What Do You Expect? Linguistic Reflections on Empathy in Science Communication

Abstract

This linguistics article, which draws additionally on interdisciplinary insights, discusses whether and to what extent more empathy could facilitate and promote the exchange of knowledge between science and society. The existence of the Internet as a knowledge resource has made it necessary, especially in online communication, to renegotiate (scientific) expertise and roles such as ‘expert’ and ‘layperson.’ A discourse linguistics case study of a science blog shows that these negotiations quickly take on the character of an emotionally charged relationship between writer and respondent and are by no means limited to the level of fact or disinterested scholarly debate. The reason for this—so this article argues—is that reciprocal expectations and expectations of expectations play an essential role in science communication, as in any social communication. This hypothesis is supported by an analysis of interviews with scientists about their expectations of the public’s understanding of science. Against this background, empathy seems to be a suitable means to better meet the expectations of one’s interlocuter (or at least to avoid disappointed expectations) and to move from a more emotional level back to a more rational one. Empathy and its role in science communication should therefore be investigated more closely—on an interdisciplinary basis.

Between Evidence and Emotions: Emotional Appeals in Science Communication

“…However, other studies find cues that emotional language can harm the trustworthiness of scientists as well as the credibility of their arguments (König & Jucks, 2019a, 2019b. This is somehow confirmed by the first article in this thematic issue by Janich (2020) and by Humm, Schrögel, and Leßmöllmann (2020), who focus more strongly on the audience perspective (see Section 2.3). Humm et al (2020) and Janich (2020) indicate that science communication audiences, as well as audiences excluded by science communication in general, expect scientific experts to be objective and to objectively report on scientific issues.…”

Exploring the Influence of Aggressive and Target-Framing Messages on Proenvironmental Behaviors

“…Previous research has successfully employed the concept of expectancy violation to explain the effects of certain message styles, including aggression (Li et al, 2019; Zhang & Lu, 2022). Although research on science blogs and science communication has shown that a passionate or provocative style can attract science-interested readers (Fahy & Nisbet, 2011), the readers also expect science communication to be less top-down and able to “renegotiate” scientific expertise and roles between an “expert” and a “layperson” (Janich, 2020). Thus, an aggressive science message deviating from the normal style could surprise the viewers.…”

A cultural framework for Indigenous, Local, and Science knowledge systems in ecology and natural resource management

“…For the purposes of self‐declaration by members of the Science knowledge system to their Indigenous/Local colleagues, it really can be as simple as that. Explanations for why Scientists have so much social difficulty explaining themselves in plainspeak remain elusive (Bensaude‐Vincent 2001, Radford 2011, Smol 2018, Jeschke et al 2019, Janich 2020). Perhaps they just need to get out a bit more, and engage directly with people from Indigenous and Local communities who will simply require that they make themselves plainly understood, not “dumbing it down.” Perhaps these Scientists would discover that the predictive capacities of many Indigenous and Local knowledge systems are in fact quite complementary to the “scientific method” in terms of logic processing, evaluating reliability of knowledge and knowledge holder, and opportunities for cross‐validation of knowledge about the states of Nature (Knapp et al 2011, Santos et al 2020, Saunders et al 2020).…”