What’s in a frame.

Every word, image, idea, impression and experience is framed by its context and the medium through which we experience it. Framing is a pretty widely understood concept, especially relevant to the study of rhetoric, but also, I believe, central to the problem of science communication. Imagine everyone walking around with two hands up, ‘framing’ their view like an artist assessing his subject matter… and to make matters worse, elbowing their way in front of others’ faces to frame their view as well. I suppose an ideal world would be one where science isn’t framed at all… as with the natural world, it’s just there. There for all to see, for everyone to take in as some kind of objective reality.

Of course, information doesn’t work like that.  Some people can’t even see the view without someone pointing where to look; others find it overwhelming or blurry. Framing is important for understanding. What’s more, information itself may be objective (up for philosophical debate, but I won’t go there), but how it’s framed is quite subjective and significantly affects the way an individual processes that information. Like those hands held up to frame a visual perspective, in some ways they obscure things, perhaps to deceive or just to aid focus. But the effects of framing are often more subtle than just directing people’s attention.

Framing the same information with different contexts

(or narratives or metaphors or even a few lines)

can make what’s being framed appear very different.

George Lakoff is pretty good at explaining frames. He’s written a lot about framing and how some people do it better than others, especially in politics. I think the same is true for science communication. His book, Don’t Think of an Elephant! is a concise guide to framing with concrete examples included. (Written for the liberal/progressive end of the spectrum of course, since it appears the opposing crowd already has this framing business figured out). I’m looking to Lakoff’s discussions on framing less for the political applications and more for the case studies that are transferable to other forms of communication. A quick explanation of framing from Lakoff himself:

As my thesis work progresses, I am definitely feeling the weight of what Dan Kahan put so eloquently in a previously discussed paper:

The science of science communication has generated critical insights about valid psychological mechanisms. Such work remains necessary and valuable. But in order for the value associated with it to be realized, social scientists must become experts on how to translate these lab models into real, useable, successful communication strategies fitted to the particulars of real-world problems.

One of the reasons I am drawing on Lakoff’s work about framing is the very concrete and specific way he discusses and ultimately recommends certain strategies. It’s also the reason I like Kahan’s work and the recent paper about Debiasing by Stephan Lewandowsky and company, (discussed earlier). I know there isn’t a road map for the design of science communication that may eventually help reach wider and less science-friendly audiences, (otherwise I wouldn’t be working on it!), but a few guidelines, ideas, or suggestions can go a long way to getting off the blocks with a strong start.

As I’m turning more attention toward the search for just such artifacts, yesterday, NPR delivered. I listened to a story about people who are making headway in the conservative arguments on climate change. In it, the author profiles Bob Inglis, who heads the Energy and Enterprise Initiative at George Mason University and makes a free market case for tackling global warming, and Michele Combs, with the Christian Coalition and recently launched Young Conservatives for Energy Reform.

Both Combs and Inglis are careful not to sound alarmist. They want to reach those who may not even believe in climate change. Still, Inglis has thought long and hard about what he calls the “populist rejection” of climate science.

“For conservatives,” he says, “it’s seen as an attack on our lifestyle. You can’t live in the suburbs. You gotta give up that big car.”

He knows people don’t like to be told what to do. But Inglis remembers his dad teaching him to save gas by letting up on the pedal and coasting. He says a party that once valued thrift now touts a philosophy of “burn it up.”

“It’s not conservative to waste stuff,” Inglis says, “and to cause somebody else’s kids to go on the sands of the Middle East to fight for that stuff that we’re wasting.”

At stake, he says, is the most basic of conservative principles: whether we leave our children a place that’s pleasant and livable.

I don’t know whether Inglis has read any work on cultural worldview or narrative framing (I’m betting he has), but consciously or not he has the right idea. Dad teaching him to save? Images of ‘other people’s kids’ fighting overseas? How’s that for a ‘strict-father’ view of the world?

And one last bit about framing; Matthew Nisbet is another very well spoken expert on framing with crucial entries on my reading list. I think a discussion about framing and its role in science communication certainly can’t be concluded without a nod to Nisbet and his studies on how people respond to information. His recent article, What Carl Sagan, Brian Greene, and E.O. Wilson Understand About Effective Communication, includes the following video explanation of framing’s role in science communication.

Debiasing: ‘debunking de myths.’

Here’s a quick post about something worth sharing, without much commentary from me: this paper is yet another exciting example of how people are beginning to sit up and take notice of the psychology of science communication and denial… and better yet, a precious few are beginning to work out the potential applications and even make some concrete suggestions for communication strategy. I’m always a little worried when I read this kind of paper, (there goes my thesis project), but that’s usually gone in a matter of minutes as I realize there is important research here that can help propel my work forward even faster. This paper even has a nice graphic at the end to summarize the communication design implications. Good stuff!

Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing

The abstract, for those who need to see a trailer before the full feature:

The widespread prevalence and persistence of misinformation in contemporary societies, such as the false belief that there is a link between childhood vaccinations and autism, is a matter of public concern. For example, the myths surrounding vaccinations, which prompted some parents to withhold immunization from their children, have led to a marked increase in vaccine-preventable disease, as well as unnecessary public expenditure on research and public-information campaigns aimed at rectifying the situation.

We first examine the mechanisms by which such misinformation is disseminated in society, both inadvertently and purposely. Misinformation can originate from rumors but also from works of fiction, governments and politicians, and vested interests. Moreover, changes in the media landscape, including the arrival of the Internet, have fundamentally influenced the ways in which information is communicated and misinformation is spread.

We next move to misinformation at the level of the individual, and review the cognitive factors that often render misinformation resistant to correction. We consider how people assess the truth of statements and what makes people believe certain things but not others. We look at people’s memory for misinformation and answer the questions of why retractions of misinformation are so ineffective in memory updating and why efforts to retract misinformation can even backfire and, ironically, increase misbelief. Though ideology and personal worldviews can be major obstacles for debiasing, there nonetheless are a number of effective techniques for reducing the impact of misinformation, and we pay special attention to these factors that aid in debiasing.

We conclude by providing specific recommendations for the debunking of misinformation. These recommendations pertain to the ways in which corrections should be designed, structured, and applied in order to maximize their impact. Grounded in cognitive psychological theory, these recommendations may help practitioners—including journalists, health professionals, educators, and science communicators—design effective misinformation retractions, educational tools, and public-information campaigns.

Business idea.

Dan Kahan, of Yale’s Cultural Cognition Project, recently posted a fantastic piece on what he calls the precarious opportunity for science communication that exists in the challenge of local adaptation. You can read the full post here:

The “local-adaptation science communication environment:” the precarious opportunity.

In it, Kahan argues:

Because being out of step with one’s cultural group in battles to “define” the nation’s soul can carry devastating personal consequences, and because nothing a person believes or does as an individual voter or consumer can affect the risks that climate change (or ill-considered responses to it) pose for him or anyone else, it is perfectly predictable— perfectly rational even—for people to engage the issue of climate change as a purely symbolic or expressive issue.

Ok, this makes sense; people engage with problematic topics as less concrete, more symbolic issues when there is a lot of cognitive dissonance.

In contrast, from Florida to Arizona, from New York to Colorado and California, ongoing political deliberations over adaptation are affecting people not as members of warring cultural factions but as property owners, resource consumers, insurance policy holders, and tax payers—identities they all share. The people who are furnishing them with pertinent scientific evidence about the risks they face and how to abate them are not the national representatives of competing political brands but their municipal representatives, their neighbors, and even their local utility companies.

I think he’s onto something here… we can’t seem to fix the damaged ethos or restore a holy sanctity for scientific authority within certain audiences, so why not make an end run around the entire rhetorical situation and task individual human beings, as members of a local community, with the challenge of persuasion.

By use of stylized lab studies, the science of science communication has generated critical insights about valid psychological mechanisms. Such work remains necessary and valuable.

But in order for the value associated with it to be realized, social scientists must become experts on how to translate these lab models into real, useable, successful communication strategies fitted to the particulars of real-world problems. To do that, they will have to set up labs in the field, where informed conjectures based on indispensable situation sense of local actors can form the basis for continued hypothesizing and testing.

Ok. Just give me nine more months to work out this process, (that real, useable, successful bit sounds a lot like useful, usable, desirable, no?), because that’s what it is: a design process.

Then, once I have that sorted out, I’ll teach other people how to do it. My next job title: Locally Adapted Science Communication Strategy Consultant. I’ll start up a firm. Maybe I’ll ask Dan Kahan to join me. Anyone looking for an investment opportunity? Just kidding. (Or maybe not).

Angels & Demons & Tysons & Dawkins

Lately I am starting to think my angel and devil have been replaced by miniatures of Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson sitting on my shoulders, having conversations like this one:

(By the way, if you like these two, watch “The Poetry of Science: Discussions of the Beauty of Science.“)

Science needs a shot in the arm…

Get it? Shot in the arm? I kill me!

As I ramp up work on my thesis project, I’ve begun collecting examples of exposition, persuasion, narratives, and other communication artifacts that illustrate the strategies I’m investigating. Eventually I’ll create and test my own informational pieces in order to assess which strategies have the greatest potential for reaching less-than-accepting audiences. In order to do so, I’ll need to pick a particular topic to design around, as a sort of test case, (possibly two or three), and I’ve been thinking about that choice as I collect examples and diagram my findings.

Choosing a single topic for the first prototype has been difficult… though not for lack of options. In fact, it’s hard for the very opposite reason: the list of potential topics for a study on denial, rhetoric, and communication design strategy is disappointingly long.

• climate change (and all its myriad sub topics… I’m particularly interested in the myths and misperceptions about the associated meteorological effects)
• evolution (and again there are several sub topics here; creationism vs. intelligent design vs. Darwin vs. everyone else…)
• vaccination (autism link? HPV vaccine? herd immunity?)
• big bang theory (maybe this belongs in the creationism bucket, but I once had a student ask me if I believe in the Big Bang)
• GMO
• nuclear power
• fracking
• et cetera…

But the choice is complicated by findings that suggest different groups of people, (liberals vs. conservatives, hierarchical individualists vs. egalitarian communitarians, etc), are more likely to trust scientists on some topics, and deny scientific consensus on others. (Surely you noticed your own reaction to some and not others on that list…) In other words, it’s not as simple as “religious conservatives are most likely to deny the facts on all these topics.” Science is science, and people of different stripes tend to trust science more or less based on their own cultural worldviews and personality biases. So I’d like to ensure due diligence on this design project by selecting topics that cover the spectrum of all types of denial and denier…

That said, I’ve also been encouraged by my thesis advisor, (who also teaches a class that I’m taking called Information + Interaction + Perception), to pick something I can apply to both thesis work and class project simultaneously, and while I’m fascinated by the nuances of all these subjects, I also need to design within a topic that people find meaningful enough to invest in their own understanding about it. Many people must take up the question of vaccination at some point, whether to be vaccinated for certain diseases as adults or to vaccinate their children; fewer people have a personal reason to know the details about evolution, for example. Climate change is obviously a prime choice but it will require drilling down to a very concrete and narrow slice of the issue and I’d like to wait for subsequent rounds of research and refinement to buoy me before I jump into the deep end, (and I will, don’t you worry).

So, that said, I’ve settled on vaccinations and the anti-vaccine movement as the topic of my first prototype.

I’ve yet to decide how I’ll narrow down the topic for my initial prototyping: whether I’ll delve into the thoroughly-debunked-yet-perpetuated autism link, or the controversy surrounding the HPV vaccine, or perhaps the question of whether vaccines are really necessary or important any more. (Spoiler: they are). But I’ve been looking at articles, brochures, websites and videos about vaccinations for a week now, as well as arguments made by and against the anti-vaccination movement, and there’s a lot to think about. Here’s a taste of what I’m looking at; consider these three fact-based, pro-vaccine messages:

10 Vaccine Myths: Busted by Parenting.com

Hug Me! I’m Vaccinated Campaign

Sure, they are scientifically accurate and well written/produced. Do you feel any more or less trusting of the scientific facts about vaccines? Did you even read or watch any of them completely to the end? (If you did, how’d you feel about the condescending tone of the video toward the end?)

Now, consider this preview of a planned anti-vaccine ‘documentary’ about the HPV vaccine, Gardasil:

I don’t know about you, but I find this pretty compelling. Of course, most of the facts are being twisted (or neglected outright) and we all know that correlation is not causation; hell, I have a science degree… and yet somehow I’d feel a little reluctant to get the Gardasil shot right after watching this, wouldn’t you? It’s compelling. Maybe you’d call it manipulative, if you’re in the pro-vaccine camp. But the ‘good guys’ can be compelling too, even without the manipulation of facts, and my goal is to show people how.