American Scientist

In episode three of D&I ComSci—American Scientist’s science-for-all podcast—we're discussing the promotion of accurate science inclusively on social media with science communication leaders and social media influencers: Michael Xenos at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, BlackInNeuro and SciComm Collective's Danielle Nadin, and Samantha Yammine, also known on the internet as Science Sam.

Image/Audio credits: 3dpete on Flickr/cc-by-nd 2.0; Intro/outro music by Podington Bear on FreeMusicArchive/cc by-nc 3.0

Transcript

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Jordan Anderson: Science Communication. Inclusive science communication. You're listening to American Scientist's D&ICommSci, the science-for-all podcast, where we aim to explore how science communicators are making science more reflexive, equitable, and engaging to audiences. In this episode, social media platforms and promoting accurate science inclusively. We'll hear from science communication leaders and social media influencers: Michael Xenos at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, BlackInNeuro and SciComm Collective's Danielle Nadin, and Samantha Yammine, also known on the internet ScienceSam. I'm your host, Jordan Anderson.

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Jordan Anderson: A few weeks ago, I met up with a close friend I had known since high school. It was the first time I'd seen her since her recovery from COVID. And I asked her what it was like having COVID in the middle of hurricane Ida. She and I are both from New Orleans, and she caught coronavirus days before hurricane struck. She told me how she struggled through fevers and even a visit to the intensive care unit, all while living for a week with no power, limited food and water. From what my friend told me, she planned to get the vaccine but she was hesitant. A Black woman, her family members sent articles from Facebook and posts from Instagram that suggested vaccination was more dangerous than the virus itself.

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Social media constantly influences our thoughts and opinions. The content on social media platforms influenced my friend's decision. And the power that these platforms have left me thinking, "What can we learn about the current state of social media and its influence on audiences to improve our reach, even when a large portion of the information on social media platforms may or may not be true?"

Michael Xenos: You know, when I do a national sample, almost everybody's using Facebook, at least a little bit.

Jordan Anderson: That's Michael Xenos, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Life Science Communication department. He's a trained expert in political science communication, but realized that science communication, especially questions on accessibility and improving science interest, are policy questions as well. So he studies which platforms other than television, radio, and newspapers serve as facilitators of science issue awareness. I reached out to Dr. Xenos after reading a paper he co-authored titled "Saw It on Facebook: The Role of Social Media in Facilitating Science Issue Awareness." And I asked him, "How are social media platforms facilitating science communication, and why is there such a strong focus on Facebook?"

Michael Xenos: Everybody's seen those, sort of, charts of usage statistics across the different platforms. And there's always Facebook, and YouTube is usually a second. And then we get into this territory of your Pinterest, WhatsApp, Twitter, Tik Tok—these are platforms that when you use the metric of what proportion of the adult population ever uses this platform, you're down around 20 percent. And so—similar kind of dynamic—that if you're looking at social media dynamics of "How does social media affect people's engagement with science?" I mean, the short answer is that yeah, for most people, most of the time, social media—for better or for worse—is Facebook. And if I want to then try to compare that to Twitter-use or compare that to Tik Tok or Instagram, I'm going to have a pretty small sample of Twitter users or Instagram users in the sample, and it's difficult to make those conclusions.

Jordan Anderson: Of course, these networks and communities exist across tens of hundreds of different platforms. But multiple surveys find that Facebook is the most widely used, whereas Twitter and Instagram each have about 20 percent fewer users, at least overall. However, among younger adults 18-to-29 years old, Instagram and Twitter rank higher. As inclusive science communicators, it's important to know our audiences and leverage our work across primary platforms. But still, we must keep in mind how users may differ on these platforms to better understand who may be engaging with our work.

Michael Xenos: There are intense communities that are using these platforms intensively, you know, younger users using Tik Tok, you know, there's a lot of great demographic breakdowns on the different platforms available now. But, you know, when you're trying to build a broad theoretical model—that looks at something like the diversity of people's networks and how does that affect the information they're exposed to—there's just more available data on Facebook. And it's also a little bit to do with the nature of Facebook's platform, right? Facebook is kind of famously this platform that, you know, the networks that people have on the platform largely mirror their offline networks, right? It's kind of unusual to have someone in that network, at least based on my research, that isn't someone that the person hasn't met or interacted with in real life. Whereas of course Twitter or Tik Tok, totally different story. And because of that relationship to people's offline networks, another reason that people like me I think are drawn to research about Facebook is you get a little bit more opportunity for that incidental exposure.

Jordan Anderson: "Incidental exposure" describes how people gain information incidentally, or when they're not looking for it.

Michael Xenos: Right, that kind of like classic example of usually relatives on Facebook that you're connected to for this one reason—you want to see the pictures of the relatives and so forth—and so that creates opportunities for incidental exposure that you don't see as much on the other platforms.

Jordan Anderson: So for example, a video on brain anatomy may stand out on an individual's page that mostly shows family vacation and travel. One thing that makes incidental exposure so important to science communication is that incidental exposure increases a person's long-term information recall. Inclusive science communicators such as Danielle Nadin also consider how likely a scientific graph, visualization, video, or hashtag will be exposed to other audiences. Nadin and I are friends and colleagues—both members of SciComm Collective, a group of grad and post grad students passionate about science, communication, and social justice. Nadin is also an executive board member of BlackInNeuro, an organization which began as a Twitter community highlighting Black individuals in neuroscience.

Danielle Nadin: So there was a tweet by our president, Angeline Dukes, who had asked When are we going to do BlackInNeuro Week," because, as you may know, last year, several groups of Black scientists organized weeks dedicated to their fields. So it started with Black Birders' Week, which was in response to the Central Park incident where Mr. [Christian] Cooper was approached by Amy Cooper and had the police called on Him. And so Black Birders' Week was meant to really highlight Black birders and their experiences. And so after that there was BlackInAstro Week, BlackBotanist Week—all these different fields that came out to highlight Black people. And so, I'm a neuroscientist, I was doing my master's in neuro. And I responded to Angeline, who I didn't know. And I was like, "Oh, I'm in, I'm happy to help." And from there, I think, like, it's been a whirlwind ever since because I was able to connect because of that tweet with about 20 other people. And we organized a week of events. A lot of the promotion for that was on Twitter. And we started a hashtag, #BlackInNeuro and #BlackInNeuroWeek. And it had, honestly, I think, something like almost 4 million engagement at one point last summer. And that's when I realized Twitter is such a powerful tool for connecting people and not just in science. But for me, my experience has been, it's been so powerful in connecting scientists from around the world who otherwise may not have met each other.

Jordan Anderson: BlackInNeuro later evolved into an organization that hosts a series of events on neuroscience research, racism, and mental health.

Danielle Nadin: You know, some of these people I've met through Twitter, we've been to the same conferences before—we never met each other, but on Twitter we were able to connect. And part of it is kind of how Twitter works: If you have a tweet that goes viral, it can reach people who you don't follow and who don't follow you. And so it has the potential to go really far, which is something that not all social media platforms have.

Jordan Anderson: Indeed, studies show that network diversity—variety in the demographics, political opinions, ages, incomes, and zip codes—of an individual's followers increase the likelihood of incidental exposure. This means that by diversifying one's own followers inclusive science communicators can better reach science-neutral audiences or those who may be receptive to new information. Diversifying networks may also help inclusive science communicators better connect to those who do not have access to social media by connecting to those in their communities who do. But Nadin says inclusive science communicators also need to diversify those they follow, too, in order to better understand alternate opinions, assumptions, and accuracy of our own work.

Danielle Nadin: I think often we end up in like, kind of an echo chamber where you only hear the same kind of opinions. And so making sure that you are diversifying who you're following and learning about issues that may not affect you in your day-to-day or that you may not think about in your day-to-day. So for me, for example, I've been learning a lot from the Black disability community on Twitter. And that's a community that, you know, I didn't know existed until I started following Black disabled people and, like, reading their tweets, learning about the advocacy movements, the chat—Twitter chats—that they were having. And so I was able to learn a lot that way. I think also just paying attention to what hashtags might be popping up in your feed a lot. So, even though it might not be something that everyone you follow is talking about, you might see something emerge from like just one or two of your followers and maybe clicking and looking into it a little bit further to learn more. Another really cool thing that Twitter has added is Twitter spaces. So it allows people to have like an audio chat. And you can see when one's happening when you're on your phone—at the top of your screen there'll be like a purple bubble. And there's been a lot of—at least for me in my network—events where people are talking about like COVID and health equity, or issues like going on in the world. So the other day, I listened to one about the genocide happening in Tigray in Ethiopia. And it was just super insightful because you get to hear people talking instead of just reading their tweet. And you can go through those spaces and see who else is listening and follow new people. So even if it's not millions of people—it might just be, you know, a group of 20 people—it's still a way for you to engage in things. And I think when people are doing Twitter spaces, they're usually talking about something that they care about, and you're probably going to learn something.

Jordan Anderson: And there's research backing up just how these echo chamber Twitter spaces are used. In 2019. a study from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania found that echo chambers that developed from shared interests can improve the accuracy of a shared topic through inner-group networking. But just because it can improve accuracy, it doesn't always. It can also strengthen scientific misinformation.

Samantha Yammine: That's the name of the game these days.

Jordan Anderson: Samantha Yammine is an inclusive science communicator, also known as ScienceSam.

Samantha Yammine: I focus on my platforms a lot about talking about the science behind COVID and vaccines. So I am bombarded with people intentionally trying to misinform—we call them disinformers—and then people just unsure and interacting with that kind of content, and they'll often send it to me and be like, "Is this true? Like, tell me! What do I believe, I don't know what to believe."

Jordan Anderson: Over time, she built an enormous following. And now her goal is to make science for everyone through empathetic and entertaining science storytelling. She has been cited in multiple science articles and has appeared on television and worked with many STEM-access and education organizations.

Samantha Yammine: There's a lot of marketing that goes into it. And I think scientists sometimes like forget that marketing is a whole field. Like, there is expertise, and a whole world of best practices based on marketing, and social media marketing is its own huge field. And there are best practices, and there are certain ways to engage. And I think like we just kind of jump into it, disregarding that expertise sometimes, like thinking we can just tweet whatever we want and it doesn't matter. And in those cases, like, we add to the misinformation. With the pandemic, we're in what they call an infodemic, which is an overwhelming amount of information. And I will say like, I think scientists have contributed to that because they're just putting hot-takes up on Twitter without really thinking about the implications of their words, or they're giving their opinions on things when it's like, you're one person, your opinion doesn't matter. It's like what the collective consensus is, that's what we need to be reinforcing. And if we were reinforcing that, which is the truth—science is about consensus, not one person—then there, you know, it wouldn't be so easy for these individuals to create such huge platforms being a "whistleblower," as they call it, when really, they're just trying to make money off disinformation. So I think we have some internal reflecting to do on the way that we permit, and I think also, obviously, the biggest thing that needs to be done is the tech platforms really have to step up and like, not tolerate misinformation on their platforms. But I will say like we could, as a community, we could do better at setting a better standard and pointing people in the right direction of consensus over individuals, and informing people on, kind of like, social media literacy—like if you see a video that you're not sure about, pause before you share it, because even sharing it to ask "Is this true" is giving it traffic and letting it be seen more.

Jordan Anderson: Misinformation is always a main topic of discussion in the news, information, and social media universe. Misinformation is often the result of drawing conclusions from inaccurate premises or partial information and is often bolstered by skilled marketing, which like inclusive science communication, can draw users in—from bright colors, large font sizes, attention-catching titles, and leads, video, audio, and many times even emotional appeal. Strong marketing may help inclusive science communicators stand out against a sea of misinformation.

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Jordan Anderson: So we've discussed platforms and their abilities to network and spread scientific information as well as misinformation. We've yet to discuss another major player in scientific social media spread: one-to-one messaging.

Samantha Yammine: Adam Mosseri, who's the CEO of Instagram, has outright said in addition to short-form video, one-to-one messaging is a huge priority. And we've seen this on every platform, basically, Snapchat, too, and Tik Tok, one-to-one messaging, direct messaging, things like WhatsApp as well, are hugely popular, even like WeChat in China as well. These types of platforms are very popular. And I wrote a guide, actually a few months back about how we can translate the science communication we do on other platforms to WhatsApp. There's like a few tricks. But it's hard because you can't really be an originating source. Right? It all comes through a personal network. So I think one of the important things is again, thinking about shareability and how easy is this to package. So for example, if you post a video on Tik Tok, people can download that video and then share it super easily on WhatsApp. So if you're going to make an informational video, and you want a lot of people to see it—let's say it's about, you know, COVID vaccines for kids or something, let's just say something like that that's time sensitive, and you need a lot of people to see it in a short amount of time—if you make a five minute video on your website, that's like not very user friendly to share. And that's not, you know, it might not embed nicely in the WhatsApp chat people may not put the link. Instead thinking about "Okay, if I make this three minutes, I can put it on Tik Tok, people can download it, and then they can send it to their family group." And then do that and literally tell people in your Tik Tok video, "Download this and send it to your family on WhatsApp." Right? So just be mindful like that. Like, "Okay, if we're making a video, where's that video gonna live? And let me make it for that platform." And if I want it to be shared in a certain way, you need to tell people. Don't expect people will just say, "Oh, I should share it." No. Tell them, "Please share this." What does every YouTuber do at the end? "Like, subscribe, and comment below," because they need you to do that. So it just, it feels awkward, but just say it. And I think being mindful like that will really, really make a difference.

Jordan Anderson: WhatsApp and text messaging are prime examples of how misinformation may spread undetected. It was one-to-one text messaging that prompted my friend to hesitate too long and getting the vaccine before she caught the coronavirus. Additionally, WhatsApp is more frequent in non-native U.S. populations and frequent amongst Hispanic populations, especially in Latin American countries. Because most science and scientific publication is done in English, how are we thinking about how science information and misinformation might be retained internationally amongst our own countries? In combating misinformation, the most important strategy is to stay mindful and respect others' thoughts, their bodies, their opinions, and their beliefs. I'll return to the vaccine hesitancy example. People should not be attacked for their decision to get vaccinated. But it's an injustice to allow them to be fooled by strong marketing that makes inaccurate or skewed information seem correct.

Samantha Yammine: I never blame an individual whatever their choices. I don't think the role of scientists or science communicators is to tell people what to do. It's to share accurate information to empower them to make an evidence-based decision. What makes me sad is the people who are making these inaccurate videos—people who aren't holding up that standard that I want us to—they're really savvy. They are using everything that they can—all these fear-mongering tactics, emotional manipulation—to really make it so that like you can't ignore what they're saying. They're really good at it. And I'm not willing to steep to that level, not willing to emotionally manipulate someone into a decision. To me, that's inappropriate. And there are emotional aspects of science. And I bring that up if there's something to be angry about. Like, I'm not saying we can't have any emotion, but to emotionally manipulate, I'm not gonna stoop to that. But it's sadly what's effective. And so it means that we need to be savvier in the communications we put out there. And we need to make sure that like, whatever emotion they're manipulating, we're addressing in a more reasonable way. So for many people, they're afraid about like, unknown long-term effects. You know, we have so much reassuring data, and we can really—if we take the time to explain to people "Well, that's your that's true. I get what you're worried about long term effects, that's valid that you're afraid of that. Now, let me tell you why we're confident that you don't have to worry about it." You know, like validating people's fear and then addressing it as best we can. And that just takes time and empathy and skill and to do it at scale takes savviness that we haven't invested. Like we haven't given—we haven't supported anyone. I've been doing this a year and a half all for free, all on a volunteer basis. And I'm just one of many examples. So we need to put, you know, support and funding behind it so that this can stop happening.

Jordan Anderson: Strong science communication requires specific training in a developed skill set. Although there are many grant initiatives, organizations, and jobs that ask scientists to provide some form of science communication or outreach with their research, not every scientist needs to be a science communicator.

Samantha Yammine: I don't think it's every scientist's job to be a communicator. And I think that's a disservice to how much work communications is, that we expect that. I don't expect every scientist to know how to communicate their work to every single person in the world. I think it's a really big ask, and that's going to lead to failure. So I think we need to instead value people with this specific expertise—that you have, that I have, that so many other people have—value it enough to hire them. Every institution should have an expert who can help write these plain-language summaries on the paper. That's kind of what the press release office should be doing. But that doesn't always work out great. Instead you need someone who has the communications and the science skills.

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Jordan Anderson: As we're coming to the end of this episode, I want to take a second to reflect on all we've discussed today. We discussed how different social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, provide tons of different ways for scientists and science communicators to connect to one another and many different audiences. By diversifying who we follow and who follows us, we not only reach larger audiences and expand our incidental exposure, but we can better inform our own science and reduce biases in our work. We also discussed how social media statistics may not always be the most accurate source for understanding who is interacting with our science and how one-to-one messaging plays a major role in disseminating both accurate science and misinformation. Finally, we discussed that social media communication is a skill, and there are expert marketers and advisors who spent years studying how to best reach their audiences. Because of this, not every scientist should feel pressured to be an expert inclusive science communicator, but rather should be open to collaborating with others who have learned the trade and do it well.

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This episode of D&ICommSci has been brought to you by American Scientist and Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society. For links to the studies mentioned in this episode as well as a transcript, please visit AmericanScientist.org and look for the blog post that accompanies this podcast. Special thanks to Samantha Yammine, Danielle Nadin, and Michael Xenos for joining us today. Today's music choices come from the Free Music Archive. Please be sure to check out BlackInNeuro, SciComm Collective, University of Wisconsin-Madison's Life Science Communication department, and ScienceSam on Instagram at Science.Sam. If you like what you heard today, follow American Scientist [@amscimag] and follow me on Twitter and Instagram @Jordan_ArtSci. I'm your host Jordan Anderson. Thanks for listening.

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