Futurity (website)

Last updated
Futurity
Type of site
News aggregator
Available inEnglish
Website www.futurity.org
Launched15 September 2009;10 years ago (2009-09-15)

Futurity is a nonprofit website that aggregates news articles about scientific research conducted at prominent universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia. [1] It is hosted and edited by the University of Rochester. [2]

United States Federal republic in North America

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country comprising 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City. Most of the country is located contiguously in North America between Canada and Mexico.

United Kingdom Country in Europe

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a sovereign country located off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea separates Great Britain and Ireland. The United Kingdom's 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi) were home to an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.

Canada Country in North America

Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres, making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Its southern border with the United States, stretching some 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi), is the world's longest bi-national land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

Contents

History

Futurity was established in 2009 by a group of thirty-five research universities, including Stanford University. The site's co-founders were Lisa Lapin, Michael Schoenfeld, and Bill Murphy, who were then affiliated with Stanford University, Duke University, and the University of Rochester, respectively. A beta version of the site was launched in March 2009, with the site officially launching on September 15 of that year. [1] [3] [4] The site's founding was born out of the increasing difficulty faced by universities in publicizing their research through traditional news outlets. [2] Murphy explained that the site would be distinct from science-oriented wire services like Eurekalert! in that its target audience would be the general public, rather than professional journalists. Founding editor Jenny Leonard, also of the University of Rochester, noted that the site is not strictly a journalism website, telling the Columbia Journalism Review 's Curtis Brainard, "It wasn’t meant to be a replacement for the type of reporting and analysis which is so essential to covering science and research completely." [5] By 2011, the site had set up deals with the news aggregators Flipboard and LinkedIn Pulse to share Futurity's content on their platforms. [6]

Stanford University Private research university in Stanford, California

Leland Stanford Junior University is a private research university in Stanford, California. Stanford is known for its academic achievements, wealth, and selectivity; it ranks as one of the world's top universities.

Duke University Private university in Durham, North Carolina, United States

Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James Buchanan Duke established The Duke Endowment and the institution changed its name to honor his deceased father, Washington Duke.

University of Rochester private, nonsectarian, research university in Rochester, New York, United States

The University of Rochester is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees.

Membership

Membership in Futurity was originally limited to the sixty-two members of the Association of American Universities. Member schools were also initially charged a $2,000 membership fee. [5] Within two years, Futurity had nearly doubled its university membership from thirty-five to sixty. [6] The site now also accepts members from the Russell Group, the Group of Eight, and the International Alliance of Research Universities. [1]

Association of American Universities international organization of leading research universities

The Association of American Universities (AAU) is a binational organization of leading research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education. It consists of 60 universities in the United States and two universities in Canada.

Russell Group association of 24 public research universities in the United Kingdom

The Russell Group is a self-selected association of twenty-four public research universities in the United Kingdom. The group is headquartered in London and was established in 1994 to represent its members' interests, principally to government and parliament. It was incorporated in 2007. The group is sometimes perceived as representing the 'best' universities in the country, although this is disputed.

Group of Eight (Australian universities) coalition of leading Australian tertiary institutions

The Group of Eight (Go8) is a coalition of world-leading research intensive Australian universities. The Go8 universities are some of the largest and the oldest universities in Australia and are consistently the highest ranked of all Australian universities. In 2016 all Go8 Universities were ranked in the top 150 worldwide, with six in the top 100. Go8 Universities feature in the top 100 places for every subject area in the QS world university subject rankings. All Go8 Universities are in the QS top 100 for literature, biological sciences, environmental sciences, accounting and finance, anthropology, law and education.

Content

Futurity's articles are based on press releases and other stories submitted to the site by the universities themselves. The articles are often written by the universities' public relations departments, and they are only lightly edited to increase their appeal to the general public before publication. [5] [7]

A press release, news release, media release, press statement or video release is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing information, an official statement, or making an announcement. A press release is traditionally composed of nine structural elements. Press releases can be delivered to members of the media both physically and electronically.

Public relations (PR) is the practice of deliberately managing the spread of information between an individual or an organization and the public. Public relations may include an organization or individual gaining exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment. This differentiates it from advertising as a form of marketing communications. Public relations is the idea of creating coverage for clients for free, rather than marketing or advertising. But now, advertising is also a part of greater PR Activities. An example of good public relations would be generating an article featuring a client, rather than paying for the client to be advertised next to the article. The aim of public relations is to inform the public, prospective customers, investors, partners, employees, and other stakeholders and ultimately persuade them to maintain a positive or favorable view about the organization, its leadership, products, or political decisions. Public relations professionals typically work for PR and marketing firms, businesses and companies, government, and public officials as PIOs and nongovernmental organizations, and nonprofit organizations. Jobs central to public relations include account coordinator, account executive, account supervisor, and media relations manager.

Reactions

Earle Holland, the assistant vice president for research communications at Ohio State University, criticized Futurity in an article for the Winter 2009/2010 issue of ScienceWriters magazine. His specific criticisms of the site included that "The Futurity staff was allowed to alter the content of the research stories institutions submitted, based on their own discretion", and that "No one on the Futurity staff was an experienced science writer". [8] Science journalist Charlie Petit told the San Jose Mercury News that although university press releases are a reliable source on which to base science stories, as Futurity does, they "...are completely absent any skepticism or investigative side." [5] In an article published in Seed , Evan Lerner accused Futurity of "...blur[ring] the line between reporting and public relations". He also argued that "Futurity’s emphasis on presentation and social networking might help get science information in front of new sets of eyes, but it’s unlikely to bridge the gulf between experts and the scientifically illiterate." [9]

Ohio State University public research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States

The Ohio State University (OSU), commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a large public research university in Columbus, Ohio. Founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and the ninth university in Ohio with the Morrill Act of 1862, the university was originally known as the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College. The college originally focused on various agricultural and mechanical disciplines but it developed into a comprehensive university under the direction of then-Governor Rutherford B. Hayes, and in 1878 the Ohio General Assembly passed a law changing the name to "The Ohio State University". The main campus in Columbus, Ohio, has since grown into the third-largest university campus in the United States. The university also operates regional campuses in Lima, Mansfield, Marion, Newark, and Wooster.

<i>Seed</i> (magazine) online science magazine

Seed was an online science magazine published by Seed Media Group. The magazine looked at big ideas in science, important issues at the intersection of science and society, and the people driving global science culture. Seed was founded in Montreal by Adam Bly and the magazine was then headquartered in New York with bureaus around the world. May/June 2009 was the last print issue. Content continued to be published on the website until its demise.

Related Research Articles

University of Washington Public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States

The University of Washington is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.

Elsevier commercial academic publishing company that publishes medical and scientific literature

Elsevier is a Dutch information and analytics company and one of the world's major providers of scientific, technical, and medical information. It was established in 1880 as a publishing company. It is a part of the RELX Group, known until 2015 as Reed Elsevier. Its products include journals such as The Lancet and Cell, the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, the Trends and Current Opinion series of journals, the online citation database Scopus, and the ClinicalKey solution for clinicians. Elsevier's products and services include the entire academic research lifecycle, including software and data-management, instruction and assessment tools.

<i>Ars Technica</i> News and opinion website on technology, science, politics, and society, owned by Condé Nast

Ars Technica is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, science, technology policy, and video games. Many of the site's writers are postgraduates and some work for research institutions. Articles on the website are written in a less-formal tone than those in traditional journals.

HuffPost is an American news and opinion website and blog, with localized and international editions. It is edited from a left wing political perspective. It was founded in 2005 by Andrew Breitbart, Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer and Jonah Peretti. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content and covers politics, business, entertainment, environment, technology, popular media, lifestyle, culture, comedy, healthy living, women's interests, and local news.

Sandy Lerner is an American businesswoman and philanthropist. She co-founded Cisco Systems, and used the money from its sale to pursue interests in animal welfare and women's writing. One of her main projects, Chawton House, is in England, but most of her work remains in the United States.

University of Wisconsin–La Crosse public university in Wisconsin

The University of Wisconsin–La Crosse is a public university in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Founded in 1909, it is part of the University of Wisconsin System and awards bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. UW–La Crosse is organized into five schools and colleges offering 100 undergraduate programs, 22 graduate programs, and 2 doctoral programs. With an annual operating budget of $227 million, it is one of the largest in the UW System. The university has nearly 85,000 alumni across all 50 U.S. states and 57 countries.

Science journalism journalism genre

Science journalism conveys reporting about science to the public. The field typically involves interactions between scientists, journalists, and the public.

Phys.org is a science, research and technology news aggregator where much of the content is republished directly from press releases and news agencies-in a practice known as churnalism. It also produces some science journalism.

Science Daily is an American website that aggregates press releases and publishes lightly edited press releases about science, similar to Phys.org and EurekAlert!.

University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

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Database journalism or structured journalism is a principle in information management whereby news content is organized around structured pieces of data, as opposed to news stories. See also Datajournalism

University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications

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University of Wisconsin–Madison Public university in Wisconsin, USA

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Evan Spiegel American businessman

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References

  1. 1 2 3 "About Futurity". Futurity. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
  2. 1 2 "Futurity celebrates five years of 'cool science'". NewsCenter. 15 September 2014. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
  3. ↑ "Futurity, an online outlet for research news, is launched by Stanford and other leading universities". Stanford University. 17 September 2009. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
  4. ↑ "UW joins other leading research universities to launch futurity.org". UW News. 15 September 2009. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Brainard, Curtis (17 September 2009). "Is Futurity the Future?". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
  6. 1 2 Kolowich, Steve (10 October 2011). "Hello, Aggregator". Inside Higher Education. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
  7. ↑ Barnett, Jim (24 September 2009). "Futurity and 'almost-journalism'". Nieman Lab. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
  8. ↑ Holland, Earle (13 February 2010). "Why Futurity fails". ScienceWriters. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
  9. ↑ Lerner, Evan (2 October 2009). "Futurity Imperfect". Seed Magazine. Archived from the original on 1 June 2012. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
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