Grabbing the attention: Writing About Sociology for the Media












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            The autumn course named “The sociologist as an involved observer, or How to write sociolog

            which took place in September 20 – 25 in the Faculty of Social Sciences’ Hollar building, 
            project of the Faculty’s Institute of Sociology (ISS) and the Lidové Noviny newspaper (LN)
            at doctoral and advanced graduate students of sociology and related disciplines. Jan Maršá

            served as the project’s coordinator.
            Who is this autumn course aimed at primarily?
            Although the workshops take place at the ISS, this course is not aimed exclusively at soci

            sent out invitations to all social sciences and humanities programmes in the Czech Republi
            applied, out of which we selected 15. Besides sociologists, we had people from philosophy 

            sciences sign up.
            Why did you decide to offer this kind specific kind of course?
            Our department shares the feeling that there are not enough sociologists in the media here

            us can compare with abroad, for me it would be France, and it is much more common to take 
            sociologists there. At the same time, sociologists themselves are trying harder to get int
            I have the experience of writing for the media not being easy at all.
                                                                                                      
                                                           How did you come up with the content of the
                                                           The course is jointly organised by the Inst
                                                           noviny newspaper. Part of the programme is 
                                                                                                      
                                                           tutors of sociology, and another part by th
                                                           Students themselves chose the topics they w
                                                           investigated them from the sociologist’s po
                                                                                                      
                                                           our results to the editors, they had to ste
                                                           don’t cross into the territory that is no l
                                                           media. The editors then had a special lectu
                                                                                                      
                                                           what they require from us.                 
                                                                                                      
            How did the Lidové noviny connection come about?

            We had our man there, Petr Kamberský, who used to be our student. He liked the idea and so
            colleagues joined. Five members of the editorial staff take part, with Petr Kamberský and 
            being most closely involved.

            The autumn course took place before the start of the semester and its participants had to 
            1,000 CZK. Does that mean it was not a part of the curriculum?
            The course is an optional one, is taken for credit and is officially in the electronic adm

            system. Only those who are doing their Master’s have to keep that in mind, as Ph. D. stude
            any credits. The price for the course had been set in a way that would not deter applicant
            same time covered the expenses, as we have no other funding available.

            What were the reactions of the students like?
            They appreciated the fact that we worked in small groups and had individual contact with t
            who are, due to the nature of their job, available on email even at say 3am. The journalis

            on the participants and had them work hard, and therefore no one has been left feeling lik
            time.
            (Lucie Kettnerová)

            Translation: Jaroslav Švelch