Our piece in Science has prompted many responses; my colleague Matt Nisbet has a pretty comprehensive rundown of what we'd heard as of yesterday, with some inline replies. Of course, a lot more has cropped up since then, including from Bora, James Hrynyshyn, and Mike the Mad Biologist, among others.
Bora and Mike are in general agreement with us, so I direct you there for great discussions that amplify what's already been said. As for those who are in disagreement, after the jump I'll elaborate on a few responses by Matt, and add a few points of my own, by replying to Carl Zimmer, PZ Myers, and James Hrynyshyn.
1. What Role for Education? Zimmer brings up a point that Matt and I have both heard in the past at talks:
....framing doesn't seem like quite the right response to the fact that over two-thirds of people in this country don't know enough about science to understand a newspaper story on a scientific subject. It seems more like surrender to me. Fixing high school science education seems a better plan.
Our response to Carl would be that it's not an either-or. Science education is critical, but it's also a long-term approach. It doesn't help us deal with the highly politicized hot-button issues that are playing out over the course of an election cycle--like embryonic stem cell research, or like global warming. On these issues, the frames game has already begun, and scientists are way behind. We simply can't wait for a better educated generation to come along and deal with these subjects in a wiser way. It will be too late.
2. What Role for Frame-Shattering? PZ has perhaps the most provocative response to our piece. He says we're siding with conformity, saying that scientists should appease the other side. As PZ puts it,
...sometimes we want to change the public's ideas. We want to break the frames of the debate and shift whole worldviews, and accommodating ourselves to the status quo won't do.
This is really an appealing way of "framing" things. It invokes images of Gandhi or Martin Luther King. But I'm not sure it's quite right in this particular case.
Matt and I, too, want to change norms and worldviews. We want to break some fricken frames. But we also recognize that changing worldviews is a long-term process, and you've got to begin somewhere. People need to be moved slowly, not abruptly, and you have to meet them at their individual starting points--not try to pull them down the road by force.
That's really all we're saying: Move people by appealing to them in ways that are personally relevant--not abstruse, and not alienating.
Aren't Scientists Over-Burdened Enough Already? James Hrynyshyn says we're saddling scientists with a job that ought to be performed by journalists, and that we're generally asking too much of them:
To be a great scientist requires enormous sacrifice and years of focusing on those very details that our framing enthusiasts would so readily discard. To tell them "Oh, and by the way, in addition to knowing your own field backwards and forwards, and being a good people manager, and writing killer grant applications, you also have to be a master of rhetoric, well-skilled in crafting public PowerPoint/Keynote presentations, and be completely up-to-speed on the latest political hot-button issues," is just plain cruel.
Matt and I never meant to suggest that every last scientist has to become a top notch framer. Rather, we want scientific societies, institutions, and universities to rearrange their priorities and step up to the plate on this. That means training a generation of better science communicators (although many scientists will assuredly opt out of the "framing" curriculum). It also means launching communication initiatives--such as advertising--targeted at specific publics, and using the right frames to reach them.
The average bench scientist can happily duck all of this--there can be a division of labor--but for the scientific community as a whole, it's essential.
Hrynyshyn also suggests that science journalism is where the productive framing ought to happen. The trouble is that traditional science journalism reaches far too narrow a slice of the public to have the kind of effect Matt and I are looking for. This is part of the problem with the whole "popular science" model of communication. But, Nisbet is the expert on this. I'll defer to him.
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Quoting Chris Mooney:
The word in bold should perhaps be copy-edited. (-; That aside, I find this a valuable clarification — thank you. You also mention "the problem with the whole 'popular science' model of communication". This is a point which has lately interested me a great deal (and by interested, I mean in the technical sense of "infuriated").
This is probably more of a medium- or long-term issue than a short-term one, but I worry that this whole discussion is putting too much emphasis on what scientists should do and how scientists should explain themselves. Since the problem involves communicating science, we need to look at our current communication structures and find out what they're doing, too.
Regular Language Log readers will know that Mark Liberman, a linguist and a clear communicator himself, has tracked a great deal of bad science reporting and arrived at some melancholy conclusions.
In amongst all this talk of what scientists should do and how scientists should explain themselves, what's being done to train new science writers and make it more profitable for media organizations to report actual, factual discoveries? Are we to assume that "framing" knowledge in the right way will make it propagate without error through a flawed system?
The whole driving force behind this "framing science" debate is the fact that our society is not a digital free-flow of pure ideas, but rather a realm where ideas stick to and are processed by human brains, with all the failings and peculiarities that entails. If we want to persuade people of anything, short-term or long, we have to understand how they believe, and wherefore.
That is a nice suggestion, but I do not think that will solve the problems I, personally, have come up against trying to communicate 'science' to the public.
A reaction from a young, frustrated scientist.
I have added links to a lot momre reactions to the bottom of my post.
I am assuming that you and Matt will come out with a long detailed reply, addressing the criticisms by bloggers and their commenters (of which there are many - this appeared to have garnered quite a discussion in comment threads on most blogs that wrote about this). There are also some commenters who really grok this and deserve a highlight as well.
Some observations:
Most of those bloggers and commenters who disagree with you give examples of good (or supposedly good) communication by scientists. But EVERY SINGLE one of their examples is irrelevant to this discussion. Why? Two reasons:
1. Because each example is about science education or popularization. This has nothing to do with it. Framing is about persuasion - making people believe you are right, not learning anything new, not getting interested in the topic (though this can be a nice side-effect), just aligning themselves with you because of who you are, what you said, and how you said it. It is about making political allies, people who will do the right thing when it matters - at the next election (or protest, or write-in campaign). It is about swaying the public opinion, about winning in court, about pushing the right legislation through Congress, and about winning political battles. If we win them, we will be able to teach and popularize science in the future. If we lose, we'll end up in Gitmo whenever we try to do so. In short, it is not about science itself, it is about politics.
2. Because each example deals with willing, self-selected, eager audience consisting of people who trust you to begin with, have necessary background, are willing to take some time and mental effort to learn from you. Those are the people who read science blogs, popular science magazines, watch Discovery Channel, go to the locla Cafe Scientifique, but popular science books. They are not the audience you and Matt have in mind. You are concerned with unwilling audience, people who mistrust you, think you are a nuisance, do not want to believe you, do not want to listen to you, want you to go away, do not have any inclination to make a mental effort to follow your argument, and have no background in science whatsoever. But you need them to change their mind. And you have 30 seconds max to do it.
Also, they do not think about division of labor - that different people will do best with particular audiences and should shy away from talking to other kinds of audiences. They insist that you are forcing all scientists to go on FoxNews to explain evolution!
Finally, most of the bloggers and commenters continuously conflate the short-term and long-term meanings of the term "framing" which my post is all about.
We should frame Science as love and good morals.
I think the two of you have started a needed and overdue debate. As an NIH funded researcher and someone who sees good scientists struggling all around to keep their funding and jobs it is my opinion that your piece is spot on. At the recent Senate hearings on NIH funding levels I was happy to see that NIH finally stood up and pointed out simply and succinctly what NIH funded grants have accomplished in terms of improving the fight against disease and understanding how to treat it. On the other hand, I was appalled that when these same people were asked what exactly are the consequences of decreased pay-lines and smaller chances of getting grants funded they essentially had nothing concrete to say. To have Arlen Spector, who I think really wants to push NIH funding levels up, point this out time and time again as a major weakness of the hearings only deepened the wound. This is exactly the type of failure that can not be afforded right now. It is almost incomprehensible that it could have happened -- it should have been evident that this was the core issue going in.
There are a large group of scientists out there who understand what you and Matt are talking about. We are the young investigators who are just now begining our careers who were among the first group of PhD students to receive not only science training but intense courses on effective communication and grant writing. There are scientific and medical issues on which we must move forward now such as climate change, infectious disease (especially those affected by climate change such as malaria) and treatments for the growing elderly population (stem cells). Arguing these points on a purely scientific basis is fine but I find it unlikely that this will be persuasive (as you have pointed out). There are good reasons for everyone to be interested in these topics in their daily lives and in the voting booth.
Take, for example, the stem cell issue. I have seen, time and time again, right wingers present a flat-out lie as fact that satisfies their base of support. This is generally followed by a scientist or liberal politician trying to correct the lie with a fact that very few people understand. I think that what you have pointed out is that while the lies should be corrected in some forum, the correct response to the framed issue to a conservative base is to reframe the argument to them in terms that relate to their lives. In this case it is exceedingly simple, point out their chances of getting a neurodgenerative disease, state that there is no cure and that it is the consensus of the scientific community that stem cell research holds promise in this area. When this is countered by the "existing embryonic stem cell canard" point out that there is no truth in the statement and reitterate the potential impact of this type of decision on the average person's life. There is no playing fast and loose with the facts there, all that has been done is to draw the viewer into the discussion from your point and not giving them a chance to get confused by an argument on which they have no training. I commend you on pointing this out in your article and showing a way forward.
Thanks for all these comments. I have, frankly, been inundated since this framing debate started up, so sorry not to comment back sooner.
Bora, I agree with you entirely--a lot of the critics aren't really seeing what the argument is about. (Frankly, this kind of proves the point Matt and I are trying to make.)
It's tricky: A lot of science defenders and bloggers have enthusiastic audiences, so they think they must be doing a good job. And indeed they are, within the context that they're operating. But they need to realize that those audiences are just a small slice of America.
In any event, I'm deeply heartened by a response such as that of Theodore Price. I too think the time is ripe for a sea-change in terms of science communication strategies. I hope Matt Nisbet and I have contributed to making that happen.
And yeah, you bet we're going to elaborate in a lot more detail....
On the other hand, it seems to me that the original article failed to take into to consideration that America is just as small slice of the world.
As I keep saying, I think the major problem in the US is bad science education - this is to some degree caused by teachers and schools being afraid to offend peoples' religious views. As long as this happens, then a large part of the US public are not aware of the scientific problems with their own views, and cannot evaluate what they are told in a scientific context.
So, yes, reframing etc. will help in the short run, but as long science illiteracy is so rampant in the US, scientists will loose out to people willing to lie or twist the fact.
I think it should be pointed out that Science is the journal of the AMERICAN Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which is an international organization, but is based in the US and its membership is primarily American. As an AAAS member this type of article is exactly what I want to see in the policy forum. That is the reason this section of the magazine exists. If the rest of the world is willing to wait for science education to improve to the point that American voters understand the issues then fine but I think that is an unwise choice. Without proper policy decisions now there it little hope for improvement in the overall situation in the future.
On the other hand, it might be a great way of removing the opposition.
Bob
This line of argument sounds familiar... in fact, it sounds an awful lot like the discussion about how "we don't have enough scientists". The problem here isn't that there aren't any, or even enough, "good communicators" among scientists. The problem is that the people in power don't want them to educate the public.
In a related thread, somebody pointed out: Sound bites are mind killers. I assert that's exactly the point -- the people controlling the mass media outlets have chosen that any "outside views" presented on, say, a newscast, shall be reduced to sound bites, while the "official truth" gets a full presentation. This is a remarkably effective way to prevent "unauthorized" viewpoints from getting a hearing.
As noted elsewhere, scientific themes and images do have wide popular appeal. The obstacle to bringing science knowledge to the public is real -- but it's fundamentally a matter of hostile political manipulations. That's not just in our public media -- we've been well and truly sandbagged with respect to public education, not to mention our access to "policy circles".
Yet another long post for your evening reading (especially if you have insomnia):
http://gregladen.com/wordpress/?p=669
Your piece in Science has done it's job!!! (assuming you intended to generate discussion).
I appreciate Greg Laden's intense interest in framing. His latest post, however, dismisses literally hundreds of peer-reviewed papers across the fields of communication, political science, and sociology.
Though he references Goffman's work from 1974, over the past three decades, research in the above fields have developed framing as a theory of media influence. For overviews and applications of the literature see the citations we reference in the Policy Forum article:
Price, V., Nir, L., & Capella, J.N. (2005). Framing public discussion of gay civil unions. Public Opinion Quarterly, 69, (2), 179-212.
Gamson, WA. and Modigliani, A. (1989). Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Constructionist Approach. American Journal of Sociology, 95, 1-37.
See also the latest issue of the Journal of Communication, the flagship journal in the field. It's a special issue devoted to framing and media influence. See especially the following overview:
Scheufele, D. A., & Tewksbury, D. (2007). Framing, agenda-setting, and priming: The evolution of three media effects models. Journal of Communication, 57(1), 9-20.
See also this earlier article by Scheufele, possibly the most heavily cited article in the field over the past decade:
Scheufele, D.A. (1999). Framing as a Theory of Media Effects. Journal of Communication 49 (4): 103-22
Matthew,
Thanks for the comments. Thanks also for sending the additional PDF's.
I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on the concept of frames and framing in the world of communication theory. I've now read additional information (including what you sent along to me) and I have a more informed opinion of "frame theory" and it's history. I'm of the opinion that Goffmanian Frame Analysis is a very different thing than what is being done now in communication; Goffmanian Frame Analysis still has a great deal to offer and it's a bit of a shame this has been lost during the transformations that happened from the late 80s through the present; and I'm not enamored with the current theoretical perspectives in communication to the extent that I know about them. But, as I say, I'm not an expert in that area by any means.
I do think, however, that this is an important area and I think we need to move in productive directions.
The link I give above reflects some of these views.
Matt and I never meant to suggest that every last scientist has to become a top notch framer. Rather, we want scientific societies, institutions, and universities to rearrange their priorities and step up to the plate on this. That means training a generation of better science communicators (although many scientists will assuredly opt out of the "framing" curriculum). It also means launching communication initiatives--such as advertising--targeted at specific publics, and using the right frames to reach them.
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Ok, that sounds all well and good but how do you plan to do that? Societies are run by scientists who are very busy.
Universities are increasingly being run like corporations why are they going to spend money to properly frame science which will be long term benefits but not in the short term? The university I was at for grad school tried to get rid of the stockrooms for the biomedical sciences. They cut back on cleaning services.
Your answers still require education and at the grad school level require mini-revolutions in what is taught and what advisors encourage. That is not an easy task. People have been trying for many years to improve graduate education in the sciences. It is a self-selecting group of people who endure the system. Many of those that would be your best hopes for being able to communicate effectively leave science and don't look back. Those that do communicate well who do endure the process are encouraged to focus on research. That is the system at top notch research universities. How do you plan to change that to open doors to allow time & resources to be devoted to communicating to those outside of science?
Also do you have any comments on what Nisbet said:
"That's the power and influence of framing when it resonates with an individual's social identity. It plays on human nature by allowing a citizen to make up their minds in the absence of knowledge, and importantly, to articulate an opinion. It's definitely not the scientific or democratic ideal, but it's how things work in society."
Do we really want to be enabling a society in which people "make up their minds in the absence of knowledge, and importantly, to articulate and opinion"? Isn't that the culture that the types in Bush administration thrive on? Is that really in the best interest of science? For society as a whole? Is the threat so great that we start giving up on our democratic principles?