(photo from here)
Every time we write a post about Covid-19, there is a question that invariably guides us: "How do we explain the epidemic so that even without technical education, people can be aware of what is happening?". Indeed, there is much more behind this question. There is the relationship between scientific communication, often technical and cold, and mass communication, driven by feelings and fears. Scientific journals are the place to communicate science. Impactful scientific work, a study that shakes the scientific community, has a high degree of reliability and, generally, requires a lot of time, a lot of work, and a lot of data.
Newspapers, blogs, social networks, on the other hand, are the main places to communicate with the mass (the mass media). Obviously, the mass media cannot wait for the times of science. Mass communication is "fast" and, at times, driven by the desire for the "scoop," the sensational. In a normal situation, the two ways of communicating don't often integrate.
This epidemic has brought the two worlds closer together: the scientific scoop's sensational and research have pervaded scientific journals. Scientific research's solidity and rationality have made its way into communicators who had never dealt with science. However, this is not necessarily a good thing.
Many high-profile scientific journals have stolen the way of communicating from the mass media. They give ample space to "intellectual exercises" on COVID (in "who has the longest model" style), based on uncertain hypotheses, on very few data and models approximate. Science, not the Daily Unknown, is full of them. In another era, scientific journals would have rejected all these intellectual exercises as inconsistent without batting an eye. At a time like this, giving space to poorly constructed studies without clear premises on the validity of the data and methods is an irresponsible act. The exploitation of these works is around the corner. We must be aware of it. The mass media do not have the skills to judge whether one research is valid or not. Somehow, they trust scientific communication, even if they do not always fully understand it. A communication distortion was, therefore, created.
From this distortion, a new mission is born, which is ours, but also of many other scientists (see the end of the post): to communicate concepts, models, results, which simultaneously have the same scientific solidity of well-done research and the typical immediacy of the phenomena that shake the masses. Communicating science through mass media is not trivial. Excellent examples are (some in Italian and some in English):
- https://barbaragallavotti.wordpress.com
- https://cattiviscienziati.com/
- https://www.isi-web.org/index.php/news-featured/20229-statisticians-react-to-the-news-every-week
- https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/
all blogs that take the space and time to explain things well.
Scientific communication on social media is still a very young and inconsistent creature; it does not have a well-defined identity. We are trying to give it one, starting with warning against the "ad hoc" manipulative sensationalism and elaborations that sometimes come together (see Sweden's case, a failure and not a panacea).
Let's not forget the responsibility that all of us communicators (of science and the masses) have. Better a little less media visibility and good research than an approximation and the search for the scoop to impress, sometimes upset (terrify) the masses. We reiterate that we do not cheer for science. We are not sellers of opinions, "science is not democratic"; it is competence, and this is what must be valued and defended.
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