The Science of Science Communication II Summary of a Colloquium (2014) / Chapter Skim
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1 The Sciences of Communication
1 The Sciences of Communication
Pages 1-34
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But the committee and its staff wanted the third edition to have a bigger impact. At the time, intelligent design creationism was a relatively new concept, and it was being pushed into science classrooms by vocal and well-financed groups.
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As an example of cultural differences in perspectives, Medin cited cognitive research comparing East Asians, typically Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans, with westerners, typically people from the United States. East Asians tend to pay more attention to background information, while westerners attend more to focal objects.
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For example, when Native American and European American adults in rural Wisconsin were asked to describe the last time they went fishing, the median point at which European Americans used the word "fish" was the 27th word, whereas the median for the Native American Menominees was the 83rd word. The Native Americans were much more likely to supply context and background information -- so much so that some never mentioned fish at all.
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However, when the groups were asked to sort the fish by habitat, the differences disappeared, indicating that the intergroup differences involve the organization of knowledge rather than knowledge per se. In a follow-up study, Menominee experts were more likely to recognize positive reciprocal relationships among fish species, such as the reciprocal eating of spawn, fry, and small fish, while European American experts mentioned fewer relations, and those that they did mention primarily involved adult fish.
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For example, about 10 percent of people asked in one study about climate change said that they have direct experience with climate change -- for instance, through changes in the seasons. In other cases, people recruit mental models that do not depend on personal experience.
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Unlike medicine, which often reflects the deepest values of medical students, the study of science often does not always allow students to express their deepest values. As another example of the value of multiple perspectives, Medin cited research in primatology, which has made progress both from a western
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Medin pointed out that there are hundreds of federally recognized Native American tribes, and so results from one tribe cannot generalize to all, and great diversity exists even within a single culture. As Bostrom added, even with professional groups such as hurricane forecasters and emergency responders, differences in the mental models within a group are larger within the differences among groups.
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Some have a classical view that science yields a single true picture of the world, while some have a more modern view that science can produce multiple answers that have to be negotiated and debated. The Credibility of Communicators To be credible, communicators need both expertise and trust, Fiske said.
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Fiske noted that responses to people in the four quadrants of this twodimensional graph fall into four emotional categories. Cold and incompetent people tend to be treated with disgust, warm and incompetent people with pity, competent and cold people with envy, and competent and warm people with pride.
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People also tend to trust an impartial agenda and not trust a persuasive agenda, which argues for separating science communications from the policy implications of those communications. Scientists would be more trusted if they emphasized deliberation rather than persuasion, Fiske said.
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For example, if people are told that 10 percent of scientists believe x, many interpret this statement as meaning that x could be true or false, even though the position is held by only 10 percent of scientists. However, if people are led through the response of each scientist one by one -- so this scientists believes x, this scientists believes x, this scientist does not believe x, this scientists believes x, and so on -- they become more sensitive to the actual probabilities.
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Hallman also emphasized that people create mental models based on the information that is available to them. For example, science often works on objects and issues that are largely invisible to people, such as nanotech
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But scientists also need to work against the stereotype. "We need, as part of our science education, to teach people how to tell a story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, to tell a joke that's actually funny, and to take a joke when it's warranted." Standard resumés contain plenty of information on expertise and competence but very little on social abilities, despite the importance of these attributes.
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COMMUNICATING UNCERTAINTY To provide answers to the questions that decision makers ask, science communicators need to be able to communicate uncertainty, said Baruch Fischhoff, the Howard Heinz University Professor in the Departments of Social and Decision Sciences and Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Often that requires greater precision than scientists and communicators naturally provide.
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Whether and how to create options. For each of these categories, communicators face both analytic challenges in extracting the information experts know and communication challenges in conveying that information with the precision that decision makers need.
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The third class of decisions involves whether and how to create options. The analytical challenges in making these decisions include identifying the relevant expertise and assessing the uncertainties created by omissions in the analysis.
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Audiences are highly heterogeneous in their knowledge bases and mental models. And audiences may lack sensible models of the sources, causes, types, and limits of uncertainties.
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Second, simple innumeracy can be the cause of mismatches between how experts offer information and how the public interprets it. As an example, Finkel cited a New York Times article that reported the failure rate of in vitro fertilization to be 77 percent while not mentioning that the failure rate of natural conception is also almost exactly 77 percent.
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However, in some cases, being apolitical may not be the best way of effectively communicating scientific information, he continued. It is more important to be transparent about one's values.
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People should have a choice of methods or be able to experience multiple methods simultaneously. SOCIAL NETWORKS The analysis of social networks preceded the development of electronic social networking, said Noshir Contractor, Jane S
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All of these strategies can be helpful, said Contractor, but they are general strategies, and scaling them up can be a major challenge. The Who of Social Influence Scaling up science communication to reach large numbers of people requires leveraging three types of knowledge, Contractor said: • Science about how social influence strategies can be effective, • Science about who the touch points are in networks, and • Science about strategic choices involving social media.
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A second aphorism, which describes cognitive social networks, is "it's not who you know, it's who they think you know." People act on the basis of their perceptions, so the perception of being part of a social network can spur action. A third aphorism, which describes knowledge networks, is "it's not who you know, it's what they think you know." People often act on the basis of stereotypes rather than factual knowledge about other people.
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Some nodes are particularly well positioned to be touch points or to serve as a network multiplier in a scale-up effort. Design involves selection of the right social influence strategy, the right touch points, and the right social media channels to optimize the speed and coverage of communicating scientific information to publics or targeted audiences.
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Risks Posed by Social Media As an example of the risks posed by social media, Milkman noted that social networking technologies can support herding, where people associate only with like-minded compatriots. On the flip side, herding may be used for constructive purposes.
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For example, new media can help people connect more strongly with others like themselves, creating echo chambers for opinions. Even in science communication, new media can create an interest in talking with like-minded others.
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Better education and better tools are needed to help people make sense of what they encounter through social media. As Contractor reminded the participants, a useful reminder is the quotation "Don't believe everything you read on the web. -- Abraham Lincoln." Measures of Success Regarding metrics of success, the particular people being reached may be more important than the absolute number, said Roy.
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Sometimes framing has a partisan motivation, but in most cases it is simply a tool for information processing to help people determine why an issue is important and how to think about it. Framing reduces ambiguity by contextualizing information, and it is most successful if it resonates with an underlying schema.
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For example, when hotel guests see a sign saying "75 percent of the guests who stayed in this room reused towels," they are more likely to reuse their towels than if they see a sign saying simply "75 percent of guests reused towels" or "You can show your respect for nature and help save the environment by reusing your towels." Motivated Reasoning People process information based on their beliefs, identities, and ideologies. Studies of this process of motivated reasoning are not new but have seen a recent renaissance, said Scheufele.
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Whether scientists like it or not, new science will be debated in a complex media environment where individual predispositions and societal expectations loom large. In such an environment, systematic efforts are needed to increase citizens' ability to find scientific information in increasingly fragmented media environments, connect science to their daily lives, and process information accurately.
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Microtargeting and Counterframing Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, made four points in commenting on Scheufele's presentation. First, microtargeting -- repeating a tailored message through multiple channels, including social media channels, to a small target audience -- is becoming increasingly common.
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People select into social media channels, and if they are not interested in information they tend to be put off by it. Social media have extraordinary potential for communication among scientists, "but I very strongly doubt that it will open up a new channel of unmediated communication between scientists and lay public," he said.
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Even on social networking sites, people are far more likely to have friends with similar views than different views. But Jamieson countered that the mass media era is not yet over.
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In the process, scientists and science communicators can reflect on themselves and broaden their own perspectives. Second, science communications can be improved.
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