Scientists and experts using social media platforms to engage with the public risk negative public feedback, potentially harming their efforts. This paper addresses how negative user comments affect experts’ trustworthiness and the messages’ credibility depending on whether they frame their message as scientific versus anecdotal using an online study with a 2 (evidence type: scientific vs. anecdotal) x 3 (comments: neutral, negative-factual, negative-emotional) between-subjects design. The results suggest that relying on scientific evidence when engaging in emotionally charged discourses is beneficial. Negative-emotional comments have a significant negative impact on trustworthiness, which is especially pronounced when using anecdotal evidence.
In her book Anjana Khatwa combines geological and Indigenous ways of knowing from across the globe, offering a wide-ranging guide to an area of science communication that can be overlooked, the Earth sciences. This would be sufficient to recommend it to science communicators. The book goes further, however, offering a deeply personal perspective on exclusion and inclusion in academia, and multicultural society. For anyone interested in equitable approaches to science communication, this is an essential read.