Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS - Impressions Matter: The Role of Scientists’ Self- Presentation in Effective Risk Communication on Social Media

社交媒体平台的兴起重塑了我们的传播格局，促进了多样化的内容创作，并影响了信息传播的动力。在这种生态环境中，科学家在社交媒体上成为越来越关键的风险传播者：例如，在新冠肺炎疫情期间，科学家被推到了公共话语的前沿，将自己定位为这些在线信息环境中的专家。这个项目探索了科学家如何利用社交媒体向公众展示他们的研究和他们自己，以及公众观众可能会如何对这种“自我展示”做出反应。具体地说，某些自我呈现策略可能会如何影响观众对科学家能力、热情、谦逊和透明度的看法，以及这些看法可能如何与风险理解和对风险相关政策的支持有关？了解科学家使用社交媒体的潜在说服性影响可能有助于确定和发展有效的风险沟通做法，不仅适用于科学家，还适用于社交媒体和其他领域的其他利益攸关方。这项研究旨在帮助来自不同背景和经验的各级科学家在风险沟通方面有所帮助。本研究通过考察科学家自我呈现策略在两个相关领域的影响来解决这些指导性问题：(1)研究成果的传播和(2)研究过程的情境。研究人员探索了这些策略如何通过两种机制--预期违反和认同--影响受众对科学家作为风险传播者的认知，以及来源认知如何与风险认知和政策支持相关。最后，研究人员考察了这些自我呈现策略的两个信息级特征(个性化和情绪化)，作为可能影响这些关系的潜在调节因素。为了测试这一概念框架，研究人员正在收集和分析两个随机实验的数据，这两个实验涉及成年人的一般总体样本。总而言之，这项研究将社交媒体上的文献与战略风险沟通和说服联系起来，为网络环境中风险沟通的演变提供了更微妙的视角。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The rise of social media platforms has reshaped our communication landscape, fostering diverse content creation and impacting the dynamics of information dissemination. Within this ecology, scientists have emerged as increasingly pivotal risk communicators on social media: for example, scientists were propelled to the forefront of public discourse during the Covid-19 pandemic, positioning themselves as experts in these online information environments. This project explores how scientists may leverage social media to present their research and themselves to the public, as well as how public audiences might respond to this “self-presentation.” Specifically, how might certain self-presentation strategies impact audience perceptions of scientists' competence, warmth, humility, and transparency, and how might these perceptions relate to risk understanding and support for risk-related policies? Understanding the potential persuasive impacts of scientists’ social media use may support the identification and development of effective risk communication practices not only for scientists, but other stakeholders on social media and beyond. This research aims to help empower scientists at all levels and from different backgrounds and experiences in risk communication.This research addresses these guiding questions by examining the impact of scientists' self-presentation strategies across two relevant areas: (1) the dissemination of their research outcomes and (2) the contextualization of their research processes. The researchers explore how these strategies may impact audiences’ perceptions of scientists as risk communicators through two mechanisms—expectancy violation and identification—and how source perceptions may relate to risk perceptions and policy support. Lastly, the researchers examine two message-level features of these self-presentation strategies (personalization and emotionalization) as potential moderators that may impact these relationships. To test the conceptual framework, the researchers are collecting and analyzing data from two randomized experiments that involve a general population sample of adults. Altogether, this research bridges literature on social media with strategic risk communication and persuasion to offer a more nuanced perspective of an evolving aspect of risk communication as situated in a networked environment.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.