{"id":38568,"date":"2024-06-25T18:34:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-25T23:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/?post_type=bu-article&#038;p=38568"},"modified":"2024-12-02T14:37:11","modified_gmt":"2024-12-02T19:37:11","slug":"combatting-science-denial","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/articles\/combatting-science-denial\/","title":{"rendered":"Combatting Science Denial"},"content":{"rendered":"\t<div class=\"wp-block-editorial-leadin bu-blocks-block-editorial-leadin is-style-default has-media has-media-focus-center-middle\">\n\t\t<div class=\"container-lockup\">\n\n\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-leadin-media\">\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<img width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" src=\"\/com\/files\/2024\/12\/ocm365-amazeen-civic-science.jpg\" class=\"\" alt=\"Michelle Amazeen standing next to a bookshelf.\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2024\/12\/ocm365-amazeen-civic-science.jpg 2000w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2024\/12\/ocm365-amazeen-civic-science-636x358.jpg 636w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2024\/12\/ocm365-amazeen-civic-science-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2024\/12\/ocm365-amazeen-civic-science-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2024\/12\/ocm365-amazeen-civic-science-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2024\/12\/ocm365-amazeen-civic-science-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2024\/12\/ocm365-amazeen-civic-science-992x558.jpg 992w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2024\/12\/ocm365-amazeen-civic-science-1500x844.jpg 1500w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2024\/12\/ocm365-amazeen-civic-science-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2024\/12\/ocm365-amazeen-civic-science-1984x1116.jpg 1984w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2024\/12\/ocm365-amazeen-civic-science-1628x916.jpg 1628w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2024\/12\/ocm365-amazeen-civic-science-1600x900.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2024\/12\/ocm365-amazeen-civic-science-1366x768.jpg 1366w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2024\/12\/ocm365-amazeen-civic-science-1280x720.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2024\/12\/ocm365-amazeen-civic-science-854x480.jpg 854w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"wp-block-editorial-leadin-caption wp-prepress-component-caption\">Photo by Michael D. Spencer for Boston University Photography<\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"container-words-outer\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"container-words-inner\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"head\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCombatting Science Denial\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h4 class=\"deck\">Michelle Amazeen Studies Who Is Susceptible to Science Misinformation and Why \u2013 and Strategies for Fighting It<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-categories\">\n\t\t\t<ul>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<a\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\thref=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/category\/com-365\/\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCOM\/365\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<a\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\thref=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/category\/media-science\/\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMedia Science\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<a\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\thref=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/category\/research\/\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tResearch\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/ul>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-date\">June 25, 2024<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-credits\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<ul data-credit-type=\"By\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/authors\/steve-holt\/\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSteve Holt\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/ul>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-share js-bu-prepress-share-tools\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-twitter\"><span>Twitter<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-facebook\"><span>Facebook<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-action\"><\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t<div style=\"display:none;\">\n\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-share-tools\">\n\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-share-tools-inner js-prepress-component-share-tools\">\n\t\t<h4>Share<\/h4>\n\t\t<p class=\"wp-prepress-component-share-tools-article-title\">Combatting Science Denial<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-share-tools-article-link\">\n\t\t\t<div>\n\t\t\t\t<input type=\"text\" value=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/articles\/combatting-science-denial\/\" readonly>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<label>\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Copy URL:<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<button class=\"js-prepress-component-share-tools\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<span>Copy<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/button>\n\t\t\t<\/label>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s a question many of us have grappled with in recent years, whether engaging in a debate about the reality of human-caused climate change or talking to a dubious family member about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines: Why are some Americans more likely to believe an internet meme over the word of scientists, doctors, government agencies and research institutions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The answer to that question is neither simple nor straightforward, says <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/profile\/michelle-amazeen\/\">Michelle Amazeen<\/a>, an associate professor of mass communication, director of COM\u2019s Communication Research Center (CRC) and COM\u2019s associate dean of research. With the help of her colleagues at the CRC, Amazeen has been studying which communities are most susceptible to science misinformation and how to effectively combat science-related misperceptions, especially on social media. Amazeen is among a growing number of experts trying to break through to those who have lost trust in institutions and are prone to believing the lies and half-truths they see online. She says the answer may lie in explaining and communicating science messages at the community level\u2014a new field called civic science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2021, Amazeen was selected as a Civic Science Fellow by the Rita Allen Foundation, which aims to support research and ideas that can \u201cimprove health, democracy and understanding.\u201d Dean Mariette DiChristina (\u201986) serves on the Practice and Science of Civic Science Advisory Committee, which supports the fellowship program. Amazeen\u2019s fellowship project sought answers to two questions: Which are the most science-misinformed communities, and what are effective ways to combat science-related misperceptions? With some of the work still in review and one paper published by Science Communication, Amazeen is particularly excited about the promise of one finding: localization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re seeing the emergence of civic science, in part, because it\u2019s more democratic. And there have been assaults on democracy of late,\u201d Amazeen says. \u201cPart of addressing some of the growing institutional distrust is through making greater efforts to be transparent and connecting with communities about what science is, and who decides it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3>DECLINING TRUST IN SCIENCE, JOURNALISM<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>One lesson that came out of the pandemic was that the percentage of Americans who distrust science is growing. Many of us saw this play out anecdotally on our Facebook and X feeds, but the data confirm the trend: A 2022 Pew Research Center survey found that the share of Americans with \u201cnot too much\/no confidence at all\u201d in medical scientists doubled between April 2020 and December 2021, from 11 percent to 22 percent. Add to that an 18-point increase in the share of Americans who report \u201cno confidence\u201d in journalists, according to the Pew study, and you have a recipe for rampant misinformation, Amazeen says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWith the ascendance of social media, we really don\u2019t have journalistic gatekeepers anymore. As a result, there\u2019s so much information out there that it\u2019s really hard for people to tell what\u2019s accurate and what\u2019s not accurate,\u201d she says. \u201cWe saw that in a very detailed fashion with the COVID-19 pandemic. We\u2019re seeing that with climate change and with other scientific issues too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Black and Latinx communities, in particular, are frequently targeted by misinformation efforts, especially about science-related topics. There is a long and tragic history behind this. Public health institutions have long ignored, discriminated against or mistreated marginalized communities\u2014take the US government\u2019s syphilis experiments on nonconsenting African Americans in Alabama in the 20th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Such mistreatment has led to generations of medical skepticism among some people of color and explains why many were slow to trust the vaccines for COVID-19\u2014or were never vaccinated at all. Another reason: communities of color haven\u2019t historically been represented in the scientific and medical communities, leaving them intimidated or anxious, Amazeen says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-teal-background-right\"><p>We\u2019re seeing the emergence of civic science, in part, because it\u2019s more democratic. And there have been assaults on democracy of late.\u201d<\/p><cite>Michelle Amazeen<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s a history that \u201cbad actors\u201d take advantage of, Amazeen adds, targeting underrepresented communities with disinformation campaigns\u2014often on social media\u2014and further amplifying disparities in healthcare outcomes and their distrust of science. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even leading corporations can get caught up in the swamp of science misinformation that exists on social media. Amazeen and her colleagues analyzed tweets about COVID-19 from Fortune 500 companies and preliminarily found that roughly one in five contained serious inaccuracies and tended to contain emotional appeals to increase traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is not that problematic if we\u2019re talking about hamburgers or cars, but in this case we\u2019re talking about COVID-19, a potentially deadly virus,\u201d Amazeen says. \u201cSo, that concerned us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3>MESSAGES THAT LAND<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>To learn why some people distrust science messages, Amazeen and her colleagues convened two focus groups, composed of Black and Latino social media users in the Boston area. In a screening phone call before the focus groups, the final participants had demonstrated a proclivity toward believing misinformation about climate change. In the focus groups, Amazeen asked participants questions about a variety of science-related topics, sparking a fascinating conversation that she says spanned well beyond climate issues. Participants revealed significant COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy or outright opposition to the inoculations and expressed health and wellness concerns related to chemicals and hormones in the foods we eat. She says many participants avoid mainstream news media and distrust government health agencies like the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and groups like the World Health Organization. Instead, they were receptive to misinformation such as that vitamin supplements are a proven cure for many health ailments or that the COVID-19 virus was developed in a lab by China to be used as a bioweapon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the end of the discussion, Amazeen shared some sources debunking misinformation she\u2019d heard in the focus groups about climate change and COVID-19. The participants were reluctant to trust the fact-checkers, however. \u201cThey were like, \u2018Who are these people? How do we know to trust them? Where are they getting their information?\u2019\u201d She tried showing the group appeals from celebrities like Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton, advocating for the safety of oral treatments and the COVID-19 vaccines. Many participants thought the celebrities were being paid to hawk the treatments and vaccine, compromising their message. The only intervention that didn\u2019t fall flat was a fictitious Facebook post that Amazeen created and showed the group from Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, warning people about misinformation and reminding them to rely on credible sources when researching COVID-19\u2014a strategy Amazeen calls \u201cpre-bunking.\u201d \u201cThe message wasn\u2019tspecifically countering any claims,\u201d Amazeen points out. \u201cIt\u2019s just warning you about strategies that peoplemay use to misinform you. They were open to that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3>IS CIVIC SCIENCE THE ANSWER?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Who <em>would<\/em> they trust? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Amazeen says the focus groups gave them an answer: the people they already know. \u201cYour local politicians, perhaps,\u201d she says. \u201cWe hate Congress, but our local congressperson? Maybe they\u2019re not so bad.\u201d She suggests that community forums, where trusted local clergy talk about public health or climate change, could be effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Amazeen and her CRC colleagues are taking what they\u2019re learning from the science skeptics and creating tool kits to correct scientific misinformation and communicate it in ways people can hear it. These include tactics like reminding people to consider the source of articles they are sharing online\u2014as did the surgeon general\u2019s message\u2014and presenting fact-check messages in new ways, such as using narratives to counter misinformation rather than staid facts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Media literacy will play a significant part, Amazeen says. The federal Institute of Museum and Library Services has received congressional funding to roll out programs for youth and adults in local branch libraries across the country that teach the importance of discerning fact from fiction on the internet and in the news media. Several states, including New Jersey and Illinois, have passed legislation requiring public schools to add media literacy to their curricula. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But Amazeen isn\u2019t sure any of these interventions will be a game-changer without significant new laws regulating what can and cannot be posted on social media. She says we first need a better understanding of the effects these platforms are having on individuals and society, which is the aim of the proposed Platform Accountability and Transparency Act. What\u2019s more, she says a reconsideration of Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act\u2014which protects platforms from liability over the content posted by users\u2014is also long overdue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"is-style-end-of-article\">\u201cJournalists are reporting daily on what people are posting to X [formerly known as Twitter]; today\u2014anybody can post anything,\u201d Amazeen says. \u201cWhen there were three broadcast news stations\u2014ABC, NBC and CBS\u2014there was always gatekeeping, creating friction over what they could air. There were problems with that model as well, but at least there was a shared sense of reality. While the First Amendment protects noncommercial speech from government regulation, it does not give license to platforms to amplify disinformation that can have deadly consequences.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s a question many of us have grappled with in recent years, whether engaging in a debate about the reality&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23287,"featured_media":40603,"template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"categories":[1481,36,177],"tags":[1772,1203,1202],"bu-publication":[],"discipline-type":[],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/38568"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23287"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/38568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40605,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/38568\/revisions\/40605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38568"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=38568"},{"taxonomy":"discipline-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/discipline-type?post=38568"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=38568"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=38568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}