Communicating Science to Public Audiences

HEATHER AKIN, assistant professor, Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Author

10/12/2022 Added

18 Plays

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Science communication is increasingly acknowledged as a strategy for engaging public audiences with complex and sometimes controversial science topics. Akin will discuss principles, practice and research related to science communication, while acknowledging the challenges and opportunities it poses in Nebraska and beyond.

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[00:00:00.750]The following presentation
[00:00:02.220]is part of the Agronomy and Horticulture seminar series
[00:00:05.790]at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
[00:00:08.563]So I'm Dr. Heather Akin.
[00:00:10.380]I am an assistant professor in ALEC,
[00:00:13.770]which is Agricultural Leadership
[00:00:15.390]Education and Communication.
[00:00:18.060]Really happy to be here today.
[00:00:19.620]Hello to everyone that's online.
[00:00:22.440]Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:25.170]I will introduce myself very quickly.
[00:00:27.780]I can share a little bit more background than this,
[00:00:30.030]just to tell you what I've been working on here.
[00:00:33.420]I actually have a PhD in journalism and mass communication,
[00:00:36.810]studied science communication in my graduate degree.
[00:00:41.370]I also went on and did a post-doctoral fellowship,
[00:00:44.310]which is a little unusual for people.
[00:00:46.620]I'm a social scientist.
[00:00:48.120]I will give you a heads up here that I'm a social scientist,
[00:00:51.180]but it's kind of less common for people
[00:00:52.997]in the communication field like myself to do a postdoc,
[00:00:56.790]but I had the opportunity to do that for a couple of years
[00:01:00.750]after I got my PhD,
[00:01:02.760]was studying the science of science communication,
[00:01:05.010]which I'll talk a little bit more about in a second,
[00:01:07.110]and eventually found myself here,
[00:01:09.390]in my hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska
[00:01:12.360]as an assistant professor in ALEC,
[00:01:14.460]where I specialize in strategic communication
[00:01:17.790]and science communication.
[00:01:20.040]I work with undergraduate and graduate students,
[00:01:22.980]kind of exploring the role of communication
[00:01:26.460]and communicating about agriculture,
[00:01:28.140]the environment, science, things like that.
[00:01:31.320]I also have an Extension appointment,
[00:01:33.390]so I work with Extension on a variety of projects,
[00:01:35.850]some of which I'll talk about a little bit more today.
[00:01:42.034]I'm trying to think what else I was gonna say.
[00:01:43.140]I was gonna say more in my intro, but I'm not sure.
[00:01:45.540]I'll probably get to it.
[00:01:46.560]And if anybody has questions going along,
[00:01:49.320]feel free to ask.
[00:01:51.270]I hope this can be kind of an open forum.
[00:01:53.640]And I don't know if you're,
[00:01:54.473]are you checking the chat if any questions come up?
[00:01:57.030]But, okay, okay, yes.
[00:01:59.160]So please feel free.
[00:02:00.540]I have several things I wanna talk about today,
[00:02:04.080]but would welcome any questions or thoughts.
[00:02:07.320]I wanted to share a little bit about the research that I do
[00:02:10.590]and sort of the approach that I take
[00:02:12.120]so you can kind of understand
[00:02:14.430]some of the work that I'm talking about.
[00:02:17.970]Since my PhD and beyond,
[00:02:19.740]my interest is really in this area
[00:02:22.470]that's kind of a growing area of research
[00:02:24.540]that we call the science of science communication.
[00:02:27.450]And that's really about how, in my case,
[00:02:31.530]often it's about how members of the public
[00:02:34.500]kind of interpret scientific issues.
[00:02:36.540]In some cases,
[00:02:37.373]it's investigating other types of stakeholders,
[00:02:40.590]how they make sense of scientific topics,
[00:02:42.630]how they interpret scientific information.
[00:02:46.320]And often my research
[00:02:48.180]looks at how the media influence people's views
[00:02:52.380]about scientific topics,
[00:02:53.970]and to some extent how we can kind of create dialogue
[00:02:57.900]when there, maybe where there isn't dialogue already.
[00:03:01.200]And often my research looks at
[00:03:03.480]how the media influence people's views
[00:03:07.260]about scientific topics,
[00:03:09.210]and to some extent how we can kind of create dialogue
[00:03:12.780]when there maybe where there isn't dialogue already.
[00:03:17.040]Most of my research uses, like, survey methodologies,
[00:03:21.180]so conducting surveys,
[00:03:23.880]whether they're just sort of
[00:03:24.713]a one point in time type of research,
[00:03:26.910]asking people about their opinions about things,
[00:03:29.670]their background, their values,
[00:03:33.930]you know, things about their beliefs
[00:03:35.850]related to a certain topic.
[00:03:37.170]Sometimes we conduct experiments
[00:03:39.090]where we share messages with people
[00:03:41.700]to understand sort of how they respond to new information.
[00:03:46.980]And I've studied this in a few different contexts.
[00:03:49.260]So sort of we,
[00:03:50.940]I apply kind of the same methods in different,
[00:03:54.660]in sort of different settings
[00:03:55.830]and thinking about very different topics.
[00:03:59.520]Hoping to touch on some of the things
[00:04:00.930]you might be interested in today,
[00:04:02.400]but feel free to ask any questions you have
[00:04:04.920]about any of this research.
[00:04:07.170]So some things I've looked at
[00:04:09.210]are how people kind of make sense of
[00:04:11.280]and interpret climate change,
[00:04:12.810]how they interpret data about climate change,
[00:04:16.740]their views about genetically modified foods,
[00:04:19.290]their views about vaccines,
[00:04:22.410]preferences in terms of
[00:04:23.580]what people think we should invest in
[00:04:25.260]in terms of energy production or energy use,
[00:04:28.470]and to some extent, kind of emerging science and technology.
[00:04:31.650]So often I use kind of the same methods
[00:04:34.500]to understand how people make sense of these topics,
[00:04:39.000]and also looking really closely
[00:04:40.637]at how things like people's kind of values and experiences,
[00:04:45.060]even to some extent their, you know,
[00:04:46.920]political beliefs it might be,
[00:04:48.720]or their knowledge about certain topics,
[00:04:52.290]and their trust in certain kinds
[00:04:54.420]of messengers and communicators
[00:04:57.420]really affect their views about some of these topics.
[00:05:01.320]And you know, one of the things
[00:05:04.320]I'm really interested in as well
[00:05:06.060]is how this, kind of,
[00:05:07.410]what our dependent variable often ends up being,
[00:05:10.020]is things like how that affects people's behaviors
[00:05:13.380]in some case,
[00:05:14.213]whether that's, you know,
[00:05:15.690]choices about policy or any sort of, like,
[00:05:20.310]health behaviors, energy choices.
[00:05:24.090]I'm just looking at John so energy popped into my mind.
[00:05:26.246](Heather chuckles) Anything like that.
[00:05:28.440]So we really find that oftentimes people's values,
[00:05:32.100]knowledge, interaction with media,
[00:05:35.160]and the sort of knowledge that they have
[00:05:36.960]impacts these things.
[00:05:40.320]So you might have heard the term
[00:05:42.450]science communication before.
[00:05:44.040]I feel like it's more commonly discussed now.
[00:05:47.580]There's a lot of initiatives, even on our campus,
[00:05:50.400]about developing science communication.
[00:05:52.950]This is the really, what I mean by this
[00:05:55.530]is the use of things like particular skills,
[00:05:57.960]media, activities, even participating in dialogue
[00:06:01.860]and how that affects,
[00:06:04.470]kind of people's responses to scientific information.
[00:06:07.140]And often what we sort of our objective with some of this,
[00:06:11.850]with communicating about science effectively
[00:06:16.890]to the extent that we can,
[00:06:18.270]is to really foster kind of an awareness and familiarity
[00:06:22.500]with scientific topics
[00:06:24.150]to potentially even help people enjoy them.
[00:06:27.180]Whether it's really stimulating them
[00:06:29.310]through entertainment or art or, you know, going to museums
[00:06:33.960]and really feeling that kind of curiosity or awe,
[00:06:36.840]fostering interest.
[00:06:38.248]In some cases, you know,
[00:06:40.200]we're sort of motivated
[00:06:41.250]to change people's opinions in some way.
[00:06:44.130]I'll talk more about that in a little bit.
[00:06:47.880]And to even promote, like, science literacy,
[00:06:51.570]our understanding of different scientific topics,
[00:06:55.530]the processes, the social factor.
[00:06:57.480]So it's kind of growing as an area of interest in research
[00:07:03.510]and hoping to talk more about that today.
[00:07:07.530]So I also, as I mentioned, I do research,
[00:07:11.040]I teach in ALEC so often we're teaching students
[00:07:13.920]kind of communication skills, communication courses,
[00:07:17.010]whether they're people in our major
[00:07:18.510]or they're graduate students
[00:07:20.532]interested in developing their skills
[00:07:22.980]and communicating about science and things like that.
[00:07:27.060]And I'll talk about this more towards the end today,
[00:07:29.850]but some of the things that we've been working on
[00:07:32.040]are doing science communication training
[00:07:35.160]with graduate students and even scientists to some extent,
[00:07:40.410]trying to understand people's views about science,
[00:07:43.290]and kind of take the temperature on that,
[00:07:45.090]understand how that's changing
[00:07:48.240]or staying the same in some cases,
[00:07:50.790]and fostering science literacy and media literacy.
[00:07:54.630]So I think Dr. Kishwani presented at some point
[00:07:58.350]at one of these seminars, and I think others have as well,
[00:08:01.800]that are really interested in some of these same topics.
[00:08:06.930]I think to some extent some of that,
[00:08:10.530]some of the research and the science literacy efforts
[00:08:13.470]are really thinking about how science,
[00:08:15.030]how students are learning about science in classrooms
[00:08:17.610]and how they're kind of responding to new information.
[00:08:20.490]Often my research and my work
[00:08:22.950]is really looking at what happens beyond the classroom.
[00:08:25.950]So people kind of interact with scientific information
[00:08:29.490]in other kinds of informal ways,
[00:08:31.650]whether it's, you know, meeting scientists,
[00:08:34.140]whether it's reading about it in the media,
[00:08:35.940]whether it's, you know, going to a museum
[00:08:38.730]or something along those lines.
[00:08:40.020]It's kind of like what happens
[00:08:41.310]beyond the formal education setting.
[00:08:45.420]So that's really what I'm interested in.
[00:08:48.060]So today I wanted to share,
[00:08:49.740]I have probably way too much to talk about today.
[00:08:51.990]So some of it I might go through kind of quickly,
[00:08:55.590]but sort of wanna touch on some of the
[00:08:58.650]kind of specific research that I've done.
[00:09:01.650]Also, kind of an ongoing project I'm working on
[00:09:04.800]that's analyzing rural Nebraskan's views
[00:09:08.040]about a variety of issues and some ongoing efforts we have
[00:09:11.820]at UNL related to science communication
[00:09:14.190]and science literacy.
[00:09:15.450]So one thing I kind of wanted to prompt you to think about,
[00:09:18.090]and since we're a small group in the room, you know,
[00:09:21.120]you're welcome to share,
[00:09:22.200]but maybe just food for thought right now
[00:09:26.700]is what you think the public kind of knows
[00:09:29.280]or thinks about what you study, what you teach,
[00:09:32.670]if it's something that you feel that the public
[00:09:35.760]should be more or less informed about.
[00:09:39.210]Often we think, you know,
[00:09:40.297]"yes, people should know more about this,"
[00:09:42.240]they should really understand what we're working on here.
[00:09:45.390]It has important implications,
[00:09:48.600]but there's also this kind of area that I'm interested in
[00:09:54.120]that's where those attitudes, beliefs, behaviors come from.
[00:09:59.160]Any thoughts from our small contingent here
[00:10:03.240]that's in the room?
[00:10:12.930]Yeah.
[00:10:18.210]Right.
[00:10:23.280]Yep.
[00:10:28.110]Yeah, yeah, yep.
[00:10:30.120]So just a comment for those that are on Zoom,
[00:10:32.460]in case I think there's a mic,
[00:10:34.950]that, you know, sometimes people maybe don't understand
[00:10:37.650]sort of the value of basic research.
[00:10:40.380]It can be hard to communicate that very effectively.
[00:10:43.200]Anything else that comes to mind?
[00:10:58.950]Yep.
[00:11:00.780]Yeah, right.
[00:11:04.290]Yeah, right.
[00:11:05.460]So that's a concept that people don't necessarily
[00:11:07.890]always really understand is carbon sequestration, yeah.
[00:11:24.960]Really know the answer.
[00:11:26.910]33% got that right.
[00:11:30.843]Yeah.
[00:11:34.552]Hmm.
[00:11:36.312]Still 33%. Yeah.
[00:11:37.980]It's obviously (indistinct) on something.
[00:11:41.790]Hmm, Yep.
[00:11:44.420](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:11:51.330]Yeah. Right, right.
[00:11:53.370]Yeah, people not kind of understanding the process
[00:11:55.530]of carbon emissions or where they come from,
[00:11:58.470]or that timeline, anything like that.
[00:12:00.720]So that's really kind of one of the areas or elements
[00:12:04.890]I'm interested in is where that gap kind of comes from
[00:12:07.530]between what experts or scientists know,
[00:12:10.950]what the public, or kind of a broader, you know,
[00:12:14.460]non-scientist, non experts know or think,
[00:12:16.980]there tends to be kind of a gap between those things.
[00:12:20.700]I wanted to share an example.
[00:12:22.230]I'm gonna talk a little bit
[00:12:23.160]about a study I worked on recently,
[00:12:26.580]but also this kind of speaks to some of the,
[00:12:30.090]the things that you've raised here today.
[00:12:32.190]That there tends to be a big difference between,
[00:12:35.400]for instance, what scientists think
[00:12:38.490]and what the public thinks about a variety of issues.
[00:12:41.850]I mentioned before that some of my research has looked at
[00:12:45.690]the public's views toward GMO's because there's really been,
[00:12:49.980]you know, kind of a, in some cases,
[00:12:52.680]not so much in the US but maybe in other countries,
[00:12:56.730]kind of a backlash about genetically modified foods.
[00:13:02.310]And there was a study,
[00:13:03.143]this was done several years ago now, and it,
[00:13:08.520]John's probably heard me talk about this before,
[00:13:10.140]so sorry for the repeat,
[00:13:11.280]but a study that was done to examine AAAS,
[00:13:15.030]the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
[00:13:17.280]is a really large scientific organization
[00:13:19.860]with a lot of members
[00:13:21.090]representing different fields of science,
[00:13:23.130]but also journalists and teachers
[00:13:25.770]are part of that organization.
[00:13:27.150]And a group of people did some research
[00:13:30.000]about what members of AAAS
[00:13:34.110]thought about a variety of issues,
[00:13:36.570]and also a survey with the public
[00:13:38.430]about what the public thinks about a variety of issues.
[00:13:42.270]I thought I'd share this.
[00:13:43.740]This one kind of data point from that
[00:13:48.027]was that there was essentially a pretty big gap
[00:13:51.360]between what the public thought
[00:13:54.330]about the safety of genetically modified foods
[00:13:56.700]and what these scientists who were surveyed
[00:13:59.910]thought about genetically modified foods.
[00:14:01.950]So you can tell kind of from this chart that, you know,
[00:14:05.010]88% of the scientists surveyed
[00:14:08.940]thought that genetically modified foods were safe
[00:14:12.900]versus just 37% of adults.
[00:14:16.290]So there's really kind of a difference there.
[00:14:20.220]And also whether we have a,
[00:14:23.280]whether the public and whether scientists, or excuse me,
[00:14:26.760]whether the public thought
[00:14:27.990]that scientists had a clear understanding of this or not.
[00:14:32.670]And so far, you know,
[00:14:34.770]most of the research that's been, kind of,
[00:14:37.920]explored this topic of the health effects
[00:14:39.930]of genetically modified foods have suggested
[00:14:42.030]that they're safe to eat.
[00:14:44.070]But one of the things
[00:14:44.903]that I'm sort of interested in exploring
[00:14:47.970]is kind of where this gap comes from.
[00:14:49.800]Why is there sort of this disconnect
[00:14:51.840]between what scientists believe
[00:14:55.920]and what the public believes.
[00:14:57.540]And I will note that there was some kind of criticism
[00:15:00.930]of this survey because AAAS scientists,
[00:15:05.070]there's also a lot of people that are members of AAAS
[00:15:08.400]that work in like all sorts of different fields of science.
[00:15:12.180]They are journalists, they are teachers.
[00:15:14.550]And so, and to some extent people were a little bit like,
[00:15:17.347]"Oh, we gotta take this with a grain of salt."
[00:15:19.620]But it still provides kind of some insight
[00:15:22.770]into there are differences between
[00:15:25.530]these kind of groups of people.
[00:15:27.930]So one of the things that I've explored
[00:15:32.460]and the study I'm gonna share a little bit about today
[00:15:35.130]is about where this kind of gap comes from.
[00:15:38.430]And often it's related to the thing that we kind of
[00:15:45.030]label it as is perception of risk.
[00:15:48.570]And so what people think about how risky it is
[00:15:52.020]to consume something like genetically modified foods.
[00:15:55.830]And what we find is that it definitely can be related to
[00:16:00.600]what they know and what information they've encountered
[00:16:03.120]about it,
[00:16:03.953]whether they've taken time to really
[00:16:05.460]kind of dig into the research about it.
[00:16:07.800]It can be related to that,
[00:16:09.060]but often it's very influenced by values.
[00:16:14.250]And that can be things like
[00:16:17.725]how the information they've encountered
[00:16:19.950]presents the information,
[00:16:22.980]how much they trust scientists
[00:16:25.170]and scientists that have different,
[00:16:27.690]kind of work in different sectors.
[00:16:29.460]I'll talk about that in a second.
[00:16:31.560]Whether people kind of defer to scientific authority,
[00:16:34.440]that's an idea that people realize like,
[00:16:38.467]"okay, I can't understand all of the science,
[00:16:40.860]but I trust that scientists are, you know,
[00:16:44.250]that their findings are accurate or in line with reality."
[00:16:49.650]And also things like personal values,
[00:16:52.200]kind of things about their identity.
[00:16:54.750]There's a lot of information
[00:16:57.210]and research that's been done about this
[00:17:00.330]because people kind of have this visceral sometimes
[00:17:04.410]response to how they, what choices they make about food.
[00:17:09.810]You know, there's sort of a fear
[00:17:11.130]of kind of new technology and maybe misunderstanding
[00:17:13.860]of how that process of genetically modified foods works.
[00:17:18.720]Some people thinking it's not really necessary.
[00:17:22.470]And one thing that's been studied is this dimension
[00:17:25.890]of kind of feeling like it's an unnatural process.
[00:17:29.610]Some other things that we find
[00:17:33.000]are that people have kind of a reaction
[00:17:35.580]to how foods are labeled.
[00:17:38.070]Whether they're labeled as natural, organic.
[00:17:41.160]Sometimes those words are very unclear.
[00:17:43.380]Like what does that actually mean?
[00:17:45.360]But people like the sound of food
[00:17:47.370]that is labeled as natural or organic.
[00:17:50.100]They sort of have a response to when, you know,
[00:17:52.980]they started labeling genetically modified foods,
[00:17:56.190]a response to that,
[00:17:59.670]kind of mentioned this before, trust in scientists,
[00:18:01.710]but it has been found that people's trust in scientists
[00:18:06.180]who are working in more of industry
[00:18:08.370]versus kind of public scientists,
[00:18:10.440]folks like us working at universities,
[00:18:13.050]can have a different kind of, have a different effect.
[00:18:17.070]As well as people's beliefs and motivations,
[00:18:19.800]perceptions of beliefs and motivations of those
[00:18:22.530]working in the food industry.
[00:18:24.450]And also just things like gender, race,
[00:18:27.570]ethnicity, political ideology are known to be,
[00:18:32.550]kind of contribute to what people think
[00:18:34.440]about topics including genetic modification.
[00:18:39.600]One other study that I worked on a few years ago
[00:18:42.810]also kind of spoke to this idea that's come up today
[00:18:46.140]that people kind of make these
[00:18:48.390]really quick kind of judgements about how something works,
[00:18:51.660]whether it's carbon sequestration or something like that,
[00:18:55.200]that we were, we found in a study
[00:18:57.210]that people's views about nanotechnology products
[00:19:01.830]were really linked to their views
[00:19:02.880]about genetically modified organisms,
[00:19:06.090]which aren't really related, but that there was sort of,
[00:19:08.940]can be this, like, spillover effect
[00:19:10.770]that people are thinking about, like, if they're labeled
[00:19:14.640]that they have some association with each other,
[00:19:17.160]whether it's positive or negative.
[00:19:19.260]So with a study, I'm gonna talk kind of briefly about,
[00:19:21.930]'cause I'm going through kind of slower than I thought here,
[00:19:25.860]was that we conducted a study where we thought about
[00:19:29.910]the idea of scientific consensus on some of these topics.
[00:19:34.650]So often with
[00:19:41.190]kind of controversial issues,
[00:19:42.750]or not even necessarily controversial issues,
[00:19:44.580]but when there's a lot of literature out there
[00:19:47.250]about a topic that might be unclear,
[00:19:51.990]organizations will come out with a consensus report,
[00:19:55.500]or, was just recently giving a presentation,
[00:19:58.410]and we were talking about things like meta analyses
[00:20:00.870]where people conduct kind of a study of study.
[00:20:02.451]Like here's what we know so far about the research.
[00:20:05.850]So these have come out by, for instance,
[00:20:08.640]the National Academies of Science
[00:20:11.460]produced a consensus report
[00:20:14.100]about genetically engineered crops.
[00:20:16.860]The IPCC comes out with reports about,
[00:20:19.530]kind of culminating all the research and data
[00:20:23.190]and explaining it, what is known so far.
[00:20:26.280]And so we were interested in looking at whether
[00:20:29.220]kind of conveying this consensus,
[00:20:31.500]and this has been done before
[00:20:33.540]on the topic of climate science,
[00:20:36.420]that if you kind of convey to people
[00:20:38.070]that there is a consensus out there,
[00:20:39.720]that this much, this percentage for instance,
[00:20:42.210]97% of climate scientists have concluded
[00:20:45.360]that human cause climate change is happening.
[00:20:47.160]Whether talking about that
[00:20:48.870]actually affects people's perceptions about climate change.
[00:20:52.260]And views about climate change
[00:20:53.820]are kind of shifting I think in general
[00:20:56.280]so that people, more members of the public are in agreement
[00:21:00.210]that human cause climate change is happening,
[00:21:03.390]but it still sort of has that gap between what, you know,
[00:21:07.680]most scientists or climate scientists would say
[00:21:10.290]and what the public would say.
[00:21:11.940]And so we've been sort of examining this,
[00:21:14.370]whether that conveying that in a message
[00:21:17.640]is an effective way to sort of convey to people
[00:21:21.210]the reality of the science.
[00:21:24.480]So what we do typically
[00:21:27.450]is examine presenting people with a media message
[00:21:31.080]like an article that they would encounter in a newspaper
[00:21:34.350]or an online online news source
[00:21:37.890]that would talk about the scientific consensus.
[00:21:41.670]And we also wanted to consider whether talking about
[00:21:46.620]the benefits of genetically modified organisms,
[00:21:49.500]along with that consensus information
[00:21:52.110]actually influenced people's views
[00:21:55.260]about the risks of genetic modification.
[00:21:59.400]So we looked at whether conveying a scientific,
[00:22:02.700]or excuse me, an article,
[00:22:04.170]and I'll show you in a second what this sort of looked like
[00:22:07.890]if we talked about just the, or excuse me,
[00:22:11.370]just the consensus,
[00:22:12.780]if we talked about just the consensus and the benefits,
[00:22:15.510]whether that kind of influenced people's views.
[00:22:17.760]And we also looked at whether they trust scientists
[00:22:21.930]with this information.
[00:22:23.190]And just a quick aside that part of this comes from knowing,
[00:22:30.030]and it's sort of like, you might be like,
[00:22:33.307]"okay, if you know the media has limited effects,
[00:22:35.610]why do you kind of study it?"
[00:22:36.780]But we know that people get a lot of information
[00:22:39.090]about scientific topics from the media.
[00:22:41.070]There's research centers, Pew Research Center for example,
[00:22:44.700]that collects data about this
[00:22:46.230]where people kind of get scientific information
[00:22:49.890]and that that is often a large source of where
[00:22:53.280]people get information about a variety of scientific topics.
[00:22:56.340]They don't always trust it, however,
[00:22:58.380]and so that's sort of another element of this
[00:23:00.630]is that we're thinking about how much they trust media,
[00:23:03.420]how much they trust people cited in those news stories,
[00:23:07.560]and there really tends to be,
[00:23:10.530]so it's kind of like taking all of this into account
[00:23:13.620]when we're looking at whether people are influenced or not
[00:23:16.710]by these messages.
[00:23:18.240]So we essentially showed this is,
[00:23:20.220]I'd wanted to show kind of an example of how we test this
[00:23:23.010]and it's all with the awareness that, you know,
[00:23:26.010]you can share a message with people
[00:23:28.410]and we know that it might not necessarily
[00:23:30.780]completely change their mind,
[00:23:32.790]but it might maybe shift them in one direction or another.
[00:23:35.940]So we basically shared different versions of a news article,
[00:23:39.840]whether it talked about the consensus
[00:23:41.820]about genetically modified organisms or whether,
[00:23:46.080]this is the example
[00:23:46.920]that's just talking about the consensus report,
[00:23:49.080]or whether we show one that talks about the consensus
[00:23:52.770]and also talking about
[00:23:54.300]sort of the societal benefits of genetic modification.
[00:23:58.470]And this is a heavy slide with some regression results.
[00:24:01.680](Heather chuckles)
[00:24:03.120]But basically we found that
[00:24:06.630]really talking about both the scientific consensus
[00:24:10.050]and talking about the societal benefits
[00:24:13.260]of genetically modified foods
[00:24:15.750]seemed to reduce people's perceptions
[00:24:18.300]of the risks of genetically modified foods
[00:24:21.270]and increase their perceptions of the benefits,
[00:24:25.410]but also that their trust in scientists
[00:24:28.380]kind of predicted whether or not that was influenced.
[00:24:32.400]So sorry to have that regression.
[00:24:36.000]I won't walk through the stats too much unless you'd like.
[00:24:40.230]We can always come back to that if you'd like.
[00:24:42.510]So what we're kind of finding from this
[00:24:44.940]is that communicating about the consensus
[00:24:47.730]really reduces perceptions
[00:24:49.530]of the risks of genetically modified foods,
[00:24:52.560]including information about the environmental benefits,
[00:24:55.590]increases perceptions of the benefits.
[00:24:57.810]It's very word heavy, decreases perceptions of risks.
[00:25:00.810]So we saw kind of small effects of that essentially.
[00:25:04.170]That people did come to sort of align those views
[00:25:10.260]more with what the consensus suggests.
[00:25:15.780]We also noticed though
[00:25:16.950]that people who have very low trust in scientists,
[00:25:22.560]particularly we found this kind of interesting,
[00:25:24.660]that particularly those folks,
[00:25:26.520]that when we were talking about the benefits,
[00:25:30.210]that it really increased their perceptions of benefits.
[00:25:32.610]And I just wanna point point out that that, you know,
[00:25:35.700]we found that interesting because
[00:25:38.310]it can be challenging to communicate this information
[00:25:41.490]with those folks who maybe have
[00:25:43.350]very low trust in the scientists.
[00:25:46.140]So, you know,
[00:25:48.960]conveying that message that talks about the benefits
[00:25:51.780]might in fact be a useful strategy for doing so.
[00:25:55.650]Okay. That was a lot.
[00:25:56.820]Any questions?
[00:25:58.710]I'll pause for a second.
[00:25:59.940]Any questions about that particular study?
[00:26:04.740]Very quick overview of,
[00:26:08.160]but wanted to give you kind of a snapshot
[00:26:09.810]of how we tend to look at this.
[00:26:11.340]We're gauging where people kind of,
[00:26:13.500]where they are often, you know,
[00:26:16.260]in my research we test the effectiveness of certain messages
[00:26:20.460]knowing that they may be, you know,
[00:26:23.820]there may be a lot kind of at play,
[00:26:25.800]that people's kind of values
[00:26:27.810]and use of media might affect that.
[00:26:29.820]John, did you have a question?
[00:26:38.580]Yeah.
[00:26:40.242]I find that interesting.
[00:26:43.324](John speaks away from microphone indistinctly)
[00:26:49.077]And I wonder if different in those
[00:26:53.190]where it's almost more acceptable to have
[00:26:55.365]a money or monetary bias than it is to have
[00:26:59.853]a perceived political bias.
[00:27:01.713]Public scientists might have to receive political bias.
[00:27:06.137]Yeah.
[00:27:06.970]And cause I'm trying to think why (indistinct)
[00:27:10.311]They're not out there for the money.
[00:27:11.331]Right. But it could be.
[00:27:15.587]Right. Political standpoint.
[00:27:17.010]But this private scientist,
[00:27:18.861]I don't see politics,
[00:27:19.821]but I see that they, maybe they agreed, that's okay,
[00:27:22.385]I don't mind that
[00:27:23.283]I understand. Right. Right.
[00:27:25.230]I'm more clear what their bias is (indistinct).
[00:27:27.660]Yeah, yeah.
[00:27:28.650]So I don't have, like, a graph for this or anything,
[00:27:32.220]but we did,
[00:27:33.090]so what we noticed with these data,
[00:27:35.010]and I think is replicated in other studies
[00:27:37.860]is that there tends to be more trust in public scientists
[00:27:41.640]than in industry scientists.
[00:27:44.940]And you know, people have looked at that from, like,
[00:27:47.940]broadly speaking industry scientists,
[00:27:51.450]but also things like, you know,
[00:27:53.010]people were very interested for a while,
[00:27:56.820]particularly when thinking about
[00:27:58.020]genetically modified organisms about, you know,
[00:28:01.320]there's a lot of,
[00:28:04.950]how should I put this?
[00:28:07.020]Dislike or shade thrown on Monsanto for instance.
[00:28:10.890]And so people have studied like, you know,
[00:28:13.230]that particular views toward Monsanto specifically
[00:28:18.240]because it's viewed as, you know,
[00:28:21.690]scientists from an organization like that
[00:28:24.030]have more of a monetary incentive
[00:28:26.130]and that that typically means, like,
[00:28:28.417]"oh I'm less trusting of information from them."
[00:28:31.980]Yeah, yeah.
[00:28:34.380]When they told us what to do.
[00:28:36.570]I know, right, right.
[00:28:38.940]And I think that some of that research
[00:28:40.758]is kind of coming out now because, you know,
[00:28:45.060]some people think that, sort of,
[00:28:46.860]the public scientists weren't, like,
[00:28:48.450]they were front and center in media and things like that,
[00:28:50.970]maybe weren't doing it as well as we wanted them to
[00:28:54.090]or not conveying the evidence thus far.
[00:28:57.930]So I think that research, in fact I'm not gonna,
[00:29:00.030]that's a good segue sort of,
[00:29:01.620]I'm gonna make sort of a leap here,
[00:29:03.000]but one of the projects that I work on,
[00:29:06.690]and I thought some of you might be kind of interested
[00:29:09.000]in hearing about is really looking at,
[00:29:13.440]the study I just talked about looked at
[00:29:15.300]testing different kind of messages
[00:29:18.150]and in a kind of experimental format.
[00:29:20.280]But we also do, I work on a project called The Rural Poll,
[00:29:24.000]and we look at, every year we do a survey
[00:29:29.100]with rural Nebraskans about their views
[00:29:31.080]toward a variety of issues.
[00:29:33.090]And this is more of, you know, not experimental,
[00:29:36.780]essentially just kind of taking the temperature
[00:29:38.850]about what rural Nebraskans think about a variety of issues.
[00:29:43.050]So the purpose,
[00:29:46.410]this is sort of the purpose of the rural poll,
[00:29:48.420]I'll share with you,
[00:29:49.253]it might make more sense for you to share.
[00:29:51.270]It's a large team of folks,
[00:29:52.710]many from agricultural economics.
[00:29:56.160]We have one team member from the college of business at UNO,
[00:30:01.050]myself, couple of people from Extension,
[00:30:04.560]and we conduct the survey across the state.
[00:30:07.560]In some cases we also survey people in what we call metro,
[00:30:11.700]but it's really like urban areas
[00:30:13.410]as determined by an organization several years ago.
[00:30:19.530]We've defined some of these areas as metro or urban areas.
[00:30:24.750]And I won't share with you this very excessive detail
[00:30:28.920]about how we do it,
[00:30:29.753]but essentially we send paper surveys out
[00:30:31.530]to a random sample of Nebraskans,
[00:30:33.780]we ask them about a variety of issues.
[00:30:36.540]Usually we get a couple, like 1,500 responses,
[00:30:40.100]something like that.
[00:30:41.180]In the year, in this 2021
[00:30:43.740]we surveyed Metro Nebraskans or Urban Nebraskans as well.
[00:30:49.830]We don't always do that.
[00:30:50.910]It depends on whether we get the funding or not.
[00:30:52.500]We're really more interested in monitoring
[00:30:54.360]kind of rural Nebraskan's views
[00:30:58.380]over time and things like that.
[00:30:59.790]So if anybody has questions about the methods,
[00:31:03.630]I would be happy to share those in more detail.
[00:31:05.910]So I wanted to share this a little bit.
[00:31:07.680]These are basically just topics
[00:31:09.330]that we've examined in the past
[00:31:11.010]related to agriculture,
[00:31:14.130]related to the environment.
[00:31:15.720]For example, we often, let me see, I think it's, yeah.
[00:31:22.350]I was just gonna share that in 2021 we recently, you know,
[00:31:29.670]this, me trying to segue from (chucking) John's point
[00:31:33.000]is that we were really focused on looking at things like
[00:31:36.390]people's experiences with Covid-19,
[00:31:38.700]and actually we have some data about their trust
[00:31:41.100]in different sources of health information,
[00:31:43.764]trust in media institutions,
[00:31:47.160]sort of their work and employment status,
[00:31:48.960]how that shifted during the pandemic,
[00:31:52.380]demographic characteristics.
[00:31:54.060]I also wanted to share that in 2022,
[00:31:57.420]we ask some of the same questions year to year,
[00:31:59.490]so things about community wellbeing,
[00:32:01.530]individual and family wellbeing.
[00:32:03.720]Again, some of this is really supported
[00:32:05.850]by people interested in community development and Extension.
[00:32:11.400]And so we're sort of tracking that,
[00:32:12.810]monitoring how that changes over time.
[00:32:15.090]But we also asked a series of questions
[00:32:17.730]about natural resources.
[00:32:19.320]So we asked about people's,
[00:32:21.150]kind of their source of home tap water,
[00:32:23.220]that was an interesting sort of a new topic
[00:32:27.390]that we explored given,
[00:32:30.480]we were thinking about the nitrate water issue,
[00:32:32.760]things like that,
[00:32:33.630]and whether or not they test their water, home tap water,
[00:32:37.020]also concerns about, you know,
[00:32:38.850]contaminants in their drinking water,
[00:32:41.370]availability of water overall.
[00:32:45.060]And then we also asked about their experiences
[00:32:47.100]with extreme weather, attitudes toward climate change,
[00:32:49.890]views toward investing in different energy sources.
[00:32:52.200]So unfortunately we just are getting these data in
[00:32:56.490]and so I don't have any to share with you
[00:32:58.830]about these particular topics,
[00:33:01.080]but I did wanna share it because we will have data available
[00:33:09.048]the Rural Poll team that,
[00:33:13.080]particularly Becky Voit,
[00:33:15.000]who works in agricultural economics, puts together report,
[00:33:17.310]so if anybody sort of wanted to share that
[00:33:19.380]because often, you know,
[00:33:21.060]in grant proposals or something like that,
[00:33:22.920]we're sort of interested in looking at like,
[00:33:24.960]okay, we know there's maybe,
[00:33:26.760]we don't always know where people in rural communities are
[00:33:30.780]with different issues.
[00:33:32.670]Just some, we do have some data.
[00:33:34.800]This is from I think 2020
[00:33:38.100]that talks about people's experiences
[00:33:40.020]with farming and ranching,
[00:33:41.910]and dependence on the agricultural industry.
[00:33:45.210]And we've really seen,
[00:33:48.150]you know, it kind of speaks to how
[00:33:50.160]that's an important part of our state,
[00:33:52.800]but there's kind of this growing distance I think
[00:33:54.930]between people's proximity to the agriculture industry.
[00:33:58.950]You can kind of see from,
[00:34:00.780]you know, the percentage of people
[00:34:02.160]who have that history in their family,
[00:34:05.190]respondents now fewer of them have that relationship.
[00:34:09.060]So just wanted to sort of share that these data exist.
[00:34:14.040]We're not always great at putting the information out there,
[00:34:16.950]but if you find that there are things
[00:34:18.600]that you are working on where you either
[00:34:22.050]would like to survey rural Nebraskans about something,
[00:34:25.380]we often take proposals for certain questions
[00:34:28.890]that people would like to ask.
[00:34:32.340]Went a little bit out of order here.
[00:34:35.040]But also to share that, you know,
[00:34:36.660]unfortunately I don't have the 2022 data yet,
[00:34:39.870]but there are some interesting topics
[00:34:41.940]that we've explored there that will,
[00:34:45.180]for instance, even compare attitudes about climate change.
[00:34:48.300]We have data about that from 2015
[00:34:50.460]and can compare those ex experiences with extreme weather.
[00:34:55.080]We asked about a couple of years ago,
[00:34:58.020]and John might be interested in our views
[00:34:59.970]about investing in different energy sources
[00:35:01.950]and how that's sort of shifting.
[00:35:03.720]So those are things that we're really monitoring
[00:35:07.680]year by year, kind of,
[00:35:09.060]sometimes we call it like an omnibus survey, which is like,
[00:35:11.790]there's a variety of issues that people are asked about,
[00:35:14.940]and we try to kind of capture that
[00:35:16.800]through this survey research.
[00:35:20.100]This was just the example
[00:35:21.180]of how we asked about water questions
[00:35:24.390]in the Rural Poll that we just are getting data from now.
[00:35:28.620]Any questions about the Rural Poll?
[00:35:31.140]It's kind of a plug,
[00:35:31.973]I'm kind of doing a plug here for the Rural Poll, so.
[00:35:34.410](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:35:47.520]Yeah.
[00:35:48.353](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:35:55.162]Really?
[00:35:56.505](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:36:00.717]How small of towns? (Heather chuckles)
[00:36:04.530]Okay.
[00:36:14.940]Yeah.
[00:36:15.773](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:36:19.590]Interesting.
[00:36:20.555](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:36:31.410]Yeah.
[00:36:32.730]So what I think then we did there.
[00:36:39.780]So year by year, I kind of mentioned this before,
[00:36:42.540]but we typically only survey rural Nebraskans.
[00:36:48.210]And so I believe that,
[00:36:52.350]and, like, occasionally when we have funding to do so,
[00:36:56.310]we also survey metropolitan or urban Nebraskans
[00:37:03.060]and give them essentially the same survey
[00:37:04.740]and then can kind of compare, like,
[00:37:06.300]where their differences.
[00:37:08.070]So it looks like that group,
[00:37:12.480]those yellow counties are classified
[00:37:16.140]by this Office of Management and Budget
[00:37:20.640]that came out in 2013,
[00:37:24.600]as they classified them as metropolitan,
[00:37:27.480]but they were actually surveyed in the Rural Poll.
[00:37:30.240]So, like, kind of grouped with the rural respondents
[00:37:32.880]in that group.
[00:37:37.050]Oh really?
[00:37:37.883](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:37:52.260]Yeah.
[00:37:53.093](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:37:55.410]Yeah.
[00:37:56.243]Well one thing we're kind of, you know,
[00:37:58.290]interested in I think
[00:37:59.490]is often we don't see,
[00:38:01.320]there are some topics where we don't see a lot of difference
[00:38:05.550]between urban respondents and rural respondents.
[00:38:08.730]That there's really very similar things
[00:38:11.550]in terms of attitudes about variety, you know,
[00:38:13.740]issues and things like that.
[00:38:16.500]But I didn't share this today, but for instance,
[00:38:21.690]there were very different experiences with the pandemic
[00:38:26.100]that people for instance had, you know,
[00:38:29.130]were much more impacted
[00:38:32.370]in terms of people in rural communities
[00:38:34.170]were more impacted in terms of someone in their community
[00:38:36.510]getting ill or dying or being hospitalized
[00:38:40.020]than people in urban areas and some things like that.
[00:38:45.330]So I don't have the data with me today.
[00:38:47.370]If anybody's ever interested, I'd be happy to share that.
[00:38:49.680]We'll hopefully have some publications
[00:38:51.870]coming out about that, but.
[00:38:53.550]So it's interesting.
[00:38:54.630]I think our state is interesting in that way
[00:38:56.760]because some things are kind of similar across the state,
[00:39:01.290]but we also do see differences
[00:39:03.150]and often with survey research,
[00:39:06.870]which I've done a lot of survey research
[00:39:08.940]in the past that looks at like national surveys ,
[00:39:12.390]that look at like an representative of the entire US,
[00:39:15.870]we try to sample from a representative sample
[00:39:19.080]across the United States,
[00:39:20.280]but often rural respondents
[00:39:22.800]are kind of underrepresented in those surveys.
[00:39:25.740]And so I really like working on this project
[00:39:28.920]because it's an effort to kind of gauge what is going on
[00:39:32.670]in the hearts and minds, if you will, of rural Nebraskans.
[00:39:37.170]So.
[00:39:40.470]How are we doing on time?
[00:39:41.330]Am I almost?
[00:39:42.360]I do wanna leave time for questions
[00:39:43.770]for anybody that's on Zoom.
[00:39:48.480]But I wanted to share too that, you know,
[00:39:50.310]I talked a little bit about this kind of interest
[00:39:53.340]in science communication
[00:39:54.660]that's kind of become its own field in a lot of ways,
[00:39:59.070]and so there's some kind of ongoing efforts
[00:40:01.740]related to science communication across campus.
[00:40:05.130]One of the things we're thinking about is that,
[00:40:08.310]more and more it's kind of drawn,
[00:40:12.370]this was a National Academies report that came out
[00:40:15.210]about graduate STEM education, which really highlighted,
[00:40:19.170]uh oh,
[00:40:25.020]how important, kind of,
[00:40:26.340]communication and engagement experiences are
[00:40:28.770]for graduate students that are in STEM fields.
[00:40:31.170]That it's important to kind of foster those skills.
[00:40:35.550]Whether it's because they're going into an academic career
[00:40:38.640]where they're going to have to talk about
[00:40:40.320]sort of the broader impacts of their work,
[00:40:43.260]or they're going into industry
[00:40:45.000]or what we call, like, alt academic careers,
[00:40:47.910]that kind of communication skills
[00:40:49.590]are considered more important.
[00:40:51.630]It might be that if they're going into an academic career
[00:40:54.180]that they really need to talk about, you know,
[00:40:56.610]the broader impacts.
[00:40:57.750]They, we're seeing this sort of gap
[00:41:00.090]and misunderstanding about scientific topics
[00:41:02.460]that that can be one avenue to do so.
[00:41:05.610]And a few more that I was gonna share,
[00:41:07.260]I'm co-teaching a course that's offered with,
[00:41:11.040]was offered spring 2022, will be offered fall 2022
[00:41:14.730]as a mini session and spring 2023 on science communication.
[00:41:19.431]We recently had a SciComm conference,
[00:41:22.260]and I'll show some of these in a moment.
[00:41:24.720]Christine Booth, who's part of this department,
[00:41:28.920]is working on the science communication hub,
[00:41:30.780]which is an INR effort
[00:41:32.370]to kind of improve communication skills,
[00:41:35.160]science communication skills across IANR,
[00:41:37.560]particularly for graduate students.
[00:41:40.200]We recently completed a conference that we had
[00:41:42.810]that brought people from, it was mostly virtual,
[00:41:45.780]so brought people from all over the country
[00:41:50.250]and a couple people from different parts of the world
[00:41:54.210]to talk about this idea of sharing science.
[00:41:57.270]Really thinking about how it can be kind of polarized
[00:42:01.320]and really understanding that the origins of that.
[00:42:05.940]So that's a conference
[00:42:06.810]that's offered at UNL every other year.
[00:42:10.050]Typically very low cost.
[00:42:11.400]So something to consider for your students.
[00:42:13.470]I'm also part of a grand challenges planning grant team
[00:42:17.400]that's thinking about how to kind of
[00:42:18.690]coordinate some of these efforts
[00:42:20.310]related to science communication
[00:42:22.287]and science engagement across campus.
[00:42:25.710]Of course, 'cause it's a planning grant,
[00:42:27.120]we're figuring out what that's going to look like.
[00:42:28.950]We're planning for that right now.
[00:42:30.870]So those are just a few things that are going on right now.
[00:42:34.380]Looks like I'm wrapping up just a time for questions.
[00:42:40.950]Went through that really rapid-fire fast.
[00:42:43.080]So welcome any questions about
[00:42:46.320]some things we talked about today.
[00:42:52.410]Yes.
[00:42:53.244](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:42:55.050]Okay.
[00:42:56.767](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:43:24.461](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:43:48.592](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:44:06.752]Yeah.
[00:44:07.585]He says you know that (indistinct)
[00:44:10.191](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:44:15.914]Yeah. Yep.
[00:44:17.430]Yeah.
[00:44:20.460]That's really interesting.
[00:44:22.514]A good point. Yeah.
[00:44:24.610](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:44:34.260]Is lack of clear definition.
[00:44:39.498](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:44:44.040]Yeah. Right, right.
[00:44:45.717]And so separating that from (indistinct).
[00:44:50.074](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:44:55.770]Yep.
[00:45:00.180]it leads to a problem
[00:45:03.312]of lack of understanding in the public of (indistinct).
[00:45:06.032](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:45:12.096]Yeah. Right.
[00:45:15.333]The other thing I wanna (indistinct).
[00:45:17.652](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:45:25.110]Yep.
[00:45:26.373](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:45:42.752]Lack of trust in our republic.
[00:45:48.250]Media and in our scientific community.
[00:45:59.610]Yes. No, that's a tall order.
[00:46:02.130]But, Well I mean we,
[00:46:03.750]I think what I am interested in looking at
[00:46:06.810]is kind of where people are, you know, the origins of that,
[00:46:11.490]of course, trying to kind of track that over time.
[00:46:14.820]I wish I had this slide 'cause I've showed this before,
[00:46:17.880]but it's interesting because actually,
[00:46:24.900]I mean, you mentioned trust in scientists,
[00:46:27.450]trust in journalists, trust in public officials.
[00:46:31.380]And actually, like, over time,
[00:46:33.750]some of the most trusted people
[00:46:35.850]in our society are scientists,
[00:46:38.190]and that's been pretty consistent over time.
[00:46:40.560]So we've been talking a lot about
[00:46:43.500]there's a decline in trust
[00:46:44.910]and there is kind of a slight decline maybe in that,
[00:46:48.330]it'll be interesting to think about
[00:46:49.710]how the pandemic potentially affected that,
[00:46:52.230]whether that did have sort of an effect
[00:46:54.720]on people's trust in scientists overall,
[00:46:57.720]whether people thought it was like handled well or not.
[00:47:00.900]But I will say that trust in scientists
[00:47:03.450]has been one of the most,
[00:47:06.300]they're one of the most highly trusted groups in society.
[00:47:11.910]Trust in public officials, definitely on the decline.
[00:47:15.330]Right?
[00:47:16.163]And trust, sadly because I have family who are journalists,
[00:47:20.460]trust in journalists and media tends to be fairly low
[00:47:24.150]in terms of overall trust in different groups in society.
[00:47:29.130]So, I mean, my, one of my, like,
[00:47:36.090]and I say this very cautiously,
[00:47:37.500]proposed ways to bridge that
[00:47:40.830]is to think about how scientists interact with publics,
[00:47:46.770]and, you know, one of the things that we propose is that,
[00:47:49.920]while I'm aware that it's hard to add,
[00:47:51.810]like, something else onto, you know, onto scientists plates
[00:47:55.830]because we all have many tasks that we have to have to do,
[00:48:00.780]but that maybe better skills for engaging with
[00:48:04.680]and communicating with different types of audiences
[00:48:07.410]may be a way to maintain trust.
[00:48:12.900]I think transparency and things like that.
[00:48:15.120]Being able to convey
[00:48:17.190]the implications of the work that's being done,
[00:48:20.220]which is not always an easy task.
[00:48:22.920]John mentioned, you know,
[00:48:23.970]basic science that's kind of hard to convey sometimes,
[00:48:27.480]but that that is one avenue that, you know,
[00:48:32.430]we're thinking is a good way to maintain that trust.
[00:48:37.152](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:48:42.707]Having build that trust
[00:48:44.430]because what I see sometimes is that
[00:48:47.670]it appears that the public wants a scientist
[00:48:52.080]to stand up and say,
[00:48:53.257]"this is what, this is very clear, very concise."
[00:48:58.212]Yep. "This is what is is."
[00:48:59.045]Yep. But scientists aren't
[00:49:02.040]exposed to doing that.
[00:49:03.090]Right. They learned to not do that.
[00:49:05.192]Right. They learned to lead,
[00:49:08.524]Right. And to be very honest
[00:49:10.331]about if they don't know.
[00:49:11.320]Yep. Be very honest
[00:49:12.153]about how complex it is,
[00:49:13.350]and not be so definitive about what it is.
[00:49:16.504]And rightly so, right?
[00:49:18.292]I mean, they don't want (indistinct).
[00:49:20.600](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:49:23.600]Right. But that's not the role
[00:49:25.290]that people expect-. Right. Right.
[00:49:27.900]This is the world's foremost expert
[00:49:29.970]on x, y, z.
[00:49:31.020]They expect to tell you- Yes.
[00:49:32.392]The answers. Right. Right.
[00:49:34.371]And when you say, well,
[00:49:35.894]so I wanna (indistinct) communication style
[00:49:37.492]a little bit of (indistinct).
[00:49:38.900](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:49:48.145](indistinct) Of that. I don't know.
[00:49:49.650]I just see so much,
[00:49:50.483]and people are willing to stand up and say,
[00:49:51.937]"this is what it is,"
[00:49:53.400]they get (indistinct)
[00:49:54.628](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:50:01.860]Yeah. I wanna talk to that guy.
[00:50:05.136]That's. Right. Right.
[00:50:06.480]Yeah.
[00:50:07.313]And I think that, you know, that comes to, you know,
[00:50:09.510]where the public is coming from
[00:50:10.373]and the idea of, like, science literacy,
[00:50:13.560]even like what happens in our, you know,
[00:50:16.440]I mentioned that what I'm interested in
[00:50:18.270]is sort of what happens beyond formal education,
[00:50:20.700]but you know,
[00:50:23.580]we've come to be very uncomfortable with, like, uncertainty,
[00:50:27.390]and yet uncertainty is part of, kind of,
[00:50:29.460]the scientific process.
[00:50:31.140]And so it might be fostering kind of an understanding
[00:50:35.070]of that process and where there is uncertainty,
[00:50:39.150]and that's kind of part of the process.
[00:50:41.970]So it certainly comes from,
[00:50:44.100]it's a wicked problem in a lot of ways.
[00:50:47.040]You know.
[00:50:51.177](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:50:58.980]Move forward as a scientific community.
[00:51:01.938](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:51:10.505]And all of sudden
[00:51:11.730]that uncertainty is brought up
[00:51:13.380]even though, really the most (indistinct).
[00:51:15.692](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:51:16.929]Right.
[00:51:18.180]Married to the 95% Absolutely.
[00:51:21.481]Right. Yes. (Heather chuckles)
[00:51:25.075]Yep. A lot of things.
[00:51:27.853](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:51:38.677]If it's 70% or 80%.
[00:51:42.060]And, but, we're taught from day one, statisticians-
[00:51:49.416]Yep. Are to be super cautious,
[00:51:51.992]And, you know, I saw recently in the New York Times.
[00:51:57.629](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:52:08.730]Especially in elderly people.
[00:52:10.388](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:52:16.950]Yeah.
[00:52:17.910]There was a big divide in terms of who is taking this,
[00:52:24.060]even among the physicians that they hesitate
[00:52:28.410]to recommend it or prescribe it
[00:52:33.030]because there are these outliers or side effects
[00:52:37.260]things that have been publicized
[00:52:39.665]and as soon as somebody makes a big deal
[00:52:41.460]about side effects is possible.
[00:52:48.510]Right. Right Maybe it's only one chance
[00:52:51.270]in a million but it's possible.
[00:52:53.070]Right. Right.
[00:52:55.337]People who are mad
[00:52:56.460]are poor internal statisticians that. (indistinct)
[00:53:00.450]Yeah.
[00:53:02.187](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:53:20.175]Yeah.
[00:53:21.135]Well I think it,
[00:53:22.410]it helps us kind of understand though
[00:53:24.090]because I mean I kind,
[00:53:25.110]I think when we relate it to even the recent Covid example,
[00:53:29.070]it kind of illuminates why our risk percept, you know,
[00:53:32.640]I use the term risk perception can be so off
[00:53:35.220]because, you know,
[00:53:37.050]I use kind of biased thinking with things too.
[00:53:40.620]I mean, I know, I mean,
[00:53:43.020]I personally got vaccine vaccines as soon as I could,
[00:53:46.200]but you know, you sort of understand when people have,
[00:53:49.290]are worried about side effects,
[00:53:50.760]and they're like weighing,
[00:53:52.177]"should I do this or should I not?"
[00:53:54.600]And it doesn't always seem very rational, but you know,
[00:53:58.500]maybe it's being cautious or something like that.
[00:54:00.600]I think it kind of illuminates
[00:54:02.130]these values that we all sometimes do these kind of biased,
[00:54:08.130]you know, make these choices that are, like,
[00:54:10.950]not particularly, that are,
[00:54:13.230]they're influenced by our beliefs,
[00:54:14.820]are values are kind of this,
[00:54:16.050]even visceral kind of responses to things.
[00:54:17.839]I mean, I don't know that article,
[00:54:20.070]I'll have to look that up.
[00:54:21.180]Yeah.
[00:54:22.259](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:54:24.540]Yep.
[00:54:27.039]Being fed by
[00:54:27.872]the people who talk about conspiracy theories.
[00:54:30.102]Yep.
[00:54:33.071](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:54:36.750]Okay. In a loud voice.
[00:54:38.310]And a loud voice will drown out the room.
[00:54:40.511]I had a group of farmers one time,
[00:54:41.790]we're having a conversation on energy use in agriculture.
[00:54:44.743](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:54:54.360]All of a sudden I'm (indistinct).
[00:54:56.495](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:55:05.700]Okay, okay. Just to talk him down.
[00:55:09.285](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:55:12.363]They're not gonna risk this in their social context,
[00:55:14.780]him getting in an argument with them in the middle of that.
[00:55:18.697](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:55:21.319]Yeah. Yeah. And this is
[00:55:23.454]with social media,
[00:55:24.431]I'm that voice that kills for reason direction.
[00:55:27.330]Right And.
[00:55:28.168](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:55:29.800]Yeah. Yeah.
[00:55:32.400]There are some communication theories that talk about that.
[00:55:35.219](Heather chuckles) How that all devolves
[00:55:37.170]and that people,
[00:55:38.460]the people in the,
[00:55:40.343]they perceive themselves to be in the minority,
[00:55:42.840]but they're probably the silent majority
[00:55:45.870]get kind of drowned out, yeah.
[00:55:49.491](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:56:03.600]Strategies and are (indistinct)
[00:56:07.259](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:56:10.230]Grad students to use these strategies.
[00:56:14.310]Yeah, good question.
[00:56:16.440]So talking about the risks benefits as a strategy
[00:56:23.610]for talking about them and some of your courses.
[00:56:26.460]And I think, yeah, I mean I think that what, you know,
[00:56:29.790]some of this research,
[00:56:31.200]what many others are doing suggests that talking about,
[00:56:34.950]sort of, the societal implications is really important,
[00:56:38.730]and whether, you know, what we find is
[00:56:41.664]the study that I just shared
[00:56:43.230]is one at talking about the, you know,
[00:56:45.450]uncertainty of things, right?
[00:56:46.920]This is one study that I'm sharing with you,
[00:56:49.650]but this has been shown in other, in other research that,
[00:56:55.170]you know, conveying, talking about the benefits,
[00:56:59.430]often media coverage for instance
[00:57:01.710]tends to emphasize risk information,
[00:57:04.170]sort of the negatives, the harms,
[00:57:06.360]but in some cases really focusing on those benefits as well.
[00:57:10.170]And I don't mean to suggest
[00:57:11.310]that this be kind of manipulative in some way,
[00:57:14.160]but that benefit information
[00:57:15.720]about the benefits of some issues and technologies
[00:57:19.320]can really be a powerful way to communicate about them.
[00:57:23.610]I hope that answers Catherine's question.
[00:57:30.900]So Yes. I would suggest so.
[00:57:32.087](Heather chuckles)
[00:57:33.660]Other thoughts? Questions?
[00:57:36.243](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:57:37.890]Oh, you have one more?
[00:57:39.355](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:57:40.530]A comment.
[00:57:43.200]Issue of climate change being taught.
[00:57:47.454](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:57:50.910]Right. And not necessarily,
[00:57:53.115]being much important.
[00:57:54.750]Okay. But they were.
[00:57:57.064](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:58:07.630](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:58:17.730]So meaning the folks working in climate science,
[00:58:20.850]or in like Well a lot of the government
[00:58:27.341]funding source (indistinct)
[00:58:28.726](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:58:29.942]Okay. Hmm.
[00:58:33.480](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:58:45.960]Yeah.
[00:58:50.615](student speaks indistinctly away from microphone)
[00:58:59.068]The answer is yes (indistinct).
[00:59:00.936]Right.
[00:59:03.166]Thank you. (Heather laughs)
[00:59:07.228]Thank you guys.
[00:59:08.968](audience claps)

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Communicating Science to Public Audiences

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