Welcome to Misinformation Mondays: a 5-part series where we delve into strategies that researchers can use to combat misinformation. Across the series we’ll be sharing resources to help you fight mis- and disinformation online and in your communities.
This week's topic: availability
This may be one of the more challenging tips we share, but it can also be very rewarding. Availability is exactly what it sounds like. It’s both making information available and being available to engage and answer questions about topics.
Misinformation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s spread through communities, both online, and face-to-face. But communities also have the power to stop or at least slow the spread of many types of misinformation. Researchers are as much a part of communities as anyone else. Actively engaging with your communities and having conversations with people from different backgrounds and with different experiences is important for bridging gaps.
What is it?
Availability is kind of self-explanatory – make information available, and be available to answer questions, have respectful dialogue, and follow up. Sharing good quality information is great, but if you just post something and then vanish, you can’t always be sure that the information has been received in the intended way. If people express legitimate knowledge gaps, or if good-faith questions are ignored or dismissed, people can be understandably reluctant to engage with science and research in the future.
Scientific research is often inaccessible – especially to those coming from different cultural contexts, people who speak English as an additional language, or people who simply haven’t spent much time in academia. Engaging with your audience can not only be helpful for that audience, but helpful for you as a researcher in identifying public knowledge gaps (where more research may be needed), and gaps in the way that knowledge is disseminated to different audiences.
Science should serve the public good, and the first step in making that possible is taking the time to understand what the public needs.
How do you do it?
This strategy is especially useful as a complement to other strategies we’ve shared, such as bypassing and pre-bunking. One way to engage in deeper dialogue rather than just posting facts is to share sources or explain why you believe certain information is trustworthy (and other information less so).
Let’s say you start pre-bunking by sharing some information about endometriosis and available treatments. Someone chimes in with information from a celebrity claiming that they “cured” the condition with a home remedy. You might respond by citing research and high-quality sources that show promise on certain evaluated treatments. You could point out the celebrity’s lack of domain-specific knowledge. Even better, you could try to engage the person in a dialogue:
“What evidence did [the celebrity] provide to show it worked?”
“Did [the celebrity] provide more details about how it worked?”
“Is there another reason [the celebrity] might be sharing this – maybe to gain views/engagement?”
Avoid immediately shutting the other person down. Leading with curiosity can help build trust and start off a conversation on a more equal footing.
Another example of availability is BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute’s “Hey Researcher!” program, which encourages children (with parental supervision) to submit questions about their body, brain, or health to be answered by a BCCH researcher. Letting kids to ask questions, and being available to providing non-judgmental answers, can encourage more interest in the scientific process and foster an appreciation for critical thinking.
With availability, it’s also important to lean on your own community – whether it’s passing the baton to someone with expertise outside your own field to answer a question, or finding support from your people when you need to take a break. Combatting misinformation can be taxing, so take care of yourself and be honest about when you need to log off, or step away from a conversation. reassess that belief and potentially develop new ones.
Further reading
To combat misinformation, start with connection, not correction | NPR