Building more connections across different areas of study and practice related to science communication.Identifying effective approaches for communicating in a changing media environment.
Understanding how to effectively convey both scientific consensus and scientific uncertainty.Researching the importance of the quality of scientific information, the ways people process information, and social influences, and determining how these factors interact.It also points to specific targets to continue to build knowledge about communicating science effectively, including: The committee’s report, “Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda,” now available as a public draft, synthesizes a wide range of findings from research on communicating about science. Despite a common assumption that people’s choices would be more consistent with scientific evidence if only they were better informed-the “deficit model” of science communication-research points to the need for science communicators to take into account a complex system of goals, needs, perceptions, values and beliefs as they shape their approach in different contexts. This is one overarching conclusion of a committee of scientists and science communicators convened by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to assess the current state of knowledge about effective science communication. Providing more information is rarely enough to change people’s minds when scientific findings run counter to their beliefs and values. The National Academies gathered experts to examine science communication in an age of skepticism