A strong voice for expertise How researchers communicate in times of crisis

Joint press release from Technische Universität Braunschweig, University of Potsdam and University of Duisburg-Essen

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the voice of science in social media: researchers present their findings, but also call for action – based on scientific evidence – and express their own opinions. On the other hand, the public is also aware of this expertise and can easily distinguish it from private opinions. These are the findings of a team of researchers from the Universities of Braunschweig, Duisburg-Essen and Potsdam who studied how researchers communicated on the social media platform Twitter (now X) during the pandemic. At a closing event for the project ‘Science Communication in Pandemics: The role of public participation in social media discussions’ on 1 October in Berlin, the team will present the results of the study to the public. The panel will include Professor Melanie Brinkmann, Institute of Genetics at TU Braunschweig and Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, and Professor Christian Drosten, Director of the Institute of Virology at Charité Berlin.

In a series of studies, the project team looked closely at how scientists communicated scientifically on social media during the coronavirus pandemic. The analysis of around 1,000 tweets from scientists showed that they adopted new behaviours in their direct communication on social media and went beyond simply presenting their research results. “Scientists took on different roles,” says Kaija Biermann from the project team. “For example, they commented on media coverage as ‘watchdogs’ and lobbied for specific policies as ‘advocates’.”

At the same time, automated analysis of around 42,000 Twitter posts showed that scientists did rely more on scientific evidence in their posts than laypeople, who tended to use anecdotal evidence in the form of personal experiences. Professor Monika Taddicken, head of the Institute for Communication Studies at TU Braunschweig, explains: “These posts with scientific evidence were also shared significantly more often and thus achieved a greater reach than other content.”

In addition, experimental psychology studies conducted as part of the project showed that scientists can increase their trustworthiness by displaying their academic titles and referring to scientific studies rather than personal examples. Incomprehensible scientific jargon, on the other hand, reduced trustworthiness. At the same time, it was shown that the public is quite capable of distinguishing between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ experts.

Closing event: Listen to the (real) experts

At the closing event at the Kaiserin-Friedrich-Haus in Berlin, the researchers will present and discuss their findings. They have invited some of the most prominent voices in science during the pandemic to talk to participants about their experiences as ‘real experts’.

The project ‘Science Communication in Pandemics: The Role of Public Participation in Social Media Discussions’ is jointly led by the research groups of Professor Monika Taddicken (TU Braunschweig), Professor Nicole Krämer (University of Duisburg-Essen) and Professor Stefan Stieglitz (University of Potsdam) and funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Interested parties and media representatives are invited to register at https://www.tu-braunschweig.de/ifkw/scan/abschlussveranstaltung/anmeldung by 30 September 2024.

More information on the project:

https://www.tu-braunschweig.de/ifkw/scan