Science Communications in the COVID Era
One of the greatest failures of science communications during COVID has been that science experts are not working with communications experts. Scientists are often great at science and over-estimate their skills in other arenas.
Read this Twitter thread by Tara Haelle as an example: https://twitter.com/tarahaelle/status/1478531929351860225?s=20
People are bad at #SciComm because science communications are hard, and are their own field with a separate skill set from just being able to publish research or perform clinical work. Public science communications is essentially teaching on a massive scale, and any current or former med student can tell you that good scientists don’t necessarily make good teachers. Great science communicators are like great teachers, they’re hard to come by and are undervalued.
One mistake that I have seen some scientists making during this pandemic is to openly dispute the science in a public forum in a way to which academic scientists and clinicians may be accustomed but that the public has a hard time understanding or fully appreciating.
Science communications and academic inquiry are often dramatically different. Many of the “just asking questions” contrarian views can seem intellectually rigorous from a hypothesis generation perspective in terms of testing ideas and publishing new research. But regularly and consistently hammering on these questions or hypothesis-generating exercises in a public forum — or in a funded global misinformation declaration — only serves to sow doubt, which creates the fear and information vacuum in which disinformation thrives.
Which brings me to the other problem with science communications: we are in the middle of information warfare between political parties and foreign actors, and while scientists can be good at science communications, many poorly understand complex political realities. For example, failing to understand how you are being used as a pawn in a well-funded, Koch-backed political disinformation campaign is a significant problem. Especially if you aren’t even receiving kickbacks to say you have no conflicts of interest. Then you’re just selling your soul for free.
Having engaged with and even spoken directly with many of these contrarians, I can reasonably assume that some of them are actually well-intentioned and curious and do not adequately understand these issues, while others are clearly grifters and are more easily dismissed.
