{"id":121171,"date":"2020-12-17T11:28:42","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T10:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=121171"},"modified":"2026-01-16T16:39:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T15:39:36","slug":"reaching-millions-of-people-is-every-professors-dream-isnt-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2020\/12\/17\/reaching-millions-of-people-is-every-professors-dream-isnt-it\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Reaching millions of people is every professor’s dream, isn’t it?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Diederik Gommers in a Christmas jumper on Instagram and Jan Rotmans who gets bombarded on Twitter by an army of trolls who are affiliated with the right wing, populist Dutch Forum for Democracy party. More and more EUR scientists are managing to find their way onto social media. \u2018Pointless\u2019, according to political scientist Chris Aalberts, who considers himself the only relevant EUR scientist on Twitter. \u2018Indispensable\u2019, counters Jan Rotmans.<\/p>\n

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Diederik Gommers is standing in the front yard of his home in an unsightly but heart-warming Feyenoord Christmas jumper<\/a>. Next to this photo on Instagram, he has placed a large section of text where he calls for celebrating Christmas in a small group. \u201cDecember days have always been dark days for lots of people, but this time it\u2019s even worse thanks to Covid. There really is light at the end of the tunnel and we are almost there. Hang in there!\u201d Gommers\u2019 reach is considerable, within a day he has received \u2018hearts\u2019 from 60,000 people for his message and even though he has only been on Instagram for two months, he already has 382,000 followers.
\nThat scientists are active on social media is a relatively new phenomenon. Nevertheless, Professor of Transition Studies Jan Rotmans<\/a> has been busy on Twitter for years. With almost 50,000 followers and 30,000 posts, he is the most active of all EUR professors. He has long advocated that scientists should have a presence on social media. \u201cI recall sitting on the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Climate Institute in Potsdam, where I was invited to give a lecture. I started talking about Twitter and Facebook and they just stared at me! I received a lot of negative reactions about that. That was around ten years ago. In the meantime, I see a number of prominent people from that institute who are now active on Twitter. It is a start, but it\u2019s still not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Missed opportunity<\/h2>

He also mentions that he sees far too few eminent scientists from Erasmus University on Twitter. \u201cBas Jacobs<\/a> is active and really goes into details in his own way. But I can\u2019t for the life of me name ten others and that\u2019s a real missed opportunity. It can be an important source for the diffusion of knowledge, but you can also use it to take a stand and make news. Radio or television broadcasters often call me up because of what I tweet.\u201d<\/p>\n

He sees absolutely no reason not to do that. \u201cYou obviously can\u2019t be nuanced, which is why I sometimes create a thread -as I did the other day with Lubach (a well-known Dutch TV political satirist, ed.) -one made up of twenty-five tweets.\u201d Rotmans offered a few critical comments and added nuances to Lubach\u2019s critical broadcast on natural gas. \u201cI also put that on LinkedIn and it has since been viewed there more than 420,000 times.\u201d That reach is an important goal for him. \u201cWhen I was a scientist pur sang and was publishing a lot, I managed to reach a thousand people with one article, at most. Who reaches hundreds of thousands or millions of people? Surely that\u2019s every scientist\u2019s dream, isn\u2019t it? This is why I don\u2019t the understand the utter disdain it attracts. That is just so outdated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite being the most prolific EUR scientist on Twitter with 16,018 posts so far, political scientist Chris Aalberts<\/a> finds it of no importance whatsoever whether scientists are active on social media or not. \u201cNo, absolutely not!\u201d He has a good laugh about it. \u201cWhen I look at the names on the list of the ones from the EUR, that really reveals a lot, and I basically don\u2019t fit in there. I am the only one who actually does something concrete with social media. This list has been drawn up based on the numbers and they represent public renown, and not that people there are doing anything particularly useful.\u201d<\/p>\n

He makes an exception for Rotmans. \u201cI would like to assume that he does do things, but Gommers? A photo now and then. Balkenende does almost nothing, Putters tweets a brief commentary once in a while and a bit of news. So basically, as public figures, they have their own small private media channel. In that sense -and now I\u2019m going to sound a bit arrogant -on that list, I consider myself to be the most relevant when it comes to Twitter. Without Twitter you will likely come across the rest at some point, but not me.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Relevance<\/h2>

In any event, he casts doubt on the relevance of social media for scientists. \u201cUltimately, the question is, if you want to know something about Covid, if you will end up on Marion Koopmans<\/a>\u2018 Twitter page or Diederik Gommers\u2019 Instagram. There are newspapers, websites and talk shows and all that information can be found in them. The question is actually whether Marion Koopmans does anything different on Twitter than what she says on a talk show. All these famous people have relatively high levels of media exposure, so the chances that they\u2019ll say something on Twitter that they can\u2019t say anywhere else aren\u2019t that great.\u201d The opportunity to respond to each other does not impress him either. \u201cKoopmans may be able to offer a reply to a few individuals, but in terms of the big picture, that\u2019s just a drop in the ocean.\u201d
\nRotmans has even stopped responding, he claims. \u201cI\u2019m not engaging in any more discussions because there\u2019s no end to them. I used to do that in the past. This is how I once ended up in a discussion with Diederik Samsom (a Labour Party MP, ed.) until 2 o\u2019clock in the morning. He was passionate too and wouldn\u2019t give up. Someone said back then: \u2018Can\u2019t you guys go for a drink together?\u2019 He did have a point there, so that\u2019s what we did. You\u2019ve got to be able to put things somewhat into perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not much interaction<\/h2>

Even though there is not so much interaction on his Twitter feed, plenty of people thank Rotmans for the information that he does share. \u201cI know that when I respond to current events, as I did with Lubach, I get a plethora of reactions. Perhaps it\u2019s not purely scientific knowledge that I am sharing, but I do translate my scientific knowledge into these kinds of threads in a more mainstream way, in order to answer the question: How do we get rid of natural gas in a smart way? That translation is tremendously important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Could he put his story out there in the newspapers as well? \u201cThat is a typically conventional way of thinking. When I write an opinion piece for a newspaper and I am free to choose between digital and paper, I always choose the first one. That is far more widely read. There is also an audience that I no longer need to reach, between 500- and 600,000 people, let\u2019s call them the Tegenlichtpubliek (something like critical thinkers amongst the general public, ed.) They are already aware of themes like sustainability. I see colleagues addressing people who they have already reached. Which is not where the challenge lies. It\u2019s about those people who are willing, but don\u2019t know how to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does that work? \u201cYes, quite well really. Nowadays, I am more often in the Algemeen Dagblad and De Telegraaf than in De Volkskrant and NRC Handelsblad.\u201d (All Dutch daily newspapers, ed).
\nFor Aalberts, it is precisely this interaction that is more important than sharing knowledge. \u201cWhat\u2019s interesting about social media is that you can get something in return and learn from it, and that\u2019s very different when it comes to the information coming from the NRC. The added value lies in coming into contact with other voices and suggestions for your work. Except that they are scientifically irrelevant, more journalistic in nature and fall under the scope of opinions more.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has followed the Forum for Democracy closely since its foundation and wrote a book about Thierry Baudet (a controversial, right wing Dutch politician, ed.). \u201cIf I share an article by a scientist who has written an interesting piece about the Forum\u2019s European fraction, then that doesn\u2019t generate any interaction at all. It does if Baudet says something weird and I say: \u2018Baudet also said the same thing two years ago.\u201d For me, the added value is that people get to know me via the Forum and have information for me. They are less likely to run into me if I did not have that public profile.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not a private matter<\/h2>

The EUR neither encourages nor discourages the use of social media, according to spokesperson Meral van Leeuwen: \u201cWe view that as the personal choice of an individual, which does not mean that it is ostensibly a private matter. If you have a public profile and you post about issues on I, then they are public. Regrettably, the outside world does not regard this as a private matter either, so we cannot treat it that way either.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rotmans does encourage his own people to be active on social media. \u201cThe uni is lagging a few years behind in this respect. I often talk about it with Ph.D. students and I see how someone like Derk Loorbach is expressing himself more and more on social media. Excellent, that\u2019s what I advised him to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Societal impact<\/h2>

In his opinion, having societal impact, as opposed to having a scientific impact, is becoming increasingly more important at the university. \u201cThey are finally going to measure this and map it out. I am one of the ones with the greatest amount of social impact at Erasmus University, at least I am in the top 5, and social media does play an important role in boosting your social impact. Which is why I expect that more and more scientists will start using social media, also to boost their social impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

He even dares to contend that, if you are a scientist who has a great deal of social impact, you, by definition, use social media. \u201cIn five or ten years\u2019 time, that might carry as much weight as scientific impact. I can already see that the KNAW, NWO and VSNU are moving in that direction. (Respectively, The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, The Dutch Research Council, and The Association of Universities in the Netherlands, ed.). And as soon as that all takes off, everyone will automatically follow suit.\u201d<\/p>\n

All the same, there are still exceptions to the rule. \u201cSomeone like Willem Schinkel does not use social media at all and does have enough significant social impact. So does Henk Oosterling, who doesn\u2019t even have a mobile phone, which is the other extreme. They can still do things the traditional way. It\u2019 s everyone\u2019s own choice, but this is just the beginning. In five years, you won\u2019t need to write this kind of article anymore, because a lot more people will be active on social media. Then I\u2019ll probably quit because I won\u2019t stand out so much anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\u201cScreaming obscenities, harassment and bullying is a daily occurrence. But there is such a thing as an ignore and block button.\u201d\r\nChris Aalberts, EUR political scientist\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

Tip: keep your tweets short<\/h2>

He does have a few more tips. \u201cIt is an art, and I don\u2019t see many people who have mastered it. I see scientists, I won\u2019t name names, who come up with incomprehensible tweets. Far too long, without a clear message. No idea what they actually mean. In that case, they haven\u2019t spent enough time on it. Put down on paper exactly what you want to say and who you want to reach. Don\u2019t just start randomly tweeting. I think carefully about every single post, I weigh up every word. If you look at my tweets, they are razor-sharp, not a single unintelligible word is included. I\u2019m busy half an hour with them each day, spread out over three to four separate times.\u201d After all, in addition to the actual content, timing is important, he emphasises. \u201cFor instance, I work at night, but then I\u2019m preparing them for the morning. On Monday morning at 10 o\u2019clock everyone is sitting around having zoom sessions, then it\u2019s pointless. You should do it during the lunch break, or at the end of the day. And you have to follow what\u2019s happening on social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his opinion, one drawback is that Twitter has become an open sewer, full of swearing matches. \u201cLast year was a low point. I was in De Telegraaf a couple of times as a green protagonist and got into a debate with Thierry Baudet about the EUR. After that, all of his trolls jumped on me. Fortunately, a charlatan like that never lasts very long, which turned out to be the case. As soon as I tweeted something, they would warn each other, and it started all over again. When they yelled obscenities at me, I ignored them, and when they threatened me, I blocked them. In the meantime, there are a few thousand of them and that takes a lot of time. They once threatened to set my house on fire, then I told them: \u201cMake sure I\u2019m home, otherwise it\u2019s a waste.\u201d According to him, it is essential to have a thick skin and to deal with things dispassionately. \u201cOtherwise, it\u2019s better not to go there at all. I don\u2019t lie awake at night for a second, but my children and my wife sometimes read these things with me too. Which is particularly disturbing. Like the man who wanted to have me locked up in a closed psychiatric institution near my own address, because he knew where I lived. Or a guy who constantly called me Joseph Goebbels. So, I thought about quitting. But then I received so many messages of support from people who are keen to hear about these kinds of knowledge and opinions, that I kept going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Troll armies<\/h2>

Aalberts is also acquainted with the troll armies. \u201cScreaming obscenities, harassment and bullying is a daily occurrence. But there is such a thing as an ignore and block button. So, I double-click here and there and then it\u2019s gone, that\u2019s how I keep things nice and neat.\u201d Back to Diederik Gommers, who is mainly receiving comments on his Feyenoord jersey for now. Has he become even more vain from all the attention he is getting? \u201cNo, I haven\u2019t become more vain, but I do have a goal: I want to conquer this virus together. This is how I want to do my bit, by passing on the limited knowledge I have. Nothing more and nothing less.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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