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Science v. Story: Narrative Strategies for Science Communicators
Uncovering common threads across types of science skepticism to show why these controversial narratives stick and how we can more effectively counter them through storytelling
Science v. Story analyzes four scientific controversies—climate change, evolution, vaccination, and COVID-19—through the lens of storytelling. Instead of viewing stories as adversaries to scientific practices, Emma Frances Bloomfield demonstrates how storytelling is integral to science communication. Drawing from narrative theory and rhetorical studies, Science v. Story examines scientific stories and rival stories, including disingenuous rival stories that undermine scientific conclusions and productive rival stories that work to make science more inclusive.
Science v. Story offers two tools to evaluate and build narrative webs and narrative constellations. These visual mapping tools chart the features of a story (i.e., characters, action, sequence, scope, storyteller, and content) to locate opportunities for audience engagement. Bloomfield ultimately argues that we can strengthen science communication by incorporating storytelling in critical ways that are attentive to audience and context.
Science v. Story analyzes four scientific controversies—climate change, evolution, vaccination, and COVID-19—through the lens of storytelling. Instead of viewing stories as adversaries to scientific practices, Emma Frances Bloomfield demonstrates how storytelling is integral to science communication. Drawing from narrative theory and rhetorical studies, Science v. Story examines scientific stories and rival stories, including disingenuous rival stories that undermine scientific conclusions and productive rival stories that work to make science more inclusive.
Science v. Story offers two tools to evaluate and build narrative webs and narrative constellations. These visual mapping tools chart the features of a story (i.e., characters, action, sequence, scope, storyteller, and content) to locate opportunities for audience engagement. Bloomfield ultimately argues that we can strengthen science communication by incorporating storytelling in critical ways that are attentive to audience and context.
- GenresScience
286 pages, Paperback
Published February 27, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 6, 2025
Reality-based thinking isn’t popular in American society today. From policy and religion to social media and town halls, science is viewed with increasing suspicion. While it’s easy to blame entrenched economic and social interests, we in the scientific community must look at ourselves in the mirror, too. Too often, all our presentations are too abstract for the general public to understand. Too often, we hide behind science’s authority instead of admitting our limitations. In turn, audiences perceive us as people who love thinking and economic comforts but are irrelevant to their lives. Of course, scientists see that perception as far from the truth. Indeed, science needs to inform our lives more, not less, with so many looming crises. In this book, Emma Frances Bloomfield seeks to help scientists construct their message and their careers in a way that they communicate more effectively using narrative strategies.
In my life, I’ve been torn between two communities: the academic community of higher education and a religious community of the church. Even though I’ve found more intellectual rigor in academe, the church tends to surpass in its ability to communicate and relate to common individuals relatively untrained in academic methods. I’ve witnessed in a democracy, the common folk still hold the levers of power, and they recently view scientists and their message with increasing suspicion. I’ve wondered what pastoral skills of communication in a community might accomplished when crossed with scientific knowledge.
Evidently, science communicators like Bloomfield have thought along similar lines. She posits a narrative framework to plot scientific communications based on the message’s level of abstraction and concreteness. Some messages need abstraction, like when generalizing theories; other messages, especially to the public, need relatability, like Darwin’s tome Origin of Species written to the wider population. Scientists can further increase a sense of audience by building relationships with their local communities to increase trust and empathy.
She uses four contemporary issues to enliven her model: climate change, evolution and creationism, vaccinations, and the COVID-19 pandemic. She illustrates how those messages can be analyzed and honed based on her framework. Although scientists often view storytelling with suspicion, good stories move the needle most with popular audiences. Combining effective narration with rigorous truth can persuade audiences that science’s benefits did not stop in prior decades but can advance national and global benefits today.
Scientific communicators comprise an obvious audience for this book. I suggest broader groups like those engaged in doing science should benefit, too. Even non-scientists interested in advocating for science can benefit from learning how to engage individuals and audiences more effectively. Though not a science communicator myself, I’m constantly communicating factual knowledge to different groups. This book helped me think about how to engage those people in a more lasting and contributory way.
In my life, I’ve been torn between two communities: the academic community of higher education and a religious community of the church. Even though I’ve found more intellectual rigor in academe, the church tends to surpass in its ability to communicate and relate to common individuals relatively untrained in academic methods. I’ve witnessed in a democracy, the common folk still hold the levers of power, and they recently view scientists and their message with increasing suspicion. I’ve wondered what pastoral skills of communication in a community might accomplished when crossed with scientific knowledge.
Evidently, science communicators like Bloomfield have thought along similar lines. She posits a narrative framework to plot scientific communications based on the message’s level of abstraction and concreteness. Some messages need abstraction, like when generalizing theories; other messages, especially to the public, need relatability, like Darwin’s tome Origin of Species written to the wider population. Scientists can further increase a sense of audience by building relationships with their local communities to increase trust and empathy.
She uses four contemporary issues to enliven her model: climate change, evolution and creationism, vaccinations, and the COVID-19 pandemic. She illustrates how those messages can be analyzed and honed based on her framework. Although scientists often view storytelling with suspicion, good stories move the needle most with popular audiences. Combining effective narration with rigorous truth can persuade audiences that science’s benefits did not stop in prior decades but can advance national and global benefits today.
Scientific communicators comprise an obvious audience for this book. I suggest broader groups like those engaged in doing science should benefit, too. Even non-scientists interested in advocating for science can benefit from learning how to engage individuals and audiences more effectively. Though not a science communicator myself, I’m constantly communicating factual knowledge to different groups. This book helped me think about how to engage those people in a more lasting and contributory way.
January 10, 2025
"Science v. Story" is a terrific book for those exploring the intersection of facts and narratives in our current world. The book is broken up based on specific "wedges" of a narrative. Each wedge is explained in tandem with four real world examples (climate change, evolution, vaccinations, and COVID) which can help readers better grasp the ideas and apply them to other existing topics. I found that the author's idea of constellations was super helpful in analyzing and applying these wedge tools to demonstrate features of a story and how different elements push/pull against each other to create tension, skepticism, and even controversy. This book also helped me think about current issues in our world and how the stories we see, accept, and don't accept, play into Bloomfield's argument. Definitely a good book that can be applied to research and everyday life!
August 14, 2024
I can’t believe that in the first person to write a review for this amazing book. Admittedly, I am the target audience - a professor who works on ecomedia. However, this book, unlike a lot of academic books, is accessible and would be useful for professionals in a number of fields. We need more scholarship like this.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews