Unusual but not impossible: Strategies for productive conversations about climate change on Facebook
Abstract
Facebook is widely heralded as a platform that is simultaneously rife with bad actors, strewn with misinformation, and yet is profoundly influential. Engaging with social media commenters can seem like a futile and frustrating endeavor. But as scientists and science communicators, there are ways to use Facebook and other social media platforms in ways that are keenly productive.
A common reason why people find social media exchanges to be unfulfilling is that even after sharing carefully laid out facts and providing authoritative citations, others fail to accept your reasoning or relax their strongly-held opinions. A key to having productive conversations about contentious topics is to forego the expectation of changing someone's mind. Setting aside that goal allows room for a different host of strategies: to learn about other perspectives, to seek out engagement with real people (not trolls) who hold opinions far outside one's own sphere, and to cultivate skills of persuasive discourse. By carefully establishing a foundation of trust and rapport, it's possible to create opportunities to share pertinent information. Although people do not change their minds in one swift interaction, repeated exposure to relevant facts and evidence does add up over time. Engaging with commenters creates an opportunity for planting seeds of evidence and careful reasoning, while also learning more about the perspectives of those who disagree with you. Scientists engaging in social media can help humanize our work and shed light on the process of science. Being humble, fallible, relatable, and enthusiastic can all set the stage for us to be heard, and offer a real-world antidote to stereotypes about scientists. This presentation will offer techniques gleaned from quantitative analysis of Facebook comments about climate change, along with hard-wrought lessons derived from years of reading, analyzing, and writing comments. Specific strategies will be illustrated, along with successes, failures, and entertaining outcomes.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMPA13A..08K
- Keywords:
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- 0815 Informal education;
- EDUCATION;
- 4334 Disaster risk communication;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 6309 Decision making under uncertainty;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES;
- 6620 Science policy;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES