Approaches to Strategic Science Communication

John Besley. Credit: Michigan State University

I am delighted to start a new author interview series for AIP’s Niels Bohr Library and Archives Blog, Ex Libris Universum, with this interview with John C. Besley, one of the authors of Strategic Science Communication: A Guide to Setting the Right Objectives for More Effective Public Engagement (2022). My hope for this series is to connect with researchers who are putting out excellent social science and humanities books of relevance to AIP’s focus on empowering physical scientists to create a better world. This first interview explores new research in science communication, an important collection area for the Niels Bohr Library & Archives. Stay tuned for an upcoming companion piece to this interview highlighting some of the science communication collections at NBLA.  

Dr. Besley is the Ellis N. Brandt Professor of Public Relations in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University. He engages in research to help science communicators improve their effectiveness by helping them consider evidence-based and strategic communication choices.

Trevor Owens: In the first chapter of Strategic Science Communication, you make a case for why it’s important that this is a guide to strategic science communication. Could you tell us a bit about what work the term strategic is doing in that title and why you see a strategic focus as being critical to the future of work in science communication?  

John Besley: We debated calling the book "Intentional Science Communication" or "Evidence-based Science Communication" because some people get uncomfortable with the idea of being strategic, but we decided to stick with the term because the language of strategy is core to our argument.

What we’re encouraging scientists and scientific organizations to do is push themselves to make sure that they (a) know what concrete, audience-specific behavioral goals they’re trying to achieve when they communicate, and then (b) develop a feasible, reasonable, and ethical path forward to achieving those goals.

The biggest thing we probably hear is a misunderstanding that “being strategic” means it’s about imposing scientists’ views on others. It’s not. In fact, being strategic requires listening carefully to others and considering changes to one’s goals and behaviors in response to feedback.

Book cover of Strategic Science Communication: A Guide to Setting the Right Objectives for More Effective Public Engagement by John C. Besley and Anthony Dudo. From Johns Hopkins University Press

TO: Based on your research that informed this book, what are some of the biggest misconceptions around science communication and what do you see as the right counter to those misconceptions?

JB: Probably that science communication is about “communicating science.” It’s a bit silly but I increasingly find myself clarifying that science communication is about “communicating in the context of science” rather than communicating your research.

This is a problem because if you think your assignment is to “communicate science” then you’re going to focus on how to be clear and compelling when you tell people about some scientific topic. Being clear and compelling is great but it won’t necessarily result in any meaningful impact if you’re clear and compelling about the wrong things.

The point of being strategic is to figure out what you want to accomplish from communication and then figuring out if there’s a way to accomplish your goal with particular people in an ethical way. You’ll probably share some scientific findings but it might also mean doing things like helping people understand your motives so they can trust you, weigh risks and benefits, or recognize they have the capacity to make a change.

And again, the goal of communication should also often be to help scientists better understand how others are thinking. This idea of communication as listening isn’t covered by the idea of “communicating science.”

TO: If there were one or two things that you hope readers take away from reading the book, what would they be?   

JB: Two things. One is the value of being intentional when you communicate. And the second is probably that science communication is hard. It can be fun and satisfying but it’s not easy.

There’s a reason executives and civic leaders get help communicating. DIY [do-it-yourself] science communication is fine but this book is largely about helping scientists think beyond being clear and compelling and beyond simply saying that we need to foster more societal dialogue.

TO: The back of the book notes that “Strategic Science Communication is the first book to use social science to help scientists and professional science communicators become more evidence-based.” Could you tell us a bit about that evidence base? What kinds of research methods and projects have informed your work?

JB: There’s a bunch of different bodies of research discussed in the book but probably the two most prominent are research on trust and trustworthiness and research on behavior change. Both are really well-established bodies of work that we use in our own research but that are also useful to strategic thinking.

The core insight of trust research is to differentiate between the behavior of trust and the beliefs that make trust behavior more likely. Trust behaviors can be any behavior that involves making yourself vulnerable to someone else. This could mean making yourself vulnerable by taking someone’s advice, letting them vaccinate you, or a million other things.

We know from our own research and others’ that people trust others when they believe the others have expertise, are motivated to help, have integrity, are willing to listen, and share our values. This is helpful from a communication perspective because, while we can’t simply say “trust me,” we can say and do things that help people see us as trustworthy.

The behavior change research is broader than the trust research but similarly highlights the importance of identifying a behavior and then thinking through all the things people believe about the goal behavior. This includes beliefs about the risks and benefits of the behavior (i.e., attitudes), beliefs about what other people think about a behavior (i.e., social norms), and peoples’ beliefs about whether they are able to do a behavior with consideration to constraints like skills, time, or money.

For example, if your goal was to get someone to consider buying an electric vehicle, you can’t just say “buy an electric vehicle,” but you can share information about the various benefits and risks of the purchase, what others are thinking and doing, and lay out the feasibility of the purchase and use. Where you focus is going to vary depending on the audience and behavior but those are your main options.

We also tie in emotions and the idea of “framing,” as well as research about science literacy, but our focus is on theories that connect what people believe and their behaviors.

Diagram: How to Think About Strategy

Besley and Dudo‘s diagram: How to Think About Strategy – What Good Communication Looks Like. As they write on the Strategic Scientific Communication book’s website, “It’s important to remember that scientists can be an ‘audience’ during communication activities (i.e., true consultation).”

TO: I found the last chapter of the book, on the need to take science communication seriously, to be one of the most engaging and compelling parts of the book. In particular, I appreciate the case you make for the need to approach science communication as an organizational strategy issue more so than a question of how individual scientists can best engage in communication activities. What do you see as some of the most crucial steps for organizations to take to implement a strategic approach and focus on science communication work?

JB: The last chapter was my favorite too and it’s at the heart of a lot of my current research.

The biggest thing is probably that organizations need to identify people who can help them communicate with a broader audience and at least one of these people needs to be in a position where they’re empowered to push back on scientists to get them to focus on clearly defined, audience-specific behavioral goals, including goals that involve scientists listening to other actors in society. This means asking scientists ‘but why’ … a lot.

These people can be hard to find but they’re worth the search. There are lots of talented communicators who are happy to help scientists produce a beautiful video, write a compelling story, or give an interesting talk. And there’s nothing wrong with that kind of activity but I often worry that we spend a lot of our resources talking to people who already love science and not enough time doing the hard work of making sure that the research we do has real impact.

We do even less to systematically listen to others in society to increase the likelihood that more of our research has a chance of being impactful.

TO: In the last chapter of the book, you suggest that there is potential for “a bigger role for scientific societies” in advancing strategic science communication work. Based on your research, what is it about the scientific societies that makes them particularly critical and important in this context?

JB: “Potential” is probably a keyword. Scientific societies are already doing things to speak on behalf of their fields and run useful communication training and fellowship programs, but what we ultimately need are more organizations that can find, coordinate, and support scientists with shared communication goals.

That might be scientific societies in some cases. I suspect, however, it’s often going to be more nimble, focused organizations that have specific audiences and specific missions. Maybe research groups or labs? Maybe local museums or science centers? Maybe local or regional non-profits?

The key is that support isn’t free and I’m not sure scientific societies have found a way to garner the resources they would need to coordinate and implement substantial communication efforts. I suspect it’s going to have to be organizations that have multiple sources of funding including donations, grants, and even things like ticket sales. I also think being embedded in communities is also often going to matter. 

TO: The book was published just about two years ago. Could you tell us a little bit about the reaction you have received to the book? Are there parts of it that have resonated particularly strongly with any specific readers?  

JB: It’s a slow process. One of the wonderful and challenging things about science communication is that there’s no barrier to entry and so new people are always appearing and trying to find their way. We often hear from the people who have started to feel like they’re not having the impact they wanted from just producing content or fostering dialogue-for-the-sake-of-dialogue.

TO: Going forward, what areas or types of research do you think are the most critical to further advance work in strategic science communication? 

JB: The two areas of work I’m most interested in are trying to figure out how to get the scientific community to think more strategically and that entails related goals like figuring out how to get scientists to put more resources into communication. I have a few projects now where we’re working with scientists to build out strategic plans, but it’s a learning process.

For myself, the other thing I most want to do is more work on how to communicate in ways that foster trustworthiness. The literature has a lot of conceptual ideas that make sense, but we need to do the hard work of testing specific approaches to demonstrate what works and what doesn’t. For example, we know that integrity beliefs are central to ensuring trust but we don’t know a lot about how to communicate integrity, especially in cases where someone is attacking scientists’ integrity.

There’s lots of research highlighting all the awful and weird things that public figures are saying about science but I try to remember that the thing the scientific community can have the most control over is how we behave and communicate. And that’s what strategic science communication is really about: making careful, honest, respectful choices about how we interact with others in our communities and societies.