Science Communication Toolkit: Part 1: Catching Their Interest

When teaching people about science online, what tools should you have in your toolbox?

Science communication, at its best, cuts past popular intimidation about science and math to reach any audience. This video shows why it’s important to make science communication exciting.

What is Science Communication? from Morag Hickman on Vimeo.

Here’s a list of concepts to add to the tools you use when communicating science online.

1. Learning Styles

Although you may be a visual thinker and learn well by using mind maps or flow charts, your audiences may prefer listening or participating in active demonstrations. When I was working in a factory in 2001, I found that my coworkers on the shop floor preferred handling three-dimensional prototypes to reading files and printouts.

Some of your audiences may prefer concrete examples to abstract information or prefer synthesizing ideas to breaking them down. Science communication in classrooms usually favors abstract concepts, visual and auditory learning, and breaking down ideas. This leaves many students – especially ones who prefer concrete examples and active learning – out in the cold. This is one reason that science developed its “chilly” reputation.

2. Storytelling

Why does storytelling matter in science communication? For many reasons. If you’re trying to craft a message or idea that audiences will remember, a story line can act as a hook to increase their interest and help them remember the information.

People who provide on-the-job training are aware of the power of storytelling and use it frequently. I’ve seen one example in which a trainer used storytelling to teach an audience how to remember people’s names.

Storytelling is especially important if you want to encourage an audience to take a socially positive action. Smartmeme is one organization which uses storytelling about social issues to capture the attention of audiences.

Poynter’s News University offers storytelling courses for journalists. I recommend their video and audio storytelling classes highly.

3. Analogies

Comparing an unfamiliar science concept to a known one – especially an everyday experience – is a great tool for science communicators. You can use analogies to show differences in scale – for example, comparing the size of the sun to the size of other planets. Analogies can become very important if you’re describing things that are difficult to see or imagine, like nanoparticles.

You can also use analogies to compare and contrast human experiences with those of other species – for example, to describe the importance of a dog’s sense of smell. While it’s tempting to compare humans to animals, sometimes the similarities can lead to people personifying animals and thinking that we are more similar to them than we are.

Where Gonzo Journalism Meets Web 2.0

In journalism, there’s a relatively new movement called Hacks/Hackers. I call it a movement because it appears to be more than a trend or isolated group. Journalists who are part of Hacks/Hackers seek to mix tech smarts with journalism savvy.

Is Journalism Marrying Technology?

Because I got an engineering degree before studying mass communication, it’s fascinating for me to watch this movement expand. Infographics, multimedia, Web 2.0 and other techniques of the information revolution combine with journalism’s traditional tools of the trade to create hybrid communication styles. For storytellers with graphic design and video experience, the possibilities are endless.

My first encounter with the idea of technologically advanced storytelling came via mashups. Since then, I’ve seen alternatives proliferate online. For example, Beth Kanter’s blog uses infographics and video on nonprofit communication to amplify her message. I am interested in moving this blog in that direction by adding more multimedia content.

Does Social Media Use Move Writers Closer to Gonzo Journalism?

A recent blog post reflecting on a Hacks/Hackers meetup in Boston brings up the question of how personal storytelling affects objectivity in new media journalism. Telling personal stories is a standby for me on this blog; in the world of Web 2.0, having a personality is an advantage. But this makes it difficult for writers to maintain the professional distance from their stories that many journalism organizations have expected.

While I follow rules about balance – which depend on the project I’m doing and its audience – my blog does have a personality. This doesn’t mean every aspect of my life belongs in my Twitter feed. But it does mean that social media has changed the way I write and has moved my blogging style away from traditional newswriting toward a fusion of the personal and the professional.

As a graduate student, I drew on my personal experience of living in urban communities to develop my research and thesis. That certainly colors my perspective on writing about environmental justice. In the interest of balance, I should say I’ve also worked in electronics factories and research labs which contributed to chemical pollution. I became interested in life cycle analysis while I was working in one of these factories.

There is a tradition called gonzo journalism in which writers go out and state their experiences without claiming objectivity. To the extent that social media makes journalists show their personal experiences, blogging may be bringing us closer to that style of writing. The popularity of reality TV shows that being oneself can appeal to audiences. I’m not suggesting that journalists’ lives should be open books, or that social media should make us all write like Hunter S. Thompson, but it’s interesting to watch how writers merge the personal and professional in their social media work.

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Blog Poll for the New Year

How to Meet Editors on Twitter

I started writing queries to editors via social media because I realized how much journalists love their blogs and Twitter accounts. So when I wrote a marketing plan that included meeting editors online, I looked on Twitter.

According to the Pew Foundation, only eight percent of the United States population uses Twitter. Twitter users are well-educated innovators; they cluster occupationally and demographically. They’re professionally experienced, often work in computer and media fields, and are increasingly likely to be Latino.

Combining these pieces of information shows that senior-level media professionals are likely to make up a larger-than-average fraction of the pie chart. Since I was looking for editors, Twitter was a logical place to find them. (Another useful site for meeting subject-matter experts is Quora.)

A website called Muckrack makes it easy to find well-known journalists’ Twitter accounts. Muckrack aggregates tweets from writers at many publications. Watching Muckrack is one quick way to get the pulse of conversations at a news organization.

When I opened my Twitter account, I was taking a break from freelancing. I used the site solely for news reading for over half a year. This gave me lists of target publications which I could contact later; I use Twitter’s list feature to sort the sources I read. Twitter’s list feature allows me to group sources by topic for easier reading. This feature is like a filing system for incoming tweets.

I enrolled in a series of social media trainings that taught me how to use Twitter more interactively than I’d done before. After these trainings, I created a list called “networking” and began adding editors and journalists to it. As I followed these new contacts, some of them followed me back. I began asking them questions, reading the news that interested them, and passing along their tweets to my readers.

Once I was ready to take my show on the road and send a few queries out, I looked at the “networking” list, picked out likely publications, thought of a few story ideas, and started contacting the editors via Twitter. Since some of the editors were following me already, I was able to message them.

My Twitter response rate for queries has been more reliable than email for some publications. After I have the editor’s address, I follow the 140-character query with an email. Once I have built a relationship on Twitter, I maintain it by staying in contact and forwarding links occasionally (including @username in a tweet that may interest the editor).

Translating Science Is Translating Culture

When I jazz information up to present it in this blog, I’m aware translating science can be risky. When I started introducing myself as a journalist at parties, some people backed away. There’s a perception that professional communicators aren’t trustworthy – and that polishing information for presentation makes it less real or less reliable.

I put some grit into the branding for this website because I am used to working with skeptical factory workers and scientists who distrust marketing’s varnish and gloss. I wanted to show people who value authentic and direct presentation of information that I do speak their language.

However, even though I speak their language, I still polish it. This puts me between multiple cultures. I see “facts-only” presentation as a statement of its own – either a statement that the presenter hasn’t had communication training or a statement that they are speaking to an audience which values facts.

There is no completely objective way to present information. One can seek facts supporting multiple viewpoints; that’s balanced journalism. But using the formats and buzzwords that convey scientific neutrality is a cultural statement; one could put data in Comic Sans font without changing the facts.

Marketers and nonprofit professionals have their own buzzwords too. The use of the word “outreach” instead of “marketing” is my favorite example of how social justice organizations avoid advertising language. This poses a challenge for me when I am thinking about advertising, branding and promotion for nonprofits.

Information technology (IT) buzzwords are especially difficult to translate. I’ve had several conversations with nonprofits in which I explained the value of crowdsourcing (as well as its occasional disadvantages). Other concepts, such as research database sharing, are less easy to describe. For nonprofits with few resources, sharing databases internally or externally makes sense, but this resource sharing doesn’t happen very often in organizations I know.

I organize a meetup, NetSquared Boston, with the goal of sharing information about media and technology innovation with Boston nonprofits. This meetup is one example of IT resource sharing. But it’s difficult to promote ideas like this when IT vocabulary is new to nonprofits.

While buzzwords can establish credibility, I believe competent researchers should also be able to translate their work into simple explanations. In my conversations with scientists, I find that they do this with their families and friends often.

Science translation is an ongoing and enjoyable challenge. But it isn’t just a translation of science; it’s a translation of workplace culture and values. Translating culture is a much more complicated art than simplifying vocabulary.

I learn from each encounter with a new culture and value those experiences.

The Perils of Medical Messaging

I’m very skeptical about the effectiveness of social marketing messages related to death and destruction. Although the end of the world may come soon if we don’t quit smoking, start exercising, and end environmental justice violations, I’m not sure audiences will listen to us if we tell them so.

The tradition of being a lone voice in the wilderness is very well-established in the environmental movement. I wrote a paper about John Muir’s communication style for a science media course during grad school. However, being a lone voice doesn’t work well in marketing or social media. It’s a new era; we need a new style.

On Twitter, I see many environmental headlines proclaiming death and destruction. Reframing health crisis messaging is difficult, but I believe it has to be done. Here are three reasons to rewrite those headlines:

1. Compassion fatigue and news burnout may discourage audiences. Although bad news attracts page views, I’ve seen little to no evidence that it’s an effective tool for promoting socially positive actions. Fear-based messages may be practical for some types of outreach, but they aren’t particularly effective for encouraging long-term behavior change. For example, resistance to cigarette smoking now appears to be a matter of peer acceptance – not fear of cancer.
2. Female and/or minority audiences may already believe their actions will not make a difference. Social marketers should build audiences’ confidence and support them in taking action.
3. Health crisis messaging may discourage audiences that haven’t experienced the problem directly. Cancer patients are often assertive advocates, but their zeal doesn’t necessarily translate into a larger mass movement.

Social marketers who want to address health issues need a new toolbox. We need language that’s persuasive, confident and encouraging. Think “Oprah,” not “Metallica.”

The Powerpuff Approach to Energy Efficiency

The Powerpuff Girls have decided to take on an energy efficiency challenge. Well… not exactly. I’m sorry to say there won’t be an episode showing the Powerpuff Girls breaking light bulbs and replacing them with CFLs.

Fortunately, since the Powerpuff Girls are busy taking leaps in the air instead of promoting eco-friendly behavior, a California nonprofit, Zilowatt, is designing energy conservation education for grade school students. The New York Times profiled the program recently. The article featured the superhero graphic below.

Zilowatt's superheroes (Source: Zilowatt's website)

This image implies that the grade school students are Powerpuff-like superheroes – saving electric power and having fun at the same time. This group of kids of varying ethnic backgrounds and appearances is using energy for positive purposes.

SmartMeme and Adbusters take a similar approach to existing ads and media frames – except that they dismantle their messages instead of building on them.

Although entertainment-based education isn’t new to social marketers, approaches like Zilowatt’s are relatively unusual. Of course, saving energy is a serious process and should never be adulterated by using humor, putting cute stickers on CFL boxes, or writing tongue-in-cheek blog posts about social marketing.

An Alternative Perspective on Green Jobs

As I hear public conversations about green jobs programs, I find it puzzling that so little attention has been paid to marketing these programs to trainees, businesses and unions.

Regardless of conservative spin, green jobs are a win-win solution to many social issues. If conservatives want to get tough on crime, reduce drug abuse, improve social cohesion in low-income neighborhoods, and practice the bootstrap approach they advocate, supporting green jobs programs is a logical response. The costs of incarceration and poverty are very high.

Let’s take a look at the source of the stigma green jobs programs face. These programs have, from the start, been framed as a socialist solution to capitalist problems. I find it disturbing that these programs – which, ideally, could support businesses, unions, and low-income populations – are being labeled socialist at all.

There is nothing socialist about green jobs programs. These programs support capitalist production and employment. Their structure is, if anything, economically conservative. They direct resources toward educating potential employees and giving them the skills they need to succeed in the workforce.

The only excuse I can see to reduce support for these programs is racial bias. I believe the idea of hiring minority and working-class employees has been used to intimidate many potential allies of green jobs programs.

Businesses stand to gain substantially from green jobs training. In fields where there is a shortage of workers, there is no reason qualified employees shouldn’t step in to fill the gap. This is classic capitalism – supply and demand. There is nothing socialist about this approach.

The only “socialist” part of green jobs training is the fact that some public and private resources are redirected to prepare new employees for work. Currently, college tuitions are skyrocketing in the United States. Expecting lower-to-middle-class young people to fork over a large amount of their future pay to gain job qualifications is not realistic. College dropout rates are related to students’ after-school commitments. I documented the effect of part-time jobs on Latino college students for the PoliMemos project.

The picture that emerges from these facts is far different from the media spin. I see large numbers of people who have the initiative and entrepreneurial potential to succeed and improve their neighborhoods, but who are held back by lack of resources and lack of access to social networks.

Let me make this clear – it is social capital and money that holds green jobs trainees back, not lack of ambition. It surprises me that I haven’t seen any social scientists step up to the plate to challenge this damaging media message.

One can design effective green jobs programs by listening to audiences, including businesses. In the aftermath of the recession, this approach is essential. This is not a luxury. This is a bread-and-butter, capitalist solution to severe social problems.

The only reason I can give for the resistance I see is a lack of awareness that these are ambitious young people who deserve a chance to shine. We may not be able to get them all of the resources their peers can access, but at least we should give them job training.

I saw a rock carving in Gloucester, Massachusetts a while ago which said, “When work stops, values decay.” This is not a radical idea. Although I don’t know about changes in values, I do know unemployment leads to depression and a host of other social ills. What surprises me is that so many people are unable to see that their tax dollars also support prisons and drug treatment programs. These dollars could be sending young people to college.

To the extent that green jobs programs are ineffective, it is because they lack the investment, messaging and coalition building to make their promise a reality. Like Obama’s “hope” slogan, these programs cannot deliver without work.

I’d like to see people put their shoulders to the wheel and make a solid effort to back up the promise of the American dream.

Note: All of the statements here are based on conclusions I reached independently. None of these views reflect the perspectives of any of my employers – past, present or future. I am willing to provide additional information to support any of these statements.

Social Marketing and Energy Efficiency

In 2010 and 2009, I developed two reports on behavior change for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

The first report, an overview of advanced metering programs, demonstrated that user-friendly technology can make it easier for homeowners and businesses to save energy. It emphasized technology rather than motivation.

In the second report, I took a more in-depth look at the gears that move behavior change. Why do we choose to save energy?

Many groups rely on environmental and economic motivations to get results. While these benefits do matter to audiences, emphasizing them can lead nonprofits and businesses to overlook the value of social marketing.

If you buy an iPhone, the odds are that you didn’t make that choice to save money. The iPhone may make your life more convenient. It may be fun to use. It might even improve your social life. Motivations like these – the nuts and bolts of social marketing – are absent from many conversations about saving energy.

Audiences who have a DIY ethic may find it satisfying to save energy. However, this group is only part of the population. For the rest of us – the ones who want to be talking with our friends online, checking our calendars, or playing solitaire – saving energy can also be satisfying. But to tap into this potential, we need to move beyond talking about money and the environment. We should ask questions and innovate.

Can Humor and Science Communication Mix?

“Why does it seem so taboo to be funny when talking about sustainability?” Larry Washington asks in the Shelton Group environmental marketing blog.

I think about this question often. Because I’ve spent so much time with science professionals, I have some insights about why humor might seem jarring to them.

When scientists meet marketers, they tend to be cautious and skeptical. Scientists understand that marketers can sell their ideas, but the suggestions jolt them out of their comfort zones. If the marketers don’t produce numbers that show their outreach ideas will work, the scientists may discount the suggestions.

Scientists are cautious for a good reason; they have a great deal to lose. They value their professional reputations very highly. If someone has worked for 10 years to complete a Ph.D. and has gone on to build a portfolio of publications, that person is not going to want to throw away the credibility he or she has worked so hard to build.

Scientists work hard to construct their reputations. So asking a scientist to put humor on a website can be like asking an architect to put an explosive under a newly completed building without knowing whether it will detonate or not.

Marketers should communicate to scientists that humor and other expressive forms of writing can be used in ways that are both professional and credible.

Although humor can increase public interest in science, it can backfire and reduce scientists’ credibility. In some settings, addressing this concern directly might help to resolve the problem. Involving scientists in the outreach process – for example, inviting them to tell stories, make podcasts, or participate in video projects – is another way to build support for nontraditional communication.

In person, scientists do appreciate humor – despite media stereotypes that say otherwise. They are often good storytellers, especially if they teach. But these stories don’t go into their public portfolios. Their official presence says, “Just the facts.”