A convening hosted by MIT and the Aspen Institute offered a prescription for more effective science communications.
More than three-quarters of Americans express a great deal or fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests. But fewer than half of U.S. adults think research scientists are good communicators, and COVID undermined the status of science in society. Current narratives claim there is a crisis of trust in science, and even though studies find that scientists are among the most trusted actors in society, an influential minority’s lack of trust can impede scientific progress and make life worse for everyone.
The problem is well articulated. Now, the more interesting question becomes how, exactly, the science community can build greater trust. That question was the premise of an event hosted by the Aspen Institute Science & Society Program and the MIT Press in Cambridge this month, where a cross-sector lineup of academic, government, media, and nonprofit leaders shared a range of strategies and tactics. As with many thorny problems, there is no single solution; building trust in science will require a multifaceted approach.
This post-event playbook offers nine ideas for scientists and science communicators who want to make stronger connections with the public, bring compelling messages to relevant audiences, and imagine new paths forward with engaged communities. Explore all the ideas or jump to specific sections below:
- Listen to understand and adapt.
- Humanize science with personal connection and stories.
- Find and empower trusted messengers.
- Cultivate curiosity and encourage healthy skepticism.
- Share messages that meet people where they are.
- Proactively communicate with “prebunking” and transparency.
- Offer solutions and a vision for the future.
- Engage and co-design with communities.
- Build systems and expand capacity.
1. Listen to understand and adapt.
The goal of real listening isn’t necessarily to agree, but to understand. This doesn’t only apply to political debates: Doctors offering advice to patients shouldn’t assume they know why people are resistant. As Boston University’s Lee McIntyre recommended, “Let them tell you.”
Lina Yassin, a Sudanese climate journalist and policy researcher, explained that top-down communication doesn’t work in many communities and contexts. In one village, consultants wanted to save women time and reduce their labor, so they installed solar-powered water pumps. But soon after they were installed, the water pumps were intentionally broken, and the consultants discovered that the women were the ones who broke the pumps. Time spent walking for water was their social time with other women, and they wanted that time back. The consultants intended to fix a problem, but because they didn’t listen to the real need, they inadvertently took away something of value and their intervention wasn’t successful.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Dietram Scheufele offered a provocation: Listening without the potential for change isn’t really listening. Unless you’re willing to shift your own understanding, you’re not really hearing the other person.
2. Humanize science with personal connection and stories.
Many people say they don’t personally know any scientists. Scientists should advocate for themselves by meeting more people. Face-to-face communications are best for building relationships and trust, so it’s important to get out into the community. On the heels of the Stand Up for Science rally just days before the conference, McIntyre noted that it’s fine to go to a rally or march for science, but even better to meet and talk with neighbors at a PTA meeting.
McIntyre also advocated for storytelling as a way to connect. Stories are more convincing than facts and arguments — and it’s hard to feel disrespected by a personal story. It’s especially powerful when those stories tap into a common experience or shared value: “Science saved my life” is a great opening line.
Knowledge and experience are important, and this is a strong suit for science and scientists — but the work of building trust is both intellectual and emotional. As MIT Governance Lab’s Lily Tsai shared, experience needs to be combined with warmth, and people need to feel that their values are respected.
3. Find and empower trusted messengers.
Sometimes scientists and subject matter experts aren’t the ones who should deliver critical information. People need to see themselves in science, and they need to hear from trusted messengers.
In Sudan, Yassin recognized that she wasn’t the right messenger, so she worked with local faith leaders who could convince residents to follow flood evacuation orders. UN’s Melissa Fleming shared how the United Nations’ Verified initiative trained doctors and scientists to use TikTok during the pandemic; now the same initiative is taking a similar approach to disseminating climate-related information. TV meteorologists are trusted by local communities, and they’re on the front lines of climate news; that’s why Bernadette Woods Placky’s work at Climate Central’s Climate Matters includes offering a weekly package with timely topics to help reporters communicate the connection between weather and climate.
New technology can expand the definition of “trusted messengers” to include nonhumans. AI models have facts and evidence — and can be trained to be polite. They can be effective teachers and tutors, as well as patient debunkers. On the flip side, they can also be used for manipulation. The technology exists; the question is how to leverage it for good. MIT’s David Rand shared a recent paper on DebunkBot.com; the study found that brief conversations with GPT4 reduced conspiracy beliefs by 20%, and two months later, the effect was still durable. People are responsive to facts and evidence when it’s presented in the right way — and generative AI is good at it.
4. Cultivate curiosity and encourage healthy skepticism.
Most scientists can point to specific moments that sparked their interest in science and inspired their career trajectories. Former NIH Director Francis Collins was homeschooled until sixth grade, and vividly recalled the joy of learning new things on his family’s farm: “Science is a detective story,” and sharing the benefits and awe of science can create opportunities to explain more complex information.
People who are curious have less bias and a greater willingness to engage with information that might challenge their personal politics. Tsai noted that disagreement is often seen as disrespect, but it doesn’t have to be that way. One way to communicate respect is through curiosity: “You believe ____. Tell me why.”
Scheufele emphasized that 100% trust in science is undesirable. Healthy skepticism pushes science and innovation forward; asking questions and searching for answers is foundational to the scientific process. Connecting with heterogeneous groups and networks can make scientists better communicators: When we’re challenged, it forces us to clearly articulate our points of view.
5. Share messages that meet people where they are.
“Know your audience” is a core tenet of all communications, and it’s especially critical for science communication that intends to shift public perception or behavior. Rutgers University’s Lauren Feldman noted it’s important to recognize the diversity of your audience: Some people are unreachable, some can only be reached in unconventional ways, and some may be curious but not convinced or not taking action.
Once you know who you’re talking to, you can create messages that connect with an audience’s values. For topics like climate, language and word choice can send coded signals to audiences. Feldman cited research showing it’s more effective to talk about energy security and air pollution than “climate change.” Phrases like “climate emergency” and “climate crisis” reduce the perceived credibility of news, and unfortunately, content about race-based climate inequity is less accepted than class-based climate inequity.
For Rare Center’s Anirudh Tiwathia, effectively connecting with an audience is more important than passing an ideological purity test: “Do you want to use an identity marker, or do you want to communicate?” He noted that “Twisters,” last summer’s tornado-chasing movie, was a climate movie with a “low-touch” approach to messaging. (It was so covert, in fact, that it didn’t even use the word “climate.”) Midwestern moviegoers loved it, but it received mixed reviews from climate journalists and activists.
Tiwathia pushed back against concerns that the message was too subtle: “If you turn movies into broccoli, no one will watch them.” Targeting a message and making it relevant is not the same as watering it down, and it’s important to “get the win.” Media and entertainment normalize and shift culture by showing what other people are doing and expect their neighbors to do. Small moments and individual scenes in compelling narratives — of any genre or context — influence perception and aggregate, eventually becoming more durable.
6. Proactively communicate with ‘prebunking’ and transparency.
On the five-year anniversary of COVID lockdowns in the U.S., almost every session mentioned the pandemic’s impact on public health communication and public trust in science. Collins was, of course, at the center of it all. He admitted that while America’s COVID response was a successful scientific effort, it was a missed opportunity for science communications. In early 2020, officials could have better explained how science works and let the public know that recommendations would change as the science evolved. Instead, the best advice kept changing and people felt frustrated.
McIntyre recommended combatting disinformation with sunlight. “Prebunking” is one way to do that: Let people know that they may hear conspiracy theories, and tell them what to look out for. Then get the truth out as quickly as possible.
Rand noted that when scientists acknowledge uncertainty, people trust them more — but compliance with advice goes down. Kai Kupferschmidt, a contributing correspondent for Science magazine, added more detail: In the case of a vaccine with potential risks, uptake is low either way. But trust goes up when those risks are acknowledged with facts and clear communication, and trust goes down when people only hear vague reassurances.
Transparency matters, and it’s especially effective when it’s authentic — not performative — transparency. Tiwathia shared that when people receive an itemized tax receipt, they are more supportive of taxes. To gain more trust from the public, scientists will also need to trust the public enough to share the truth, with all of its nuances and complexities.
7. Offer solutions and a vision for the future.
People want to be informed but often feel overwhelmed by negative stories about big, unsolvable problems. Fleming pointed to solutions journalism and constructive journalism as a way to prevent news avoidance. These approaches add an additional question to the five Ws: “Has anyone solved this?”
Feldman recommended information about a threat with information about what to do; coverage of a problem and a solution in the same story is still somewhat rare, but can go a long way toward shifting behavior. People need follow-up nudges and practical information. As Tiwathia noted, no one changes their diet after hearing a message like “Plants are good, and meat is bad,” even if they believe it to be true. They need recipes, shopping lists, meal plans, apps, and other resources.
In addition to spotlighting current solutions, communications can also offer a vision for what could be possible. Gusto Partners’ Laura Hughes emphasized the need to offer an aspirational future. For one campaign, a message of “housing security smells like tomato vines in the backyard” made a more abstract policy vision feel tangible and irresistible.
8. Engage and co-design with communities.
Those who are closest to the problem are also often the closest to solutions. Hughes advocated for co-designing with communities to develop initiatives and stories centered around the people who need them most. She noted that science and public health communicators can open the door, but should make sure lived experience steps through first.
During a workshop held in conjunction with the conference, MIT Center for Constructive Communication’s Deb Roy shared a compelling breakdown of how the “social media reality distortion field” elevates extreme voices and silences more moderate and nuanced views. Platforms encourage performative, extreme behavior and make online personas more extreme; “conflict entrepreneurship” is on the rise. But “hearing the humanity in others is necessary for democracy to function.” An antidote to this overheated atmosphere is a much different approach to social networking: human-facilitated, small-group conversations with AI-enabled sensemaking at scale.
Cortico, a nonprofit working cooperatively with MIT, has created and deployed a set of human listening and AI tools that help communities reflect on competing narratives, identify patterns and connections, and inform stakeholders. In Newark, conversations with students about school absenteeism have informed Teach for America’s new teacher training and opened up dialogue about education reform.
9. Build systems and expand capacity.
Fully understanding misinformation, disinformation, and lack of trust requires a view of the broader information ecosystem. For Kupferschmidt, that includes interrogating the incentives — including money and business models. The solution is systemic, not individual; we need to build information infrastructure and advocate for it.
Cornell University’s Claire Wardle asked another key question: What parts of the information ecosystem can we control and improve? Today’s students don’t trust what they see online because “they think it’s all AI soup.” And disinformation campaigns make people doubt everything. An improved information ecosystem will need to help people discern what’s true.
University of Virginia’s Renee Cummings offered a more global perspective: Disinformation isn’t the greatest concern in other countries. In many places, people are excited about using technology to reimagine business models, and the bigger goal is making sure people have access to new AI tools. We need to ensure tech and AI literacy for all. Effective governance of emerging technologies and communications platforms will require interdisciplinary imagination and public-private partnerships.
Even in the context of a larger system, communicators have a big role to play. McIntyre wants to scale up science communications training, and pointed to Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University and The Center for Public Engagement with Science at the University of Cincinnati as models. Fleming noted the need to support journalists and their work, while also stepping in to fill gaps in coverage; trusted organizations can produce and publish their own multimedia stories. Woods Placky summed it up perfectly: “Communications is a solution. Get people talking.”
