The “Known”

Scientific info is of critical importance in informing societal decisions,

Yet:

• Science is under siege.• Public confused by disinformation.• Scientists penalized for being involved.• Role of scientist in society must change.• Academia/ $ must change to support this.

ALSO KNOWN

Media ownership will continue to consolidateButMessages will be increasingly fragmented.

Consolidation of media does not provide range of info that people need to be good citizens in a democracy.

But new outlets provide some leveling.

More Knowns

• Information doesn’t change things by itself

• Need Passion, sense of values

• No one message gets to everyone

• Info is now more interactive; audiences prefer facilitation to lectures.

• Info transfer no longer one-way flow.

• People like to see a role for themselves

Further Knowns

• Conservation now seen as a liberal issue

• We must get it seen as human issue, non-partisan, value-crossing

• Difficult for people trained as scientists to craft messages

Unknowns

Changing communication technologies(CDs, Web, email, DVDs, wireless, broad band): • Will changes improve dissemination of quality info

(internet in villages lacking libraries)?• Or: More misinformation lead to more confused

people?• Will anti-intellectual forces overreach and crash,

allowing pendulum to swing back? • Will expansion of corporate control continue to

constrain range of information reaching most people?

More Unknowns

• How can media be freed from profit/ideological imperative of corporate control and provide good, high-quality information people need for informed and wise decisions?

• Will new independent media become ascendant and create new major movement of high-quality information?

What We Need To Determine

• What messages and technologies will work in developing world?

• What are institutional barriers to information movement in and among institutions and the public?

• What is best way to facilitate information: improve or change existing institutions or make new ones?

• Are some segments of the public more important than others?

Is it possible to reverse the trajectory?• Organized response by academic institutions to systematic attacks on science in schools,

universities, and the press

• How to get money for publicizing science using Madison Avenue?

• How can scientists more effectively use media for honest messages?

• How can scientists get new information into public school education?

• Can we create funded major institutional offices or think tanks to convey science to the media, public, and schools—and instill caring and prompt action?

• How to make information transfer effective at changing people’s sense of what should be done? It’s not just information; it’s the interaction between information and values.

• Make messages that cut across political and value boundaries.