Some problems with the PUS model of science communication
by Nils Lindahl Elliot
Let us imagine the following scenario: a not-for-profit organisation that manages a biological reserve wants to develop a new trail. The reserve could be in a temperate or a tropical forest, on the edge of a desert or in a wetland, in the Arctic or in an Andean páramo; in this post we will deliberately ignore these and other equally important contextual elements in order to focus on some problems regarding what arguably remains the predominant model of science communication, or what I describe below as the PUS model of science communication (PUS stands for ‘Public Understanding of Science’).
I will return to this model in a moment. First let us add gravel, so to speak, to the fictional trail. In building the new trail, the organisation has several aims: on the one hand, the reserve must be visited by more ecotourists in order to raise much needed revenue. On the other hand, its managers are keen to avoid putting additional pressure on the more fragile parts of the reserve, which are already being visited by many thousands of people each year. The new trail should thus work to ameliorate the pressure of tourism on the rest of the reserve.
In keeping with this environmentally responsible approach, the managers have decided that the new trail should act as a space for informal science education. In contrast with the older trails, which rely entirely on the mediation of guides, or on the knowledge of the visitors themselves, the new trail is to provide an opportunity for scientists and visitors to communicate about science—especially about the science produced by internationally-renowned researchers working in the biological reserve.
An area for the new trail is designated in a part of the biological reserve that is less sensitive to the pressures of tourism. Plans are drawn up for a trail that combines walking through the designated area, and stopping at a succession of information stands. Each of the stands is to be devoted to a single science topic which will be represented with interpretation boards and panels; the texts for these will be written by scientists working on the biological reserve. Where possible, each stand will be located next to one of the phenomena that the scientists have studied. At the end of the trail, visitors will find a shop and café.
At first glance, this may sound like an eminently sensible way of building a new trail. Hundreds, if not thousands of nature reserves face similar challenges across the world, and many might well seek to develop a trail of the kind just outlined. The question to be explored in this post is, would such a trail engage in a successful form of science education?
It might well do so. The success of trails depends on many factors, not least their location, and a host of other proximal and distal elements of context. The following paragraphs focus on a series of problems that are likely to be pertinent to anyone who conceives a nature trail on the basis of what I described earlier as the PUS model of science communication. This model has a long, and not very distinguished history in the UK and other parts of the world. The following essay describes aspect of the model by deconstructing some of its key assumptions, or ‘ways of doing’ as they might pertain to a nature trail such as has just been described.
Problem 1: ‘Science communication = scientists communicating about science’
In the fictional trail scenario that I’ve just sketched, it is the scientists that are to produce the ‘contents’ of interpretation boards. This is in keeping with what is perhaps the fundamental assumption of the PUS approach, an assumption that shapes its entire discourse: the notion that if science is something that is done by scientists, then scientists must be centrally involved in the communication of science.
At first glance, this premise appears to be so obviously commonsensical as to not require any further consideration. Science communication is communication about science, ergo, the people who know the science best will also be its best communicators.
The first problem with this premise is that no scientist—no professional in any field—is necessarily adept at communicating about his/her own work, even within the context of her/his own field. Many people have difficulty expressing their own ideas even to those who are very familiar with that work. This does not automatically disqualify someone from being a good scientist, but it does mean that no scientist is necessarily a good ‘science communicator’, howsoever one defines this practice.
The second problem, and the problem that is more pertinent to the context being considered, is that those who are good at communicating their ideas to people in their own field(s) of interaction are not necessarily good at communicating with people who don’t share their own everyday understandings of that field. It is worth spelling out how and why this might be the case.
A scientist who communicates with other scientists in her/his own field can usually build on a chain of spoken and unspoken understandings. In such a context, certain theories, certain ways of doing, and indeed certain ways of communicating about the theories and the ways of doing can be taken for granted. Unless some aspect of the field is being critiqued, chances are that most of the contextual elements will remain tacit, and will be evoked, if they are evoked at all, by way of a kind of shorthand: for example the use of certain concepts, references to certain names, theories, procedures, and so forth.
When a scientific discourse is taken out of such a context, and relocated in a different context, a host of transformations are likely to take place. Depending on the new context, some or all of the fundamental assumptions that guide practice in the original context may no longer be taken for granted by all of those involved in the communications process. While a particularly clear exposition or a degree of simplification may help to bridge some of the gaps, this is not always the case. For example, some of the recipients of the information may not be familiar with even ‘basic’ aspects of the hypothetico-deductive method. Even if some or all of the recipients are familiar with this method, there may be concepts, theories, or even structures of scientific feeling—I use the last term quite deliberately—which are wholly unknown to a majority of the addressees of interpretation panels and other media.
Equally if not more importantly, some visitors may expect to be offered information that is guided by a logic that contradicts the spirit with which much research in the biological sciences is conducted: for example, they may wish to obtain information that is quite explicitly anthropomorphic and anthropocentric, or information in which spectacular fact displaces any focus on subtle or complex relationships.
Engaging with this process may be described as a form of translation, but the metaphor of translation is not a good one if by this one assumes that all or most of the own meanings can be replaced by equivalent terms. ‘Translation’ in the context of a trail such as the one described above involves not just individual terms, but entire chains and interconnections of discourse. If we are to stick to the metaphor of translation, science communication in a nature trail is probably best compared to the translation of an essay into a poem, or vice-versa. A set of statements must be translated into an entirely different form, an entirely different genre.
Of course, some scientists can engage in this kind of translation, or in time they may learn how to do so. There are many examples of superb science communication produced by former or practicing scientists. But this should not lead to the fallacious conclusion that all scientists can engage in the practice of popular science communication, or indeed, should be able to do so, simply because they themselves are scientists. A more critical approach suggests that the people best able to communicate about science are the people that can engage effectively with whatever genre of science communication is being deployed. Doing so is bound to require an understanding of the science being communicated; but that is different from saying that the communicators themselves must be scientists.
Problem 2: ‘The public needs to know more about science’
I have deliberately postponed the specification of the kind of visitors that the organisation in our fictional park managers want to engage with. One reason for doing so is that many scientists tend to conceive publics according to one of two equally problematic models. One model is that of the ‘ignorant’ public that knows nothing. The opposite model is one of a public that is very much like the scientist her/himself. Whatever the case, the public in question tends to be regarded as ‘the public’, and as a public that is, or should be, interested in science.
Each of these assumptions is inherently problematic. On the one hand, strictly speaking there is no such thing as ‘the public’. Anyone who gives serious consideration to the term quickly realises that it constitutes an unhelpful instance of what Raymond Williams once described as an abstract singular, that is to say, a term that accords a single, universal, essential quality or character to an otherwise diverse group of elements. It can, and perhaps should be argued that language cannot do without such terms, and my own writing doubtless provides evidence of the verity of this point. However, some abstract singulars are less helpful, and indeed more problematic, than others. Furthermore, some efforts to reduce the abstract singularity of terms are less successful than others. For example, efforts to reduce the category of ‘the public’ to more manageable subcategories such as ‘ABC1s’ are likely to involve only slightly less sweeping generalizations, and may be premised on what continue to be uncritical classifications of people.
On the other hand, for a scientist to say, as a matter of general principle, that ‘the public wants to know more science’, or worse, that ‘the public needs to know more science’ is as contentious as a priest saying that ‘the public wants to know more about God’, or ‘the public needs to know more about God’. In both cases, a convenient entity (‘the public’) is fashioned in accordance with the interests of the speaker, and this probably on the basis little more than a moralising sense that a) what one has to say is important; and b) that ‘the public’ understands, or can be made to understand, that it is indeed important. We might all agree, for example, the more people should know more about global warming. But if this stance determines a priori a certain tone for one’s efforts to communicate about global warming, and if this tone is more or less condescending, then the scene is likely to be set for the kind of top-down mode of communication that has long characterised the PUS approach.
Problem 3: ‘The best way to communicate about science in a biological reserve is via clearly written, and informative interpretation boards or panels’
Important scientific findings tend to be communicated via the written word. It is thus perhaps unsurprising that many scientists are particularly keen on using interpretation panels to communicate about their own work. In the trail scenario described above, the proposal was to set up some stands with lots of written text.
My own research suggests that panels with a lot of written text frequently stand ignored in national parks, or indeed in zoos, botanic gardens or even museums. More often than not, only a relatively small minority of fairly highly educated, or highly motivated visitors really tend to read at least the longer texts. To be sure, anyone who engages in a close study of the way in which even the shorter texts are used may be in for some big surprises.
Faced with these challenges, some informal science educators have devoted their lives to finding the ‘ideal sign’ that does everything for everyone. Others have become part of a veritable movement ‘against interpretation’, i.e. doing away with the signage in order to ‘let the visitor interpret nature as s/he pleases’. The first stance is a species of logocentrism, viz., an irrational faith in the power of the written word. The second stance is a species of populism, that is to say an effort, however un-self-conscious, to dissimulate the own interests by deferring to an allegedly popular will.
My own concern with the matter is that any prospective sign user should recognise the strengths and weaknesses of different media and genres of communication, but this vis-à-vis different visiting groups, and their practices in situ, that is to say, in context. For example, a panel with a detailed account of research about, say, a species of leaf-cutter ant might be fascinating to certain visitors, e.g. visitors unfamiliar with the ecology of such ants, and who like to read field guides or encyclopaedic entries. But if such a panel is shown to children aged between three and seven, the only interesting bits are likely to be the pictures, and not necessarily the pictures that seem most realistic or appropriate to many adults. Then again, if any of the above visitors have to stop in a tropical forest to read about the ants for more than about 30 seconds, it is quite likely that they themselves will start to be ‘read’ by flying insects, if not by the ants themselves. Under such circumstances, it will be very tempting to run away after swatting the first mosquito, or finishing the second or the third sentence (whichever comes first). I mention a tropical context, but analogous problems would doubtless be faced in the blistering heat of the Sonoran Desert, or in the freezing wind of the Magellanic moorland. Context is, if not all, then certainly a hugely important dimension of the interpretive process.
Problems on the level of what I describe as the pragmatics of science communication are likely to be compounded if visitors come away with a sense that the information is boring, or a convenient way of ‘dealing’ with visitors. The reader will recall that, in the sample trail, the information stands (and indeed the entire new trail) were to ameliorate the pressure of tourism on the more sensitive parts of the biological reserve. If, however, the visitors in a new trail are first shown the ‘real’ biological reserve and then get taken to a less interesting area that is full of signs, then the new trail may well generate sharp complaints. ‘I didn’t travel half-way around the world to be shown a bunch of panels with information that I could have read in a book’ or ‘I paid a hefty entrance fee to see nature, not to read about it’.
If, furthermore, that information comes across as being overly didactic, and if there is even a whiff of a sense that visitors are being ‘talked down to’, then we have a recipe for the kind of scenario that I witnessed unfolding once at a zoo. One family was so sensitive to didacticism that they even objected to seeing a building that had the label ‘Education Department’ on it. ‘We didn’t come to the zoo in order to go back to school’, one visitor growled.
Problem 4: ‘If in doubt, conduct some in-house visitor research’
One way of addressing the aforementioned problems is to conduct visitor research. But some forms of visitor research may compound the problems. For example, some years ago, some British zoos asked a biologist to conduct a survey of visitor awareness of the zoos’ efforts to communicate about endangered species. The biologist designed what was arguably a kind of pop-quiz that tested whether visitors at the zoos had ‘got the message’. In so doing, the survey effectively transformed visitors into students who hadn’t studied for a test. Even those managers whose zoos got relatively good results were left uncertain as to whether the targeted visitors already knew the answers before arriving at the zoo, or if they learned the answers to the survey questions in the course of their visits.
Unfortunately—some might say fortunately—we live in a time when it is no longer enough to create trails or generate displays that look attractive, or seem informative. If any aspect of the trail has been produced thanks to public funding, chances are that the park will be required to specify ‘deliverables’, and to then prove that the deliverables are just that.
While aspects of this trend may be welcome, others are not. Few things are likely to be riskier than a display or trail that is entirely the result of the subjective whim of one or a couple of uninformed individuals. But it is easy to fall for the trap of thinking that it is possible to quantify outcomes of nature trails in the same way that one can count, say, the number of Ford motor cars sold in one year. I would make the case that many aspects of a visit to a nature park not only can’t be quantified, but shouldn’t be quantified. There should always be room for an imaginative process both on the level of the production, and the reception of the trail.
It is also tempting to think that all that’s involved in social scientific research is the production of surveys. Positivism has its advantages, and surveys can of course address some issues. But if the resulting approach subjects visitors to the equivalent of a pop quiz, and if complex issues are framed by simplistic questions with multiple-choice answers, then it is probably best to avoid such research in its entirety.
This post is not the place in which to explain how one should do visitor research. It suffices to note that visitor research (or its analogon, audience research) can provide useful insights especially when it is conducted in a manner that is not driven by an instrumental logic, i.e. if the research does not simply set out to test whether or not a trail has achieved this or that quantifiable objective, or ‘hit’ this or that visiting group. And while it is always possible to conduct visitor research ‘a posteriori’, i.e. after a trail has been completed, it is usually far better to involve researchers in the earliest stages of a new trail’s planning process.
There are three reasons for this. First, and most generally, if public money is employed, and the trail has to be evaluated, then the evaluation process should be an integral aspect of the design, and not just something that is tacked on. A visitor researcher that fully understands both the explicit and more tacit aspects of a particular design is more likely to do a better job of assessing its outcomes once the trail is built.
Second, an experienced visitor researcher is likely to be able to provide significant insights to the design team from the start. For example, any designer that claims that a new trail will transform visitors’ understandings of this or that species is likely to be asked, ‘what exactly do you mean by “transform”?’ This is not as facetious a question as it might seem: if the trail is to be successful, and successfully evaluated, then it must start out with, or at least arrive at, very clear and precise objectives. If the designer further claims that the trail will transform the ‘behaviour’ of visitors (what anthropologists now describe as people’s practices), the visitor researcher should be able to alert the designer about the pitfalls of such an ambitious proposal. If some 20 years of environmental activism haven’t succeeded in changing most people’s practices, why should a trail manage to do this?
A third reason for involving a visitor researcher from the start is that the actual construction of a trail nearly always results in significant changes to the original plans. It may be difficult for someone completely subsumed by this process to stand back, and critically assess the extent to which a seemingly minor design change might lead to significant changes in the visiting experience, or in the dynamic of assessment.
What I have described as the Public Understanding of Science approach to science communication (and science education) has its roots in a desire by some scientific institutions to manage public relations to their own advantage. In the UK, much of this movement’s history was a response to Margaret Thatcher’s decision to cut the funding of scientific institutions. Little wonder that in a report published in 1985, the Royal Society thundered that ‘…our most direct and urgent message must be to the scientists themselves: Learn to communicate with the public [sic], be willing to do so and consider it your duty to do so’. Anyone wishing to learn about a more up-to-date way of conceiving science communication may wish to visit the website of the ESRC’s Science in Society programme (www.sci-soc.net). The projects which this programme funded were premised on a far more complex conception of science communication, and indeed, of science itself.
Copyright © 2008 Nils Lindahl Elliot. All Rights Reserved
