Geoscience Communication and Stakeholder Engagement

Introduction: Principles, Practices and Problems

• Science Communication models and frameworks - public understanding of science and science literacy - Deficit model thinking
• Fake news, disinformation and manufactured uncertainty - the politics of mis-communication - Pseudo-science, junk science, science skeptics
• Conveying uncertainty  

Make and Sell – Dissemination (one-way communications)

• Becoming a better communicator
• Understanding the news media
• Working with journalists
• Storytelling and storylines – narrative-led approaches
• Documentary film-making - presenting and performing geoscience 

Sense & Respond (two-way communications)

• Understanding the public – public attitudes and audience segmentation - Frames and Framing
• Fast and slow thinking – cognitive short cuts and biases – behavioural decision making - Systematic biases – myopia, optimism, herding etc - Risk judgements – perceptions and preparedness

Guide and Co-Create (three-way communications)

• Communicating contested geoscience – addressing community outrage
• Partnership building - interpersonal skills (empathy, listening, reflexivity) and participatory skills (negotiation, conciliation, facilitation)
• Case studies in building trusted relations with stakeholders and communities

Participants will gain a broad grasp of the theoretical principles and everyday practices of science communication, media literacy, and public engagement through a range of geoscience case studies. Drawing on practical experience from across the popular media landscape, it aims to make geoscience specialists more effective communicators by creating more compelling, impactful science storylines, engaging more effectively with journalists and the wider media, targeting their scientific messaging at those stakeholder audiences most able to effect change, and establishing trusted relationships with the end-user communities they are working with. Learning objectives will be for attendees to:

1. Grasp the basic principles and practices of public engagement
   • Roles and responsibilities of geoscientists in society
   • Public attitudes to science and scientists
   • Science communication models and frameworks
2. Appreciate the ‘art’ of communication
   • Geoscience in the media
   • Media platforms and messages
   • Working with journalists
   • Frames and framing
   • Narrative and story-telling
3. Understand the ‘science’ of communication
   • Fast and slow thinking: cognitive biases and heuristics
   • The role of subjectivity
   • Importance of norms, values and beliefs
   • Audience segmentation
4. Address the ‘challenges’ of communication
   • Communication issues in the geo-energy sector
   • Lessons from fracking and geothermal conveying uncertainty
   • Securing the social license: trust and transparency
   • Dealing with community outrage
5. Gain experience in the ‘application’ of communication
   • Geoscience for decision makers
   • Top-down, expert-led vs bottom-up, people-centred strategies for communication
   • Co-creation with stakeholders and communities.

Geoscience professionals and researchers in academia, industry, business, government and civil society, who work at the geoscience-public interface, and whose roles involve conveying geoscience knowledge to non-geoscientific stakeholders.