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| Vallartan Papers: Using the Printed
Media to Spread Scientific Knowledge in a Tourist
Destination |
June 1st, 2003.
By Professor Fabio Cupul
University of Guadalajara Puerto Vallarta Campus
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Partial text of the paper presented
by the author at the VIII Meeting of the Network for
the Popularization of Science and the XIIth Congress
of the Mexican Society for the Dissemination of Science
and Techniques, held in the city of León, Guanajuato
May 26-29, 2003.
The Professor’s presentation
was a huge success, earning the kudos of representatives
from Spain, Chile and Mexico, with regard to the work
he is doing locally. He was complimented on being what
may be the only case of a promoter of scientific knowledge
concerned with the environmental well-being of his own
region, disseminating information on a local level.
Bahía de Banderas: Nature and information
Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco and the
region of Nuevo Vallarta, Nayarit, Mexico, an area known
as the Bay of Banderas, make up a tourist hub that welcomes
over one million national and foreign visitors year
after year, thus becoming one of the top beach tourist
destinations in the country which represents the major
part of its economic activity.
However, despite the fact that the
area is visited to a great extent because it offers
opportunities of contact and interaction with nature,
existing available information on the subject is nil,
for the visitor as well as for the local community and
the guides involved in the activities of enjoyment and
contemplation of nature.
The preceding, according to my empirical
perception of the situation, results in inadequate information
on the natural resources and environmental problems
considering that the informative flyers on the region’s
natural environment, or the anecdotes and environmental
stories told by tourist service providers tend to exaggerate
or minimize the region’s geographical and environmental
assets or erroneously establish the identity of the
local flora and fauna, incorporating information on
species from other regions. Instead of information being
provided, it is disinformation.
The University and the Community
in Vallarta
In 1994, the University of Guadalajara
established a campus in the city of Puerto Vallarta,
with the idea of bring education to every urban center
in the state of Jalisco and the communities that surround
them. Despite the fact that the university’s objectives
included a resolution of the educational offer available
in the areas of law, accounting, tourism and business
administration, society demanded that it also establish
research programs on the environment and its problems.
Since 1995 and up to this date, efforts
have been undertaken aimed at gathering knowledge of
the region’s natural resources, its potential
and the negative impact caused by human developments.
Thanks to that, the amount of data accumulated is growing
and we can now begin to divulge our discoveries in a
language accessible to all social levels of the community.
Spreading Knowledge Through
the press
Spreading information of a commercial
nature through the printed media (flyers, magazines,
papers) in a region of Mexico whose economy depends
on its tourist services is of utmost importance. By
taking advantage of the extensive penetration of those
publications in bars, restaurants, hotels and businesses,
an agreement was reached with a couple of them to publish
information -aimed mainly at the foreign visitor- on
the scientific activities conducted by the University
of Guadalajara. With time, this turned into a dissemination
of all types of information on regional and world nature,
as well as relevant scientific discoveries.
I believe that the union with those
communication media allowed for a new image of the information
they offered. Now they are no longer concerned solely
with providing details on the best restaurants, or the
best deals in real estate, they are also offering information
on the efforts a society is undertaking to get to know
its natural resources so as to take advantage of them
in the best possible manner.
Beginning of the Process
of Divulgation
The process of spreading scientific
information began in February, 1999, with the inclusion
of an article in the “Natural Environment”
section of the tourist weekly paper called “La
Trivia”, that was inserted every Sunday in the
local paper in Vallarta, the “Tribuna de la Bahía”.
The articles dealt with the natural history of the regional
flora and fauna. “La Trivia” stopped publication
in June 2000 with Issue number 67 of the series.
Parallel to “La Trivia”,
the weekly tabloid called “Puerto Vallarta Tribune”
was interested in publishing the articles in English
with the idea of reaching tourists who read English,
mostly Americans, Canadians, British, French, German
and Dutch. Although “La Trivia” was no longer
being published, the “Tribune” continues
to publish articles on scientific knowledge every week
to this date.
Penetrating the Internet
The spread of scientific knowledge
through “La Trivia”, “Vallarta Tribune”
and “Ámbito” went from having a basically
local impact to world wide proposals with the inclusion
of the articles published in the “Tribune”
on the Internet super-highway, in the web site of www.pvmirror.com
The “PVMirror” web site
includes sections on culture, art, gastronomy, entertainment,
local news, opinion articles and essays on scientific
knowledge in its “Nature” section. The articles
that appear every week in this section which began in
2001 come from the printed version of the “Tribune”.
Structure of the Articles
In the hope of making the articles
more appealing to potential local and foreign readers,
the articles are between 500 and 1000 words in length
and include illustrations that exemplify the topic in
question.
Also, the focal point of their development
comes from an approach which, depending on the case,
highlights the cosmovision of the ancient cultures of
Mexico or other regions of the world, including their
religious aspects, with the animal, the plant, the natural
space or environmental problems that they aim to deal
with or describe.
Thus the reader, always attracted
by stories that involve the unknown or supernatural,
can be “hooked” into discovering that, beyond
the paranormal, religious or cultural facts, scientific
knowledge represents the path that offers the best way
to appreciate and learn about the environment and the
elements that make it up.
The articles are intended to inform
readers with facts about nature that allows them to
understand, from an economic, cultural and ethical viewpoint,
the reasons why it is so important to preserve natural
resources, and what the negative repercussions can be
if we turn a blind eye to the processes that degrade
them.
Impact
The impact of the scientific dissemination
in Vallarta’s printed media still has not been
evaluated by diagnostic means, thus we are limited when
it comes to establishing significant values for their
impact on the local community, whether resident or visitors.
Nevertheless, it is possible to create
the expectation of a positive impact, if we take into
account the circulation of the weekly papers and the
hits on the web site. The Tribune prints an average
of 7,000 copies per week, “Ambito” claims
2,000 and the number of visits to PVMirror.com averaged
100,000 per month in 2002.
Also, this can be increased when
we take into account that access to the web site is
free, as are the weekly papers. Finding an old copy
of one of these papers is very complicated as they are
always snapped up.
Yet another element that enables
us to see the acceptance of this column is the exchange
of letters between the readers and the author of the
articles, relating to questions on the topic of that
week, proposals for future topics and letters of thanks
for the valuable (according to them) information provided.
Aside from the preceding, the dissemination
of science through the printed media, especially in
the weekly papers in Vallarta, allows us to maintain
a line of information open, practically in real time,
between the author and the readers, expediting the communication
of events, current or “in vogue”, dealing
with nature, or to quickly answer questions that have
been posed.
Furthermore, the dissemination of
science in a free medium allows the tourist, the service
provider and the resident public in general to have
access to scientific knowledge in a clear and simple
form, without concern for acquiring references that
are expensive or hard to get.
As one author whose name escapes
me once wrote: a blank page in a newspaper is an open
opportunity to write and build the pages of an endless
book, from day to day.
Conclusions
The newspapers in Vallarta are without
doubt one of the appropriate means to spread scientific
knowledge as they place information at the disposal
of the reader quickly, without affecting his finances.
Also, they have the advantage of responding to his environmental
concerns, national and international, with just one
phone call to the weekly paper or an e-mail sent to
the author of the articles.
On the other hand, it also demonstrates
to the international tourist that in a tourist destination
such as Puerto Vallarta, there is the will to offer
quality information that goes beyond references to where
to eat, dance, relax or acquire real estate.
Finally, the publication of articles
in weekly papers represents an excellent opportunity
for the author to “stay in shape” as he
tries to make the scientific facts on nature entertaining,
interesting, enjoyable, formative and informative.
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