I wrote recently about a fascinating new report from LSE that aimed to tackle the misinformation crisis that is blighting both the scientific and political worlds.  Indeed, the very democracies that western society thrives upon can only function if citizens are well informed on the key matters of the day.

As such, the topic of stopping misinformation, whether deliberate or not, is one that is engaging an ever wider pool of people.  The latest to offer their thoughts are a team from Yale’s School of Foresty & Environmental Studies (F&ES), who argue in a recently published paper for a number of evidence based strategies.

As one might expect from the nature of the school, the topic they’ve chosen to explore is climate change, which has its own complications as a result of the wide range of interest groups with a stake in the matter.  The paper highlights how an organized network of stakeholders who would stand to lose from a transition to a low-carbon economy began disseminating content designed to undercut the legitimacy of climate science.

This had the result of eroding public trust in climate science, and therefore making it much harder to craft meaningful policy.

“Many people see these efforts to undermine science as an increasingly dangerous challenge and they feel paralyzed about what to do about it,” the authors say. “But there’s been a growing amount of research into this challenge over the past few years that will help us chart out some solutions.”

Responding to misinformation

To respond effectively requires a coordinated strategy to counter the false content both as it’s produced and then disseminated.  It also requires the institutional network that has emerged to produce and spread this content to be confronted.  The strategy involves recommendations in four main areas:

• Public inoculation: While a growing body of research shows that an individual’s perceptions of science are informed by “cultural cognition”—and thus influenced by their preexisting ideologies and value systems—there is evidence that society can “inoculate” against misinformation by exposing people to refuted scientific arguments before they hear them, much like one can prevent infection through the use of vaccines. This strategy can be strengthened by drawing more attention to the sources of misinformation, and thus similarly build up resistance to their campaigns.
• Legal strategies: Research has also shown the extent to which some industry leaders tied to the climate misinformation network knowingly misled the public about the dangers of climate change. In response, cities and states in the U.S. and U.K. have filed lawsuits alleging that fossil fuel companies, such as ExxonMobil, downplayed the risks of their products. While such lawsuits can be expensive and time-consuming, media coverage has the potential to influence public opinion and “perhaps to further inoculate the public about industry efforts to deliberately mislead them.” The authors also describe how an improved understanding of these networks has helped in the legal defense of climate scientists who have come under attack for their research.
• Political mechanisms: The authors argue that more social science research is needed in order to reveal and better understand how the political process is often manipulated. For instance, they identify a case in which the energy company Entergy Corporation acknowledged hiring a PR firm that in turn paid actors who posed as grassroots supporters of a controversial power plant in New Orleans. They suggest targeted efforts in geographic areas where skepticism of climate change is widespread, including promotion of stronger media coverage of candidate views on climate science, clearer understanding of funding sources, and lawsuits highlighting the effects of climate change in these areas.
• Financial transparency: A growing share of funding for campaigns that promote science misinformation comes from donor-directed foundations that shield the contributor’s identity from the public; in fact, financial giving from these groups quadrupled in the past decade, topping $100 million. While it is often difficult to identify the flow of dollars, nonpartisan organizations tracking money in politics have become important resources for researchers who seek to understand this dynamic. The authors call for new legislation to improve funding transparency.

“We’re really just at the tip of the iceberg in terms of understanding the full network of actors and how they’re moving money in these efforts,” the authors say. “The better we can understand how these networks work, the better the chances that policymakers will be able to create policy that makes a difference.”

For these strategies to work, they must be coordinated.  For instance, public inoculation and legal strategies require more financial transparency, which in turn can only really be achieved if the legal framework exists.  This in turn requires a more robust understanding of the financial and ideological sources of misinformation.

“Ultimately we have to get to the root of the problem, which is the huge imbalance in spending between climate change opponents and those lobbying for new solutions,” they conclude. “Those interests will always be there, of course, but I’m hopeful that as we learn more about these dynamics things will start to change. I just hope it’s not too late.”