Measuring Everyday Life: Making Research Open Access

By Brian Southwell

If you look at a smartphone or a laptop or a television screen connected to the Internet, it is easy to assume we live in a time of information abundance. By many measures, that perception is accurate; if we just focus on the words and videos and memes that human beings share with one another electronically we undoubtedly are flooding the planet in bits and bytes relative to past centuries or even past decades.

What is less clear is whether most people enjoy regular access to carefully considered research results that can help inform their decisions. In our everyday lives, we face a multitude of problems and questions where reliable evidence could be helpful. For example, how can we be better parents? How should we vote in the next local election? Should we buy solar panels for our homes? Although it might seem that the globe is awash in electronic information, it is not clear whether we have useful and equitable opportunities for people to get the information they want and need to make decisions on these and hundreds of other topics.

Such a situation is paradoxical given the sheer amount of data produced and published by professional researchers. Yet there is a gap between cafeteria conversation and social media feeds and academic journals and conferences. That gap is not trivial; it points to a lack of relationship between many people inside research organizations and nonprofits and people outside of those organizations.

What if that gap didn’t reflect lack of potential curiosity or interest in professional research but instead stemmed from a lack of forums for interaction? What if we assumed that people could be interested in the work researchers do to understand the mundane and nuanced aspects of the social worlds in which we live? What if we assumed people were generally curious and then asked researchers to talk about their work and experiences and ideas in ways that would fit dinner conversation instead of formal academic presentations?

Those questions produced a framework for The Measure of Everyday Life, a public radio show produced and aired by WNCU in Durham, North Carolina, that I have had the honor to host since 2015.

The Measure of Everyday Life has reached broadcast audiences on a weekly basis throughout its run and people around the world have downloaded episodes through various podcast applications. One use of the episodes, though, has been especially refreshing to witness: as a class resource for students and for group discussion. That suggested an idea for a new resource that translates our audio encounters into written words: a curated and edited book that highlights some of the episodes that have aired, places them into research literature context, and draws out some implications for researchers and those who one day might ask questions as a part of their work.

That book – titled Measuring Everyday Life: Talking About Research and Why It Matters – is now a reality, available in print and as a free electronic resource. Two collaborations have been especially helpful in publishing the book: partnerships with North Carolina Central University and RTI Press. Co-editors from North Carolina Central University, the home base of WNCU, offered a vital perspective as we put together the book. Karen Keaton Jackson is a professor of English and director of the University Honors Program at North Carolina Central University. Bridget Pittman-Blackwell is a psychology graduate student at North Carolina Central University and soldier in the Army National Guard. Together, we decided which of the hundreds of episodes to feature in the book and how to present them in a new way while retaining the essence of the past discussions. RTI Press, the independent, peer-reviewed publishing group supported by RTI International, has published the book. RTI Press’ commitment to open-access publishing and their support in presenting the book in a compelling way has been invaluable.    

In putting together the book, I was reminded of the great value of such exploration and conversation for society; we collectively can benefit from the work that gets published in peer-reviewed journals and books if that evidence can be translated into everyday conversation without losing too much of its original insight.

I also have been struck, though, by the value of talking about research for researchers and those involved in research specifically. The very practice of talking about your research sensitizes you to the questions that other people might have about why you do your work. That experience of talking out loud about the choices you make and the insights you have chosen to pursue can raise new insights and ideas about what future research questions should be asked. Researchers typically do not live in a vacuum cut off from the effects and influences and needs of the world. Rather than just thinking about broadcasting interviews on a weekend radio show as an effort to reach out to new audiences, we have grown to realize that translational conversations, if earnestly and compassionately pursued, are vitally important as opportunities to listen and consider our neighbors in society.