Gina Walejko

U.S. Census Bureau · Decenial Statistical Studies Division

U.S. federal laboratories, government-owned and either government-operated (GOGO) or contractor-operated (GOCO), spent $40.4 billion on research and development (R&D) in 2009. This represents 30% of U.S. federally funded R&D obligations (1). Federal labs offer unique resources, including multidisciplinary teams of scientists and engineers, large an...

Digital media lower barriers to entry and offer a “long tail” of specialized subject matter, providing scientist bloggers with the ability to contest traditional science news norms, thereby overcoming challenges associated with sourcing practices in science journalism. This study analyzes the sources of 41 science bloggers that discussed two differ...

This paper looks at the prevalence of creative activity and sharing in an age when the barriers to disseminating material have been considerably lowered compared with earlier times. The authors use unique data to explore the extent to which young adults create video, music, writing and artistic photography, as well as the prevalence of sharing such...

In this paper the authors explore the problems inherent with sampling bloggers and their blogs, specifically several factors unique to these populations: spam blogs, abandoned blogs, access-restricted blogs, and non-traditional blogs. Reviewing 24 blogging studies, they focus on the four strategies that researchers have employed to sample bloggers...

Digital media lowers barriers to entry and has the ability to renegotiate traditional news-making power structures. However, it remains to be seen whether or not the people that use tools like blogs actually challenge those frameworks. Offline reporters predominantly use government officials as sources while online journalists and newspaper institu...

Researchers are faced with challenges when addressing the public on concepts and applications associated with nanotechnology. The goal of our work was to understand the public’s knowledge of nanotechnology in order to identify appropriate starting points for dialog. Survey results showed that people lack true understanding of concepts associated wi...

The use of exhibits in informal science education venues such as science centers and museums is an integral part of engaging students in science, encouraging them to take science courses in school, and motivating them to pursue science and engineering careers. Through an Internships in Public Science Education Program funded by the National Science...

The general public is developing an awareness of nanotechnology through media coverage of newsworthy issues in and through fictionalized accounts of nanotechnology's potential in entertainment sources such as movies, comics, and television shows. Accompanying this rise in familiarity is an increasing public interest in the topic, which is placing l...