scholarly journals Speaking truth in power: Scientific evidence as motivation for policy activism

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carisa Bergner ◽  
Bruce A. Desmarais ◽  
John Hird
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Policy Advocacy ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scientific Experts ◽  
The Us ◽  
Domain Expertise ◽  
E Mail ◽  
Active Policy

Unelected administrative policymakers rely on the domain expertise and technical integrity of scientific information to maintain perceptions of legitimacy. The necessity that regulatory policymakers rely on sound scientific evidence has been formalized at the US federal level through executive order. Yet, the practical impact of scientific evidence on public support and mobilization for policies remains unclear. We investigate whether individual policy activists are more likely to participate in regulatory policymaking when a policy recommendation is substantiated by scientific evidence. We investigate how two separate groups within the public—policy advocates and policy experts—may be affected differentially by scientific evidence. In collaboration with a nationally active policy advocacy group, we conducted a randomized messaging experiment in which members of the group’s e-mail list are sent one of three versions of a policy advocacy message. Results indicate that reference to evidence published in peer reviewed scientific sources increased activism by roughly 1 percentage point among general activists, and decreased activism by 4-5 percentage points among scientific experts.

scholarly journals One issue, different stories: The construction of GMO issues on Chinese, American and British mainstream media portals

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 255-275
Author(s):  
Yiqin Ruan ◽  
Jing Yang ◽  
Jianbin Jin
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Genetically Modified Organisms ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Uk

Biotechnology, as an emerging technology, has drawn much attention from the public and elicited hot debates in countries around the world and among various stakeholders. Due to the public's limited access to front-line scientific information and scientists, as well as the difficulty of processing complex scientific knowledge, the media have become one of the most important channels for the public to get news about scientific issues such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). According to framing theory, how the media portray GMO issues may influence audiences’ perceptions of those issues. Moreover, different countries and societies have various GMO regulations, policies and public opinion, which also affect the way media cover GMO issues. Thus, it is necessary to investigate how GMO issues are covered in different media outlets across different countries. We conducted a comparative content analysis of media coverage of GMO issues in China, the US and the UK. One mainstream news portal in each of the three countries was chosen ( People's Daily for China, The New York Times for the US, and The Guardian for the UK). We collected coverage over eight years, from 2008 to 2015, which yielded 749 pieces of news in total. We examined the sentiments expressed and the generic frames used in coverage of GMO issues. We found that the factual, human interest, conflict and regulation frames were the most common frames used on the three portals, while the sentiments expressed under those frames varied across the media outlets, indicating differences in the state of GMO development, promotion and regulation among the three countries.

The Role of Governmental Organizations in Communicating About Regulating Science

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffery Morris
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Regulatory Science ◽  
Protection Agency ◽  
The Public ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Government ◽  
Us Federal Government

Governments rely on regulatory science to support decisions related to the protection of human health and the environment. Not only is regulatory science produced and used differently than discovery-driven science practiced outside the government, but it also has its own means of being communicated within democratic societies and has its own challenges for public engagement. This chapter examines how regulatory science is communicated within the US federal government, principally by the US Environmental Protection Agency, using nanotechnology and biotechnology as case studies to illustrate the challenges of, and opportunities for, engaging the public on the use of scientific information to inform decisions on the introduction and use of emerging technologies into society.

An Experimental Investigation of the Effect of Supreme Court Justices’ Public Rhetoric on Perceptions of Judicial Legitimacy

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Logan Strother ◽  
Colin Glennon
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Public Rhetoric ◽  
Institutional Legitimacy ◽  
The Public ◽  
High Profile ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Supreme Court ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Time And Energy

Public support for the US Supreme Court has been trending downward for more than a decade. High-profile decisions and hotly contested nominations have drawn the Court into our polarized politics. Recently, some justices have spent considerable time and energy giving interviews, speeches, and the like, assuring the public that the Court is an apolitical, neutral arbiter of disputes, distinct from the “political” branches. In this context, we turn to an understudied potential source of judicial legitimacy: the off-bench public rhetoric of Supreme Court justices. In this article, we present evidence from three original survey experiments to argue that Supreme Court justices’ off-bench rhetoric can powerfully influence public perceptions of the Court’s institutional legitimacy. Furthermore, these studies show that performance approval is key to changes in legitimacy: respondents who disapprove of a Court decision were immune to the effects of justices’ rhetoric.

scholarly journals Keeping science’s seat at the decision-making table: Mechanisms to motivate policy-makers to keep using scientific information in the age of disinformation

FACETS ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1045-1064 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin N. Marleau ◽  
Kimberly D. Girling
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Scientific Work ◽  
Multiple Streams ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
The Uk

Policy-makers are confronted with complex problems that require evaluating multiple streams of evidence and weighing competing interests to develop and implement solutions. However, the policy interventions available to resolve these problems have different levels of supporting scientific evidence. Decision-makers, who are not necessarily scientifically trained, may favour policies with limited scientific backing to obtain public support. We illustrate these tensions with two case studies where the scientific consensus went up against the governing parties’ chosen policy. What mechanisms exist to keep the weight of scientific evidence at the forefront of decision-making at the highest levels of government? In this paper, we propose that Canada create “Departmental Chief Science Advisors” (DCSAs), based on a program in the UK, to help complement and extend the reach of the newly created Chief Science Advisor position. DCSAs would provide advice to ministers and senior civil servants, critically evaluate scientific work in their host department, and provide public outreach for the department’s science. We show how the DCSAs could be integrated into their departments and illustrate their potential benefits to the policy making process and the scientific community.

scholarly journals Media as an instrument of strategic communication in armed conflicts: The CNN effect

Vojno delo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 34-52
Author(s):  
Miroslav Mitrović
Keyword(s):  
Military Intervention ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Strategic Communication ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Politics ◽  
Definition Of

Media, politics and public opinion are mutually conditioned social categories. Their interdependence is particularly pronounced in armed conflicts, especially in the context of armed interventions. The forum of the interaction of these phenomena is framed by the paradigm of strategic communication, which is transmitted to the public through the actions of entities identified as strategic communicators to achieve a motivating effect for reactions that are in line with communicators' interests. One of the emerging forms of strategic communication in all its forms and contents is the CNN effect. The paper contributes to the definition of the CNN effect as a broader concept than the television station, after which it was named. Furthermore, the paper analyzes the relationship between politics, the media and the public to gain public support for military intervention. The paper also provides an analysis of the CNN effect in the function of strategic communication on the example of the media use of bloodshed in the Markale market during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995, with an analysis of the US actions and effects to support the idea of military intervention.

scholarly journals Communicating about ocean health: theoretical and practical considerations

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1689) ◽  
pp. 20150214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathon P. Schuldt ◽  
Katherine A. McComas ◽  
Sahara E. Byrne
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Message Framing ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Information Campaigns ◽  
The Public ◽  
Environmental Consequences ◽  
High Concern

As anthropogenic stressors threaten the health of marine ecosystems, there is a need to better understand how the public processes and responds to information about ocean health. Recent studies of public perceptions about ocean issues report high concern but limited knowledge, prompting calls for information campaigns to mobilize public support for ocean restoration policy. Drawing on the literature from communication, psychology and related social science disciplines, we consider a set of social-cognitive challenges that researchers and advocates are likely to encounter when communicating with the public about ocean health and emerging marine diseases—namely, the psychological distance at which ocean issues are construed, the unfamiliarity of aquatic systems to many members of the public and the potential for marine health issues to be interpreted through politicized schemas that encourage motivated reasoning over the dispassionate consideration of scientific evidence. We offer theory-based strategies to help public outreach efforts address these challenges and present data from a recent experiment exploring the role of message framing (emphasizing the public health or environmental consequences of marine disease) in shaping public support for environmental policy.

scholarly journals The Nutri-Score in France and beyond: development, validation and transfer

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
C Julia
Keyword(s):  
Nutritional Quality ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Food Product ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
The Public ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
Nutritional Label ◽  
The Media

Abstract The Nutri-Score is a summary graded front-of-pack nutritional label, providing a synthetic information to consumers on the overall nutritional quality of a food product, based on its composition in several key unfavourable (energy, saturates, sugars, salt) and favourable (proteins, fibers, fruit, vegetables, nuts, legumes and certain vegetable oils (olive, rapeseed and nuts)). The Nutri-Score was developed by a team of independent scientists, and initially proposed in France in 2014. Following intense opposition by industry and considerable arguments, a 2-yearlong debate, the Nutri-Score was selected to be the official French front-of-pack nutrition label. In parallel, more than 40 publications in peer-reviewed journals investigated its validity on multiple dimensions, further supporting its implementation. Following the implementation of the Nutri-Score, consumer groups' pressure and a growing interest from the public pushed manufacturers to adopt the label, with more than 300 pledges of adoption from industry in 2020. After France, neighbouring countries (Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands) have now also adopted the scheme, prompting new challenges for development at a larger scale. The implementation of the system in France was made possible by strong public support for such a measure - relayed by consumer groups and disseminated in the media and a strong political will from the Health ministry to put together a validated and helpful system, which finally prevailed upon economic interests. Sustained support from consumers in particular helped turn the tide from a relatively low engagement of stakeholders towards the acknowledgement of the Nutri-Score as a standard for front-of-pack labelling in France and several EU countries. The Nutri-Score is an example of a public health measure informed by scientific evidence that may have a clear impact on the nutritional quality of diets in the population.

scholarly journals It Is Time to Move Beyond the Linear No-Threshold Theory for Low-Dose Radiation Protection

Dose-Response ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 155932581877965 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. Cardarelli ◽  
Brant A. Ulsh
Keyword(s):  
Ionizing Radiation ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Low Dose ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Scientific Basis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Real Effects ◽  
Threshold Theory ◽  
The Us ◽  
Lnt Model

The US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) is the primary federal agency responsible for promulgating regulations and policies to protect people and the environment from ionizing radiation. Currently, the USEPA uses the linear no-threshold (LNT) model to estimate cancer risks and determine cleanup levels in radiologically contaminated environments. The LNT model implies that there is no safe dose of ionizing radiation; however, adverse effects from low dose, low-dose rate (LDDR) exposures are not detectable. This article (1) provides the scientific basis for discontinuing use of the LNT model in LDDR radiation environments, (2) shows that there is no scientific consensus for using the LNT model, (3) identifies USEPA reliance on outdated scientific information, and (4) identifies regulatory reliance on incomplete evaluations of recent data contradicting the LNT. It is the time to reconsider the use of the LNT model in LDDR radiation environments. Incorporating the latest science into the regulatory process for risk assessment will (1) ensure science remains the foundation for decision making, (2) reduce unnecessary burdens of costly cleanups, (3) educate the public on the real effects of LDDR radiation exposures, and (4) harmonize government policies with the rest of the radiation scientific community.

Is the enemy's enemy my friend? American public support for Taiwan under the context of the Sino–US trade war

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yao-Yuan Yeh ◽  
Charles K.S. Wu
Keyword(s):  
Public Support ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Military Assistance ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Trade War ◽  
A Minor

PurposeIn this paper, the authors investigate the factors that explain US public support for military operation for the enemy's enemy, and argue that US public support for military defense could be attributed to three factors – whether such support aligns with US national interests, whether the public perceives the US enemy to be a threat and whether interventions and military assistance to the enemy's enemy garner moral grounds.Design/methodology/approachTo find evidence of our claims, the authors conducted two survey experiments in 2018 and 2019 on Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to see whether the ongoing trade war between the US and China (enemy) would alter the public's willingness to provide military assistance to Taiwan (enemy's enemy).FindingsThe authors first find that US national interests only matter when the public considers China's military to be not a threat when the US–China rivalry intensifies. In both waves, respondents were most likely to support for Taiwan's defense if they perceived China's military to be a major threat, followed by a minor threat and not a threat, respectively. Contrary to our theoretical expectation, the study does not find empirical support for moral factors.Originality/valueOur research applies the survey experiments among the US public to gauge public support for the enemy's enemy (Taiwan), which generates unique and vital findings to foreign policymakers and international observers.

Countering Climate Science Denial and Communicating Scientific Consensus

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Cook
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Scientific Consensus ◽  
Mitigation Policies

Scientific agreement on climate change has strengthened over the past few decades, with around 97% of publishing climate scientists agreeing that human activity is causing global warming. While scientific understanding has strengthened, a small but persistent proportion of the public actively opposes the mainstream scientific position. A number of factors contribute to this rejection of scientific evidence, with political ideology playing a key role. Conservative think tanks, supported with funding from vested interests, have been and continue to be a prolific source of misinformation about climate change. A major strategy by opponents of climate mitigation policies has been to cast doubt on the level of scientific agreement on climate change, contributing to the gap between public perception of scientific agreement and the 97% expert consensus. This “consensus gap” decreases public support for mitigation policies, demonstrating that misconceptions can have significant societal consequences. While scientists need to communicate the consensus, they also need to be aware of the fact that misinformation can interfere with the communication of accurate scientific information. As a consequence, neutralizing the influence of misinformation is necessary. Two approaches to neutralize misinformation involve refuting myths after they have been received by recipients (debunking) or preemptively inoculating people before they receive misinformation (prebunking). Research indicates preemptive refutation or “prebunking” is more effective than debunking in reducing the influence of misinformation. Guidelines to practically implement responses (both preemptive and reactive) can be found in educational research, cognitive psychology, and a branch of psychological research known as inoculation theory. Synthesizing these separate lines of research yields a coherent set of recommendations for educators and communicators. Clearly communicating scientific concepts, such as the scientific consensus, is important, but scientific explanations should be coupled with inoculating explanations of how that science can be distorted.

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