This is your space to write your first course blog post. To help clarify the kinds of writing we encourage, we have drafted a blog post below that addresses this module’s course content and marking rubric.
Determining Audience for an Outreach Campaign in Sri Lanka (Kaylee)
In Module 1, we discuss the importance of audience in determining our approaches to communication. This struck me, because it was a very important part of a communications plan I developed in 2018, which was aimed at improving awareness of two pathogens – rabies and Leptospira – that can make animals and people sick.
I first determined that the audience I wanted to reach included people living in areas with cases of rabies and leptospirosis. I then determined the kind of communications material I wanted to develop. I was inspired by work done by the Centres for Coastal Health, which used educational posters to teach their target audience about Japanese Encephalitis in Nepal. The visuals in this poster were striking and would allow people to learn about how to minimize their risks. Visuals can also be interpreted much more quickly than writing, which I though was important because people are busy and may only have a few minutes to engage with the materials I created.
For this reason, I decided to hire a local illustrator in Sri Lanka to draft educational posters and to display them in areas where people would commonly spend time waiting (i.e., at buses and community centres). Because the people in the target regions speak English, Sinhalese, and/or Tamil. I hired a translator to prepare the posters in all three languages.
What I learned through this process was how important audience was throughout. Audience determined the approach taken, the language used, the images included, and the collaborators I worked with. Audience was the driver behind every decision, and therefore I think that identifying audience is one of the most important and first steps that must be considered.
After an upsetting loss during an online game, a member of the losing team angrily questioned the actions of a fellow teammate. In response, the teammate retorted that this was “just a game.” After a moment, the angry teammate replied “I’m sorry, sometimes I forget. I’m still working on myself.”
From this moment, I am reminded of the five essential elements of a god argument. While it was not a formal argument by any stretch of the imagination, the angry teammate was willing to see the situation from another point of view when a valid argument was raised. This is echoed in the textbook where it framed an argument as an endeavor to find the truth and there was emphasis on the fact that ‘you cannot make true what is not true.’ It was also noted that anyone making an argument should be prepared to embrace the contrary view.
The text and the situation above really emphasize the need for a different mindset when communicating. Unfortunately, so much of modern daily communication is biased and filtered by one’s own preconceived notions that people often become stubborn in their views. Instead, if everyone was able to share the common goal of finding truth, communication would be more effective. A memorable scene from the TV show ‘Community’ sums up this effective communication when Jeff Winger, the protagonist, argues:
“You know who has real conversations? Ants. They talk by vomiting chemicals in each other’s mouths. They get right down to brass tacks.”
No bias. No pretense. Just communication. Perhaps we should all aim to be more like ants.
– David Li, Week 1 Blog Post
Hi All!
I found module 1 particularly interesting as it gave a lot of insight into what it means to have a good argument. As a concussion scientist, this is an area that in all honesty we don’t pay much attention to. We have great reasons why people should listen to us and follow our recommendations, and we know what some of the barriers to these things happening are, but we don’t actually delve into an articulated opposition to them.
We have been assuming that the opposition we are facing is a lack of awareness, (ex: I don’t know about concussions; therefore, I do not aim to prevent or better manage them when they occur). However, after finishing the readings in module 1 I think our more realistic opposition may actually be “concussions are relatively rare events therefore if I am going to increase my awareness of an injury, it is going to be for one that is more common” or “I don’t need to raise my awareness about concussions because how I deal with it won’t change. I don’t want to miss my practices or games, let my team down, or miss my shot.” (This quote is supposed to be hyperlinked: https://completeconcussions.com/2019/01/09/top-reasons-athletes-dont-report-concussion/ ).
Thinking through this step by step showed me that our arguments have to be more complex and very carefully crafted. If our goal is to seek the truth, in a certain situation it is very possible that the oppositions argument (ex: there are more prevalent and costly injuries than concussions) may be true. So in certain situations, I may have to follow the reasoning into the “arms of the opposition”. And in others I think we have to spend a lot more time creating a convincing response to the opposition we may face.
While reading the Week 1 content about goal setting and evaluation, I began to think about the ways that we can evaluate communication campaigns. One of these potential evaluative outcomes is reach. Estimates of reach can provide an idea of how many people or organizations are accessing a campaign’s materials. One of the ways in which we can measure reach is via social media. Scientists and research organizations are increasingly turning to social media platforms like Twitter to disseminate research results.
Regardless of the platform, reach is a somewhat blunt measurement of engagement as it if often the case that who is more important than how many when it comes to the people that are engaging with our campaign materials. Published in 2018, Côté and Darling found that the Twitter followers of scientists with less than 1,000 followers were predominantly other scientists. Above the 1,000-follower threshold, scientists were found to reach a more varied audience, including research organizations, media, the public, and decision makers. They concluded that Twitter is a valid and potentially fruitful avenue for disseminating research and encouraged other scientists to “invest in building a social media presence for scientific outreach”.
I have had many conversations with scientists about the merits of social media for research communication (often to no avail) but nothing sways a scientist like a peer-reviewed article. I am encouraged that more attention and space is being given to discussing the use of technology, including social media, for knowledge translation and communications. I look forward to exploring how these tools can be used to plan, measure, and evaluate communication campaigns.
Côté IM & Darling ES. Scientists on Twitter: Preaching to the choir or singing from the rooftops? Facets. 2018 Jun 28. doi.org/10.1139/facets-2018-0002.
– Sean Sinden, Week 1 Blog Post
I want to expand on a topic that was briefly mentioned in the readings but, in my opinion, is so important — specifically as it pertains to politics and journalism.
“Knowledge deficit model – if we give people facts people will understand science and make better decisions. Research shows greater understanding doesn’t correlate with public buy-in.”
People don’t make what we perceive as unwise political choices about scientific issues because they are uninformed about said issues. The Pew Research Center found last year that Republicans and Democrats actually hold about the same level of scientific literacy [1], with Republicans even scoring higher on climate science related questions to do with the effects of deforestation and greenhouse gases. Numerous surveys like these throughout the past decade support these findings.
But Republicans and Democrats have very different views on science and the issues surrounding it. This suggests that the discrepancy isn’t due to a lack of knowledge. Scientific issues have become tied to one’s political identity now and often intersect with issues to do with economics and other industries. An editor at the Globe and Mail even told me, while I was on internship there, that climate change is “no longer a science story.”
So, then, when it was a science story, how did we go so wrong with it? Through my own research, I’m learning that a big problem facing science communication is trust. Trust gaps exist between scientists and the media — and the media and the public. Spurred by decades of journalists reporting with false balance and alarmist risk, and scientists uninterested in communicating at all, we need to communicate better. How? I hope I find out!
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/03/28/what-americans-know-about-science/
Since childhood, I have been an avid consumer of television or film-based science communication – I eagerly watched everything from Bill Nye the Science Guy videos to Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth. What drew me to this medium was that it served both as an engrossing form of entertainment and as high-quality educational material.
Module 1 formally introduced the concept of science communication – the delivery of science education and information to an audience. Specifically, in Dr. Gardner’s chapter, we see that behind the communication pieces are a thorough premeditation of a thesis that is a best attempt at truth, and that this attempt is a moral obligation for communicators.
However, the release of Netflix’s new show, The Goop Lab, represents a clear contradiction to Dr. Gardner’s proposition. The Goop Lab is docuseries created and hosted by Gwyneth Paltrow, the actor turned entrepreneur, that showcases alternative medicine practices consistent with the types of advice already shared on Paltrow’s highly popular – and highly controversial – lifestyle and wellness website, Goop. Goop has been criticized for promoting health treatments that have not been scientifically proven and that may in fact be harmful. Unfortunately, The Goop Lab brings these unsubstantiated practices to an even wider audience. The show’s release has been met with outrage among medical and scientific professionals who are demanding that Netflix take down a series that risks legitimizing pseudoscience.
I am similarly outraged and disappointed that The Goop Lab could exist on such a popular platform. In a society where we are already bombarded with disinformation and fake news, it is a shame to see educational TV shows become such a contentious medium. Still, this serves as a reminder that, though we may hope our communicators adhere to the principle of truth-seeking, we as the audience still need to double-check the facts.
(Word Count: 298)
—-
The Goop Lab: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/feb/05/gwyneth-paltrows-goop-to-become-netflix-tv-show
Criticisms of Goop: https://www.thestar.com/life/2017/07/18/meet-the-canadian-doctor-whos-taking-on-goop.html
Response to The Goop Lab: https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/202001/09/01-5256140-goop-lab-diffuser-ce-genre-de-pseudoscience-est-dangereux.php
Spread of Disinformation: https://thebigstorypodcast.ca/2020/01/10/how-disinformation-spreads-during-breaking-news-events/
How fake news is being spread: https://time.com/5168202/russia-troll-internet-research-agency/
The message that captivated me most in Module 1 was the need to clearly identify and acknowledge the opposition to one’s thesis. This message resonated with me because it really requires one to identify their audience and understand their rationale. It is also significant because health messages so quickly lose effectiveness when there is a failure to acknowledge the validity of the opposition’s perspective.
While this may not be the intent of general messaging, when we consider the messaging delivered, it is not hard to understand why there is an air of elitism associated with science-based communications. Examples that come to mind include vaccination communications (https://immunizebc.ca/why-vaccinate) or the consumption of unpasteurized milk products (https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/sites/hlbcprox-prod.health.gov.bc.ca/files/documents/healthfiles/hfile03.pdf). Both of these provide useful information, but they are quite technical and text-heavy and make me think of communications of “scientists between scientists” rather than “scientists with young students” or “scientists with newcomers to Canada” etc. This leads me to believe that there is an attempt to reach the elusive public but there was a lack of clarity in defining the target audience.
Both of these messages seek to inform a general, elusive, public. However, neither explicitly acknowledges its opposition which has become more problematic in recent years. This lack of acknowledgement leaves the impression of “you should do this to be safe/healthy, because you want to be safe/healthy” or circular reasoning/begging the question. It also results in a failure to give the opposition the same respect with which we treat those in support of the thesis.
As public health evolves to keep up with the ever-changing world, I feel that it will be ever more important for professionals to clearly identify their target audience, as well as their target opposition to prepare for the inevitable antithesis.
-Laura Chow, Week 1 Blog Post
Maternal Health and Nutrition Workshops in Rural Mali
Reading through this module, I found myself reflecting on a maternal health workshop program I was involved in during the three months I lived in rural west Africa; in particular the importance of audience analysis. I remember arriving to our first session with a list of objectives and innovate ideas to share with the women, while my local counterpart arrived prepared to spend the first 45 minutes discussing the fact that malaria does not come from unwashed vegetables!
While I had prepared by spending hours reading Mali’s country profile on the WHO website (https://www.who.int/countries/mli/en/) and researching the country’s nutrition profile (https://globalnutritionreport.org/resources/nutrition-profiles/africa/western-africa/mali/), my counterpart was building on valuable knowledge she had from years of experience working in the community as well as a deeper understanding of the culture in which she was born. It was naïve of me to expect these women to include more vegetables in their meals and not to use mosquito nets to fish when many of them were misinformed about malaria to begin with.
I learned from this experience the importance of combining clinical, scientific, cultural, and practical knowledge. In rural and remote areas, guidelines and frameworks are great, but only in collaboration with the community. Overtime, my counterpart and I were able to design a program that was truly catered to the community, scientifically accurate, and sustainable. Audience analysis is not a step you can skip, no matter how excited you are to begin your project!
– Nilou Tafreshi
I found the content of module1challenging in many ways. On first pass through the assigned readings from the text, I was struck by the use of ‘consensus’ in risk communication. When I read it more carefully, I saw the careful distinction between Science communication and Risk communication. To my mind, and perhaps Einstein’s when he was attacked in “A Hundred Authors Against Einstein,” published in Germany in 1931, consensus does not belong in science; his response was, “If I were wrong, one (Author) would have been enough.” My understanding of consensus communication of risk is that it entails collaboration between stakeholders for the purpose of deciding on a unified message to the audience on how to mitigate risk, when the actual way is unknown or undecided.
Next, after reading ‘what a good argument looks like’ I felt like a lightbulb had turned on in my brain. I want to believe in the ‘golden rule of truth seeking’, that is, presuming those with differing views from mine are rational persons, seeking the truth. It is totally foreign to communication in the media or politics. Sadly, it is foreign even to some of my MPH classes. Creating a thesis statement, arguing in favor of the opposition, and being prepared to change one’s position if the opposing view is stronger in the end, is new to me, but I can see the power of it. Even if the parties remain in opposition, a difference in philosophical belief persists, at least the process has been honest and respectful. I am grateful for the opportunity to practice.
Tammi Whelan Module 1
I found the content of module1challenging in many ways. On first pass through the assigned readings from the text, I was struck by the use of ‘consensus’ in risk communication. When I read it more carefully, I saw the careful distinction between Science communication and Risk communication. To my mind, and perhaps Einstein’s when he was attacked in “A Hundred Authors Against Einstein,” published in Germany in 1931, consensus does not belong in science; his response was, “If I were wrong, one (Author) would have been enough.” My understanding of consensus communication of risk is that it entails collaboration between stakeholders for the purpose of deciding on a unified message to the audience on how to mitigate risk, when the actual way is unknown or undecided.
Next, after reading ‘what a good argument looks like’ I felt like a lightbulb had turned on in my brain. I want to believe in the ‘golden rule of truth seeking’, that is, presuming those with differing views from mine are rational persons, seeking the truth. It is totally foreign to communication in the media or politics. Sadly, it is foreign even to some of my MPH classes. Creating a thesis statement, arguing in favor of the opposition, and being prepared to change one’s position if the opposing view is stronger in the end, is new to me, but I can see the power of it. Even if the parties remain in opposition, a difference in philosophical belief persists, at least the process has been honest and respectful. I am grateful for the opportunity to practice.
Tammi Whelan Module 1
What struck me most in this week’s module and sent me down the rabbit hole of existential thought was the topic of how science communication is changing. The textbook mentions that we’re living in a post-truth era, which immediately made me think of “alternative facts”, “fake news” and the rising occurrence of deep fakes. I can absolutely see why skepticism is on the rise. It’s becoming much harder to distinguish truth from facts, which is why it’s so important for information to come directly from the source – the scientists! But communicating from the source relies heavily on who the audience is and where people are consuming their information. There are millions of users on Facebook, meaning a large audience, but do people trust the information they see on there anymore? Twitter is widely used by people looking to get a quick fix of information, but with such a short character count, sometimes one tweet isn’t enough. This forces both scientists and journalists to learn how to condense a complex idea down so that it’s short enough to satisfy Twitter, but detailed enough to draw people in. I’ve come at Twitter from the journalistic perspective, but I’m excited to learn how scientists approach communication through social media platforms so that I can get a better understanding of strategies to use when communicating to the general public versus the scientific community.
Alison Knill