I was just about to say: well, hopefully there's no need for a big explanation of why science is important. But making the relevance of science comprehensible in the first place is one of the important tasks of science communication. In the information age, it is also particularly important to communicate how evidence is created. You might think you need to know less if you can google everything. I think the opposite is the case. Precisely because we almost inevitably come across contradictory statements when googling, we need to be all the better able to categorize this different information. 

Fighting for attention with scientific content in the media - it's like bringing a knife to a gun fight. The easiest way to get attention is by exaggerating, abbreviating and making up steep theses. And through strong emotions, especially negative ones: outrage, anger, hatred. The simplest tools for attracting the spotlight are difficult to combine with science, which is characterized by differentiation, detail and uncertainty. It is an unfair battle from the outset.

I myself hold on to the optimistic thought that many people are also tired of all the shortcuts and steep theses. That they are annoyed that you come across contradictory statements everywhere. And perhaps they are also grateful when you take the time to explain things in more depth and detail. I believe that there is a great need for science. And we should therefore not try to apply the general rules of media publicity to science and sensationalize everything as much as possible. Instead, we should trust people to have more depth. This is the "USP" (Unique Selling Point) of science, so to speak, and we should stick to it.

Good science communication means not giving in to the longing for simple answers and trusting the audience with complexity and differentiation. But science communication needs good, low-threshold "hooks" all the more. By this I mean not only thinking about the core, the actual content, but also putting a lot of energy into appealing packaging. Because even if "don't judge a book by its cover" applies to science, the cover is exactly what motivates people to look at the book in the first place. With a YouTube video, it's not just about the actual content, but also the video title, thumbnail, the setting, i.e. what the image looks like, the appeal. Superficialities that can lead to the content reaching as many people as possible.

Don't underestimate social media platforms because they seem too superficial. It's certainly not easy to build a reach - but not so long ago it was almost impossible.
"Broadcast Yourself" and stay authentic. Many people believe that you have to learn the language of Gen Z, for example, in order to pick up young people, but this often achieves exactly the opposite. My favorite example is Harald Lesch, who reaches a lot of young people who enjoy listening to him, partly because he is authentically himself.

The most important ingredient is to take children seriously. To be honest, children are a much more appreciative audience than adults. They still have an "inquiring mind" that many lose in adulthood. They keep on asking "Why?" and are never satisfied. They are open-minded and free of ideologies. They are therefore the perfect audience for science. And as with adults, science can also be fun, colorful, funny or simply beautiful.

Actually, none at all. Because colors don't exist "out there". They are created solely and
exclusively in our head, in our brain. They are a perception. And since every brain is a little different, every rainbow is a very individual spectacle that each person experiences for themselves
. At least that's the short answer, with just one mindblow. The BiBiBiber book hides many more mindblows and answers to every conceivable "why?" question on its many colorful pages.

My work challenges me every day. It starts with Einstein's "If you can't explain it easily, you haven't understood it well enough". So I first have to learn and understand a lot. And the challenging and beautiful thing is that there is no one-size-fits-all blueprint for the perfect explanation. Depending on the topic, I always have to think about the best way forward.
One of the biggest challenges is focusing on the essentials. At MAITHINK X in particular, I notice this with every show that we don't have more than 30 minutes for. We rack our brains every time about what we need to throw out so that we're not too long. 

We adhere to the saying "In communication, it's not what you say that counts, but what is received."
If we receive a lot of feedback, perhaps even outraged feedback, which makes it clear that these people have misunderstood the topic, then we definitely see the blame on us. Then we know: We need to explain this better in future. The trick is to distinguish such cases from those who don't want to understand something, for ideological reasons, for example. This will always happen in science, there will always be clashes with world views, and facts cannot please everyone.

Well, if only I could say that so casually and quickly! I'm thinking here of the so-called bullshit asymmetry law. According to this, you can claim bullshit with very little effort, while it takes a disproportionate amount of effort to refute this bullshit. For me, this means that both science communication by researchers themselves and science journalism need to be promoted and supported even more so that these efforts in the fight against bullshit can be sustained! 

I often find it difficult to give useful tips to researchers who do science communication alongside their research. I can only do my job so well because - firstly - I don't do anything else. This is my full-time job. And - secondly - I don't do it alone, I have a clever, capable team who also do it full-time. Of course, this is not comparable to the resources that are typically available for science communication at a research institute. But joining forces is definitely an important first step. Because science communication doesn't just happen on the side. If you want to do it well, it requires a lot of energy and resources, which you can often only muster by joining forces.