Having worked in public affairs in the executive office of Bill Clinton’s White House, Rick Borchelt is used to fielding questions about whether the former hit TV drama “The West Wing” was realistic.
Speaking to more than 100 scientists gathered at the R.I. Convention Center for a conference April 12, Borchelt said that while the show mostly served up pure Hollywood fiction, it was depressingly accurate on one point.
“In 97 episodes, you have never once seen a science adviser in an episode – not once,” Borchelt said. “And a big part of that is how we communicate about science [and] research.”
The conference, sponsored by the state’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and the R.I. Science and Technology Advisory Council, focused on ways to promote collaboration among researchers in the state.
Borchelt, who once served as the communications director for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science and currently works as the communications director for the Genetics and Public Policy Center at The Johns Hopkins University, said the scientific community needs better communication strategies to find collaborators, influence policymakers and repair its image at a time of increasing public distrust.
Unfortunately, most science communications programs are aimed at the media, which is the worst way to reach the fewer than 100 policymakers who control funding and the fewer than 8,000 other policy leaders who advise them, Borchelt said.
Instead, an effective program should identify key groups of constituents, tailor individual messages that resonate with their interests and expertise, and then reach out to them via the communication channels they prefer, he said.
“You know what their Internet addresses are. You can communicate with them directly,” Borchelt said. “I can’t tell you how many times I walk in to consult with someone and they say, ‘We only have enough money to do one brochure. We need to send it out to the whole world. What should it say?’ And I say, ‘Well, throw it away. There is no brochure that communicates to the whole world. You have to decide who your key stakeholders are and approach them the way they find their information.’ ”
In particular, scientists should be wary of the mass media, Borchelt advised, because reporters and editors often don’t have a firm grasp on the implications or technical aspects of the research they cover and certainly can’t be counted on to cast it in the best light.
“Even to the best reporter, you hand your life over to someone else to tell your story,” he said.
In general terms, Borchelt stressed the need for scientists to radically reframe the way they communicate what they do to combat increasing cynicism from the public. The scientific community’s constant trumpeting of breakthroughs and advances has created unrealistic public expectations, he said.
At the same time, scientists face a public increasingly focused on the fortunes often associated with significant breakthroughs. The combination has eroded trust in the scientific community: In 2004, only 34 percent of Americans said they believed scientists put the nation’s well-being ahead of their own financial or career goals, Borchelt said.
“We’re beginning to hear this a lot: ‘We think scientists are trying to play God. We think scientists are in it for the money. We think scientists have a lot to make from these new patents and things, and so there’s no stopping their research,’ ” Borchelt said.
Scientists need to resist using the words “breakthrough” and “discovery” when communicating about their research, he said. Instead, Borchelt said, scientists should frame their work as a “technology of humility,” highlighting the stories behind a research effort, the trial-and-error process of research, the gains often associated with individual failures and the nonlinear, collaborative nature of discovery.
That approach, which Borchelt said has been pioneered by Sheila Jasanoff of Harvard University, is especially important when communicating about socially controversial research involving highly contested knowledge, such as stem cell research, he said.
And federal agencies that fund scientific research and other organizations and individuals that hold the purse strings need to get over their age-old desire for public acclaim, Borchelt said, which can get in the way of research.
