Harnessing the media to supercharge your career

Eighteen months ago, I had zero media experience. I’m a physical-activity researcher in the school of Allied Health and Human Performance at the University of South Australia in Adelaide. In the three years since completing my PhD, I hadn’t written articles for anyone outside my scientific community, courted mentions in a newspaper or even thought about speaking on the radio or on podcasts. I was content to spend my days head-down in research, analysing data and aiming to publish papers. Media publicity was nowhere on my radar.

At the start of 2023, along with my colleagues, I published a major systematic review in the British Journal of Sports Medicine¹ that summarized much of the research on how exercise can help to reduce depression and anxiety. It was unusual for two main reasons. First, we synthesized all the evidence in the field, which involved collating the results of nearly 100 systematic reviews. Second, we analysed the most effective exercise types, along with varying intensities and durations of exercise and the effects across diverse clinical and non-clinical populations.

We found overwhelming evidence that exercise improves mental health across numerous healthy and clinical populations. Higher-intensity physical activity was linked to more substantial improvements in symptoms, but the effectiveness of interventions decreased with longer programmes of training.

The findings stuck a chord with many people, so the review ended up getting a lot of attention. I received requests from around the world to do radio interviews and go on podcasts. I was also invited to give talks and presentations in-person across Australia and virtually for international events.

Researchers should court media attention responsibly, with the ultimate goal of informing the public about scientific breakthroughs. But I’ve found that it can also raise your personal profile and advance your career.

Spreading the message

Over the past year, my media exposure has continued, with my research being featured in outlets including The Wall Street Journal, CNN, the Daily Mail, Yahoo, Times Higher Education, Cosmos magazine, Medical News Today and Science Daily. This has opened up unexpected opportunities. It has resulted in researchers from around Australia reaching out to me to collaborate on further reviews and meta-analyses on topics related to physical activity and lifestyle behaviours, allowing me to expand my research into different domains.

My media exposure has also led to industry collaborations. One Australian start-up company, which runs an app that aims to help office workers to exercise, reached out and provided funding for me to evaluate the effectiveness of their tool. The results are being prepared for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The opportunity not only enabled valuable research examining an intervention in a real-world setting, but also laid the groundwork for potential collaborations with industry partners.

Furthermore, media exposure has helped me to develop valuable transferable skills. I had to hone my presentation skills to prepare simplified explanations of my research and communicate across fields. Giving media interviews enhanced my skills in translating complex findings into everyday terms, using relatable analogies, being concise and staying composed under pressure. These have all proved invaluable for me in research, public speaking and collaborations beyond academia.

Although the media interest was serendipitous at first, I’ve learnt to be pro-active in boosting media engagement. I now pitch my published papers to relevant journalists and outlets, highlighting what’s new, useful and surprising about my research.

I also regularly write for the website The Conversation to practise communicating research to broad audiences accessibly. I use social media to showcase my work, build authority in my field, share updates, promote publications and connect with peers and the public. And I’ve attended media training offered by my institution, learning skills such as: crafting compelling narratives and soundbites; developing an engaging presentation style; preparing for different interview formats; and translating complex concepts into useful and easily understood analogies.

Prepare to push back

Not all media interactions are perfect. I’ve encountered overly simplified coverage, misinterpretation of my work and pressured timelines. For instance, in the discussion section of our review in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, we compared our findings with those from past reviews on how medications affect depression. On average, our results showed that exercise was 1.5 times better than medication at improving symptoms of depression, in terms of effect sizes. This comparison was not the main purpose of our review, but several media outlets portrayed our study as a head-to-head analysis pitting exercise against medication. This oversimplifies the complexity of treatment options and leads to misconceptions about the role of exercise in comprehensive mental health care. The comparison failed to account for the interplay of various factors and individual differences, and could lead people to make inappropriate generalized decisions about their treatment without consulting medical professionals.

This article was first published on the Nature Careers website on the 9th April 20224 ref doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01053-0– read the original and many more great articles on the Nature Careers Website.