Communication channels for citizen science projects

One of the core resources of a Citizen science project is access to a community of individuals who are engaged in the activities of the program. And sustaining a community requires a high-level of sophistication regarding communication efforts.

In one project run in Spain (Life+Respira), the analysis of the behavior of volunteers shows that the most effective channel for communicating was e-mail[@sanchez-blanco2019Creación y mantenimiento de una comunidad de voluntarios medioambientales a través de una comunicación "cross-media"], although traditional media was a reasonably effective path to raise awareness about the project.

I think that e-mail connections is the epitome of the Dark Forest Theory. Although I don't know the age distribution of the participants in Life+Respira, I do think that e-mail allow for a private communication that is highly valued, as opposed to the public 2-N way communication that social networks promote.