There's Research on That: Translating and Sharing Sociology for Public Audiences

This article draws a decade of experience editing and publishing TheSocietyPages.org, and four more years editing Contexts magazine. Both projects work to bring sociological research and insight to broader public audiences, visibility, and impact. Here we build upon Herbert Gans' original call for public sociology and his emphasis on the translation and dissemination of sociological research, insight, and context on social issues and problems for broad public audiences. We begin by detailing the general challenges of such communication-oriented public outreach and engagement. We then use our work with The Society Pages, one of the largest sociological hubs on the internet, as a case study for doing this work and addressing these challenges. Key points of emphasis include: (1) the core challenges and key principles of writing for general, nonacademic audiences; (2) organizational and infrastructure-related needs and some pragmatic recommendations for institutionalizing publicly engaged sociology; and (3) the critical role of graduate students in these endeavors. We conclude that sociologists ourselves are best positioned to share our work with public audiences and we identify some benefits for the discipline in doing such engaged scholarship over a sustained period.