)
• Visste du det? (A school news paper for a secondary school in Nittedal)
  
• Universitas (a weekly newspaper for all the students in Oslo with student-related information). Their article can be found here. NB! It has been changed since it’s first release, and it is somewhat different from the article found in the printed edition, issue number 21, Wednesday 27. august 2014.

The latter new article needs further explanation. Universitas is the local newspaper for all students in Oslo. This means approximately 60 000 students. We agreed to have an interview with them and talk about our project and iGEM.

Indeed the interview was very nice. At the end there was one question about the possibility for terrorism and weather this could potentially be dangerous. We answered that safety and security are very important parts of the iGEM-contest and that this is stressed all the way during the process. However, the journalist had also interviewed one of our supervisor, Paul Grini, and the Director of the Norwegian Biotechnology Advisory Board. Both thought they were being interviewed about iGEM. The journalist did also ask questions about safety and bioterror.

The article was issued with the headline “Fears a new bioterror-threat”. In the article it looks like ¨we, the students, pose a possible threat to society. The internet version is somewhat modified after we talked to the editor, but for interested readers it can be found here in norwegian: http://universitas.no/kultur/59624/frykter-ny-bioterror-trussel. There is also a paper issue of this article with picture and name.

We had not foreseen this type of headline, and this came as a big surprise to us. After discussing the issue, we decided to write back to Universitas. They agreed to print our response, and we got a full page in the next issue. http://universitas.no/kronikk/59645/a-koble-noen-til-terrorisme-er-svert-alvorlig-og-belastende

Universitas printed a small, hardly noticeable, note where they state that we’re not terrorists. We also filed a complaint to the Norwegian Press Complaint Commity.

For us, this article was a very negative response to something that we thought of as very positive. All we wanted to do was to communicate the possibilities within the field of synthetic biology and iGEM. For other teams to avoid this sort of trouble we’ve made a troubleshooting-guide and a guide to how to get positive media attention.