How do we perceive controversial information?

Science shapes the way we live our day to day lives. Have you ever read a piece of scientific information and brushed it off, claiming it to be fake? Or have read something convincingly realistic only to realise later that it was fake? Each one of us in our life has come across such moments. Interestingly, this kind of behaviour is individual specific. What might come across as fake for you might not be fake for the other person, based on one’s prior knowledge. When such is the case, how do we communicate information to the mass — Especially, the evolving information from the ‘hot science’ domain that can easily be dismissed off as fake news. As science communicators, our job becomes critical in laying down facts such that they rightly reach the public with minimal to nil ambiguity and uncertainty.

Aligning the piece of information to the target group’s interests becomes critical when we try to communicate. In the absence of any common interests, why would someone even care to attend to it? Secondly, the information that we aim to share should be conveyed so that it is at an optimum level of relative expertise. We, humans, are more willing to acquire new information when it moderately matches our prior knowledge base. Think about a time when you were trying to read an article about a totally unfamiliar topic and unrelated to you; how much interest did you actually have in getting through it? Similarly, when you already know too much about it, you wouldn’t bother to spend a reasonable amount of time reading it either. On the contrary, when you are moderately familiar with the topic, you are most likely to attend to it, and your willingness to acquire new knowledge is the most!

Thus, the commonality of interest and relative knowledge of the reader become crucial factors in science communication. These factors are also the significant determinants of how the consumer will perceive the information you are trying to communicate — either a complete dismissal or immediate belief. Along with this, source credibility also becomes a significant assessment factor where the reader should consider the writer’s trustworthiness, expertise, and motivation.