{"id":1148,"date":"2018-10-18T04:15:29","date_gmt":"2018-10-18T02:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogg.vm.ntnu.no\/naturviten\/?p=1148"},"modified":"2018-10-18T04:15:29","modified_gmt":"2018-10-18T02:15:29","slug":"jarod-lyon-science-communication-at-the-coalface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogg.vm.ntnu.no\/naturviten\/2018\/10\/18\/jarod-lyon-science-communication-at-the-coalface\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Jarod Lyon: Science Communication at the Coalface"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is part of an ongoing series of interviews with prominent ecologists, which you can find\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/h3>\n

The advent of social media changed many things about the world, but if there\u2019s one big change that\u2019s become really quite evident in the last two years, it\u2019s how we get our information. This has influenced ecology dramatically over the last decade, with a great deal of scientists now present on social media. But are we adapting fast enough, and in the right way?<\/b><\/h3>\n

At the Australian Society of Fish Biology\u2019s Annual Conference last week, Jarod Lyon, who manages the Applied Aquatic Ecology Section at Australia\u2019s Arthur Rylah Institute, gave a talk about applied science in the \u2018fake news\u2019 era. I took the opportunity to sit down and quiz Jarod as to how we need to approach public communication in the era of social media.<\/b><\/p>\n

\"Jarod
Jarod Lyon believes that people still want to hear science from experts, but that our perception of what makes an expert has changed (Image Credit: Jarod Lyon, Arthur Rylah Institute)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sam Perrin (SP): Globally in the last 5-10 years, we\u2019ve seen an apparent loss of trust in experts in large political events. Have you seen the same thing happen in Australia with regards to science?<\/b><\/p>\n

Jarod Lyon, Manager Applied Aquatic Ecology, Arthur Rylah Institute (JL): I think what\u2019s changed is the way people are getting their information. I think that when the world moved on to social media, we were caught with our pants down a little bit. If you can get expert information to people in the way that they currently like to receive it (i.e.. through social media), then it can still be effective.<\/p>\n

I think attitudes towards science are still reasonably good, where I work at least. There is a bit of a push away from experts, but I think that\u2019s led by how people get their news. It\u2019s given everyone the chance to become an expert. So people still think they\u2019re getting news from experts. I even think they\u2019d rather get news from experts, but they can\u2019t distinguish between who\u2019s an expert and who isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a big advocate for not just having science communicators, but for having all scientists being communicators. We should be out there at the coalface doing this.. Science communicators might be up-to-date on Twitter and Facebook, but I don\u2019t think scientists are, or that they realise how important it is.<\/p>\n

SP: So the goal is to get to a point where the term \u2018science communicator\u2019 is redundant?<\/b><\/p>\n

JL: Ideally. This should really be taught already at a Bachelor\u2019s level. Look across the science community at the moment, at who\u2019s world-leading in either industry, government or academia. If you look at the ones who are having an impact with their work, it\u2019s the ones who are good communicators. Gone are the days of the professors sitting in their offices just publishing. The ones who are having an impact now are the ones who are good communicators.<\/p>\n

SP: I guess the danger in scientists and science communicators turning towards Facebook is that it\u2019s the same medium that a lot of these less-scientifically backed people have. Does that lead to false balance?<\/b><\/p>\n

JL: It does. So false balance is where one side of an argument is given a higher weighting than the evidence says that it should. I think climate change is a reasonable example of it. Most researchers accept that climate change is happening and that it\u2019s caused by humans. Maybe 5% of researchers don\u2019t, but those 5% get as much of a hearing as the rest. And that\u2019s the false balance. It\u2019s probably the fault of the media for always wanting a fight.<\/p>\n

So you have to be careful. It can be a race to the bottom. That\u2019s a fine line you\u2019ve got to walk. But I can\u2019t see any other option apart from being out there trying to communicate through that medium. Or more importantly, be connected to the people who you know are communicating through that medium. We\u2019ve seen the rise of the social media influencer. And this is valid for science too. If you can be a trusted advisor of someone who influences millions of people, it\u2019s very worthwhile.<\/p>\n

SP: Issues like climate change seem to be ideological here in Australia, however in many countries they\u2019re not, the attitude is more \u201cwe know these things are happening, we just need to decide what to do about them\u201d. How do we get to that point here?<\/b><\/p>\n

JL: I think because of this way that people are changing how they get their information, companies and brands and people with agendas are now using these social media influencers. We as researchers almost have a responsibility to influence the people with good science. Because whether it be climate change or fisheries management or natural resource management, people are going get information and form opinions one way or another. It used to be through newspapers, before that through the town crier. Now it\u2019s social media. And forming those opinions or helping form those opinions based on fact is going to be increasingly important.<\/p>\n

\"160417MCMA
«We need the next generation of scientists to be at the coalface, communicating good scientific information.» (Image Credit: Jarod Lyon)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SP: I\u2019ve spoken to a couple of researchers overseas who talk about using emotional arguments to influence the public, and others who want us to maintain faith in the public and present them with the facts and trust them to make decisions. Do the public deserve that faith?<\/b><\/p>\n

JL: They always deserve faith. I\u2019m one of them, I want some faith. Now we could just go out there with an emotive sell line like a seal stuck in a fishing net or a whale that\u2019s been hit by a propeller, but people see through that stuff now. We need to have the community and the public delivering the messages based on fact for us. And I don\u2019t think that\u2019s happening enough. So it\u2019s that relationship with those key influencers that\u2019s important.<\/p>\n

SP: We were talking about scientific communication being taught from a young age. Is there a danger of getting a bunch of people who don\u2019t want to do this and are bad at it?<\/b><\/p>\n

JL: Yes. Science is done by a bunch of different people. I work at a public research institute, which is funded largely by grants through agencies and government type money. I think people who work with that funding, the onus is on them to show people directly, not just through science communicators, how that money is being spent and why it\u2019s important, why it\u2019s led to a better outcome for the spend of their money. Universities are a bit different, there isstill lots of space for people who are doing the really fundamental, stuck in the office, theoretical type work, which isn\u2019t as easily communicated. But that\u2019s ok, because that work influences the other institutes that do communicate.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think there will be a one size fits all, but I don\u2019t think we\u2019re at the point where we have enough scientists communicating. It\u2019s very easy to just give a manuscript or a new project to a science communicator, and they turn it into a media release or a fluffy little video, 10 Things You Didn\u2019t Know About Fish or something like that. But I don\u2019t think that cuts through. We need the next generation of scientists to be at the coalface, communicating good scientific information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article is part of an ongoing series of interviews with prominent ecologists, which you can find\u00a0here. The advent of social media changed many things about the world, but if there\u2019s one big change that\u2019s become really quite evident in the last two years, it\u2019s how we get our information. This has influenced ecology dramatically […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":1149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[297,227,299,300,162,301,296,163,298],"class_list":["post-1148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essays-and-interviews","tag-bachelor","tag-communication","tag-influence","tag-media","tag-public","tag-relationship","tag-science","tag-social","tag-tertiary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.vm.ntnu.no\/naturviten\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.vm.ntnu.no\/naturviten\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.vm.ntnu.no\/naturviten\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.vm.ntnu.no\/naturviten\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.vm.ntnu.no\/naturviten\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1148"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.vm.ntnu.no\/naturviten\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1152,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.vm.ntnu.no\/naturviten\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions\/1152"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.vm.ntnu.no\/naturviten\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.vm.ntnu.no\/naturviten\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.vm.ntnu.no\/naturviten\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.vm.ntnu.no\/naturviten\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}