MODERN METHODS OF TRANSFERRING GEOLOGICAL RESEARCH TO THE PUBLIC WHAT IS POSSIBLE, WHAT MAKES SENSE? SOCIAL MEDIA AND HD-FILMING IN EARTH SCIENCE FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE AND CO

Social media networks are the fastest growing social phenomena in the world. The facebook network alone has more than 600.000.000 million users. Social media are not only a teenage-peer-group or leisure time thing but a borderless publication, communication and marketing tool.

There is no reason for the Science Community not to use the abilities of social media. Knowledge transmitting and online presentation of research topics via social media channels does not only allow reaching far more people than any other traditional publications, it is also free tool.

The presentation will show how multimedia - especially social media and facebook - can be integrated into geological and physical geographical research-programmes and environmental education. Different concepts and possibilities of media usage for Geoscience will be presented alongside stunning insights into the authors own research-media-projects in the Himalayas. During a three-month research expedition to some of the remotest areas of the Nepal Himalaya, the author tried out filming and media marketing for promoting his research content. The background of the idea was to present the abstract results of the research to a broad public in an interdisciplinary, comprehensible way using film, social media and print.

For Geoscientist working in consulting or educational positions it is important to minimize the “transfer-time” between the empirical data capture, the scientist’s interpretations and policy makers’ decisions. Traceability and linking scientific issues to affected populations as well as to the decision makers are often difficult. The presentation will show how scientific multimedia usage in this respect can facilitate that issue and increase the acceptance of scientific information and advice.

Requests from economy, NGOs and other scientists led to the establishing of the authors own freelance mountain and science media consulting-label "HK Mountain Projects” in 2010. Besides he is working on a physical geographical PhD-thesis on the topic of “Geomorphological Constraints of the Setting of Traditional Mountain Routes in the Nepal Himalaya” at Georg August University Göttingen.