As a graduate student, I have often had to explain how ironic the words “labour shortage” – the new normal in Canada – might sound to a young researcher who would like to have a career in academia. Caught up in the whirlwind of coursework, comprehensive examinations, labs, conferences, teaching, and constant reminders about the importance of getting published, it is easy to lose sight of why you are doing it or what pushed you to choose that path in the first place.
When I ask myself “What am I doing research for?”, I wish for more than being read by and influence the thinking of a few dozen academics, as much as I respect and admire them. Engaging with government agencies, NGOs, the media, and the public appears like a good way of making my research more useful and impactful. As academics, we have to be at the forefront of public discussions around the important and complex problems that the world is facing today. Through public engagement, we can help decision-makers understand these challenges and develop effective policies, we can shape public discussions and increase our collective resilience.
I had not been taught how to engage with the media before doing my first interview. Graduate-level syllabi, in most fields, include nothing of the like. I also would not consider myself a natural. I received a last-minute request, felt like I had to do it, and took the leap. I did get better over time and later had the chance to take media training. Still, I believe that departments and programs could do more to encourage public engagement at all levels. My goal is certainly not to burden young scholars with additional responsibilities, and I do recognize that conducting research and publishing can be a precondition for effective public engagement. Public engagement and leadership are now included as evaluation criteria for many grants and fellowships. But in the face of the publish-or-perish mentality, public engagement is rarely the first thing that comes to mind for those who want to land a position or get tenure, despite how valuable it is for society, universities, and scholars themselves.
Is there a risk or cost to doing public engagement? Yes, there certainly is. It is time consuming. Not giving your best answer in a live interview, having some of your statements taken out of their context, or not being entirely satisfied with how an article is framed are all part of the game. But there also are important benefits, even beyond direct visibility and impact. A concept that has gained prominence in social sciences over the past years is anti-intellectualism, the generalized mistrust of intellectuals, scientists, and experts. Anti-intellectualism has been associated with a variety of other attitudes and behaviors, including the rejection of expert consensus, greater vulnerability to misinformation on topics like COVID-19, vaccines, and climate change, and support for populism. The politicization of science is certainly a bigger contributor to this phenomenon than scientists themselves, but I want to believe that reducing the gap between society and science would help increase citizens’ understanding of the scientific method, trust in the scientific community, and knowledge about important issues.
From an individual perspective, public engagement helps you become a better researcher and teacher in the long run. By forcing you to make scientific concepts, methods, and results comprehensible to the general public, public engagement makes you better able to communicate your research in class, in conferences, or in writing. Interacting with journalists and the public also allows you to more skillfully anticipate and answer questions about your research. In some cases, these interactions can even generate new research ideas.
A significant portion of my work since the beginning of my PhD has been around the issue of mis- and disinformation. The hype around that issue certainly contributes to media interest in my research. I am often asked to share advice on how to increase citizens’ resilience to misinformation. But that hype is also one of the reasons why I feel compelled to participate in these interviews. Public discussions around mis- and disinformation have led citizens around the world to believe that misinformation is highly prevalent, that they are frequently exposed to it, and, often, to overestimate its impact on our elections. Mis- and disinformation, indeed, pose a serious challenge to our democracies, and they deserve to be taken seriously. The allegations of massive vote fraud during the 2020 U.S. presidential election and the resulting January 6 Capitol Attack are the perfect example of their potential disruptive impacts on our democracies.
At the same time, research shows that most citizen are not exposed to a very high volume of misinformation and that the spread of misinformation most often does not have large impacts on election results. In this context, I believe that it is important to better inform the public about the actual prevalence and consequences of mis- and disinformation. Biased perceptions, such as when citizens overestimate the prevalence of disinformation or believe that disinformation impacted the result of an election when it did not have a sizeable impact, also threaten to diminish citizens’ trust in all types of information (including reliable and accurate information) and in our democratic institutions. As such, through my research and public engagement, I want to make sure that perceptions are grounded in reality. I want us to be conscious of the impacts of misinformation while avoiding moral panic. I want to prevent misinformation about misinformation.
Mathieu Lavigne is a PhD candidate in Political Science at 鶹AV, senior researcher at the Centre for Media, Technology, and Democracy, and researcher fellow at the Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship. His research interests are at the intersection of political communication and political behavior, with a focus on mis- and disinformation, trust in elections, polarization, and the health of our information ecosystem. He was the Director of theQuebec Election Misinformation Project, which aimed to identify and evaluate the spread and impacts of misinformation during the 2022Quebec provincial election.