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It& #39;s Thursday so that means I& #39;ll be talking about the challenges of misinformation to #scicomm! I& #39;ll share some articles I& #39;ve found interesting (and one I wrote) on the theme and the discuss some of the things we could do to try to tackle this.
The threat of misinformation is something we& #39;ve been more and more aware of over the past few years. Recently, I started thinking about this more deeply after a failed attempt at engaging with someone sharing fake news online and ended up writing about it https://tinyurl.com/yeh78h2k ">https://tinyurl.com/yeh78h2k&...
Causes of increased misinformation are complex. Of course, social media plays a role. Just yesterday a tweet went viral of a (terrible) ad campaign by vitamin water, which was dismissive flu shots. But the ad is 8 years old - should we be focussing on it? https://tinyurl.com/ydqmcrtk ">https://tinyurl.com/ydqmcrtk&...
Research from earlier this year found that over half of the climate videos on YouTube go against scientific theory. This is concerning as many people do use the site as a news/ information source - it& #39;s easy to see how false news can propagate https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-07/f-tgo072219.php">https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_relea...
The article suggests scientists and scicommers should use YouTube to share information themselves - but how do we make sure this is the content that people are seeing? One option could be to indicate which videos are verified/ reliable but this in itself could be challenging.
There& #39;s also the challenge that the people we most want to engage with about this might be the ones who are least receptive. One trial that used 4 different interventions to share info about vaccines & increase uptake found none to be effective https://tinyurl.com/yhsoqjpa ">https://tinyurl.com/yhsoqjpa&...
@aaronecarroll wrote in @nytimes “Dropping knowledge from on high […] doesn’t work.”
We need to find new, better ways to engage people with information, rather than relying on old models of ‘dropping knowledge’ and hoping that something sticks. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/upshot/health-facts-importance-persuasion.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/2...
We need to find new, better ways to engage people with information, rather than relying on old models of ‘dropping knowledge’ and hoping that something sticks. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/upshot/health-facts-importance-persuasion.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/2...
Simply giving people more information about science that they disagree with doesn& #39;t work - in fact, it may even strengthen their belief that they & #39;know more than the experts.& #39; So what can we do?
@carljackmiller wrote on this for @newscientist, concluding with 7 rules to keep yourself safe online. These include avoiding & #39;passive scrolling& #39; and outrage, thinking about things before you share them, and being wary of info found on social media https://tinyurl.com/ye54hwgt ">https://tinyurl.com/ye54hwgt&...
For #scicomm one thing that is important is sharing as information accurately as possible. Avoiding over-hyped headlines (e.g. a "cure" for cancer) and being clear when reporting on animal studies.
@justsaysinmice does good work on this!
@justsaysinmice does good work on this!
This blog also gives some useful tips:
http://blogs.nature.com/naturejobs/2017/01/04/lets-talk-about-scicomm/">https://blogs.nature.com/naturejob...
http://blogs.nature.com/naturejobs/2017/01/04/lets-talk-about-scicomm/">https://blogs.nature.com/naturejob...
Researchers at Cambridge came up with a novel way to tackle misinformation with a fake news & #39;vaccine& #39;. Participants played a video game where they deployed methods used in viral fake news campaigns. This increased their scepticism of such tactics later https://tinyurl.com/y47ut3qm ">https://tinyurl.com/y47ut3qm&...
