A science communicator's observations on life: Obstacles

Obstacles abound in the world of science communication. It’s part of the reason good science communication is so important — it helps overcome many of the obstacles (aka barriers, aka hurdles) people face to accessing, filtering, understanding, engaging with, and applying science-derived discoveries and knowledge. There are many reasons why people might experience these obstacles (or, we might say, poor science literacy, to borrow from definitions of health literacy). A critical reason is the lack of science-literate content, or content about science that promotes science literacy.

Just some of the obstacles or barriers people face in engaging with science communication content.

The irony is that there are also many obstacles to creating science-literate content and public communication opportunities. The process is difficult and requires diverse input and collaboration. Plucking out jargon and plugging common words are not enough. Translation is not enough. Lay summaries are not enough. Storytelling, even, is not enough. One-size-fits-all messaging is definitely not enough.  But it’s difficult to argue with entrenched strategies that those overseeing the communication of science believe should be enough. 

I suppose no path worth taking is free of obstacles — struggle, opposition, feelings of inadequacy, pitfalls, and uncertainty.

I’ve always been enamored with science. When I was young, it always seemed a world apart from my humdrum and often anxiety-producing reality. It held endless possibility. It could unlock more exciting, daring, and bright futures. At the same time, it felt much more predictable than many of the factors that dictated my childhood life (including tumultuous family relationships). Science was a measurable, observable, confirmable, lock-step method to unlock deep knowledge of myself and the universe. I imagined it might help me and the rest of humanity escape our plights and live amongst the stars. 

To me, science wasn’t too far from science fiction. As a practice, it could open doors to parallel universes, the kind I eagerly traveled to via the portals of Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein, Verne, Ursula Le Guin, Octavia Butler, and others. (What better way to prepare us once we get to the future than by imagining those future realities within science fiction?)

I was ready to launch headfirst into the future when I first found myself in a science lab in college. Like a moth to a flame, I was eager to combust with the possibilities science would unlock.

The disillusionment came slowly, like a morning fog. The botched experiments, jokes that singled out “women” scientists, and assurances from superiors that “X” and “Y” weren’t possible or achievable. The being-put-into-a-box, the slow suffocation of creativity. The prospect of innumerable years as a “starving,” famously depressed graduate student or postdoc. The unspoken rules that favored those already at the top. The expectation that a scientist be nothing else — not indulge in fiction, social life, science communication, or anything other than so-called publishable, career-advancing research activities.

I rejected this reality. This wasn’t the portal-opening, future-accelerating, awe-inspiring pursuit I had imagined… or maybe I wasn’t good enough to be that kind of scientist. And so, I turned back to the familiar embrace of science fiction. I discovered science writing at the perfect time, when science blogs were being born online. I re-discovered what made me love science in the first place — the exponential learning and the discovery of new fields of science that I would then write about.

With just words on a page, I could help others find themselves in new worlds: the nanoscale, the inside of a cell nucleus, a black hole, inside a quantum computer. I had stepped from the thicket of thorny undergrowth that beleaguered my journey through lab research onto a path open and wide with marvelous expansive views. I was only constrained by my imagination. It was paradise.

Or so I thought. I ran on that path for a long time before I first tripped. I had found my calling. Social media was a burgeoning landscape that could propel and empower any voice or story (or so we thought before the age of algorithms and filter bubble awareness). I gobbled up information. I exhaled science storytelling, wrapped in any narrative ribbon I could dream of.

What could limit such a creative endeavor? But the obstacles did eventually announce themselves — this time often the form of people who held the keys to traditional routes of success and who resisted at every turn a new way of thinking about (science) communication and what it could look like. Perhaps they were motivated by the fear of unchecked, unmediated communication of science, or the “science denier,” or the communication of uncertainty — lest people question the status of “science” and the legitimacy of its methods.

Yet forward thinking did eventually find ways around these obstacles. Innovation spawned from blogs, social networking sites, citizen science, information crowd-sourcing, science crowd-funding, and now AI. I discovered science communication in its wild times, when the traditional information gatekeepers no longer strictly controlled what science stories and information could reach the public.

However, as the years went by, the science blog was tamed by the institutions. It became harder to cut through the noise and make a life-sustaining career in science communication. Experts began to set standards for quality science communication (thank goodness). But with the professionalization of science communication, the shadow of the status quo re-appeared — a resistance to experimentation even when the established ways proved ineffective. As online science communication content boomed, public science literacy still lagged. With an array of stories about science at their fingertips, what could be the problem?

As tragic as the COVID-19 pandemic was for human life, it re-opened our eyes to how much further we needed to aim with science and science communication efforts and innovation. It proved how ineffective current science communication strategies were and how many people they left behind. It revealed new barriers to science literacy. The brave, the creative, and the risk-takers stepped up to the plate. They worked to fill the gap with more interactive, empathetic, visual, community-led, culturally relevant, and collaborative communication about science and health. Formats exploded, especially ones that leveraged art and community-building (comics, interactive visualizations, simulations, mobile apps, games, social media live storytelling from scientists on the front lines). Even the World Health Organization called for artists to help innovate science and health communication efforts around COVID-19. We re-discovered the importance of working with local communities to create culturally relevant messaging, community-owned science communication efforts, and opportunities for public participation in science around COVID-19.

There will always be pressures to uphold the status quo. Of late, I’ve had days where obstacles to creative and risk-taking science communication have weighed me down. I’ve drug the anchors of career pressures, administrators resistant to experimentation and change, the devaluation of wide versus deep knowledge, and the growing toxicity of social media. But mostly frustratingly, I’ve encountered too much lack of institutional resources and support for those things that make genuinely excellent science communication — art, experimentation, different strategies for different audiences, collaboration, audience co-creation, true representation and equity, risk-taking creativity, and reserving of space for young and minority voices. 

Some obstacles are chronic, always rearing up to trip you. They can wear you down, exhaust you, and make you numb and apathetic. But just remember that no path worth taking is easy, wide open, and always friendly. Sometimes, you have to climb the piles of old ruins against prevailing winds to reach a better future.

Interested in learning more about science communication concepts and terms? Check out my visual science communication glossary with Cassandra Tyson.