Explaining Proteomics to Lay Audiences Part I

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Explaining Proteomics to Lay Audiences Part I

• Katherine Rowan, krowan_at_gmu.edu
• Carl Botan, cbotan_at_gmu.edu
• Department of Communication
• George Mason University

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Key Issues

• As a rule-
• Science addresses questions of fact.
• Mass media and lay audiences address issues of
  value.
• So,
• Technical responses to lay or M/M questions
  usually wrong
• No matter how technically correct. . .
• . . . a technical question was not asked so a
  technical response cannot be the answer.
• Insisting on giving a technical response
  invalidates the questioner and denies access to
  information they feel they need to make decisions
  on their own terms.
• Metaphor is one over arching default? strategy.
• Then Dr. Rowan will discuss how to.

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Metaphor

• Artistic form
• Uses the familiar to understand the unfamiliar
• Element of wrongness
• Used by lay and M/M audiences
• No technical answers to metaphor-level questions
• Miltos Liakopoulos (2002) Public Understanding of
  Science, 11, 5-32, Pandoras box or panacea
  Using metaphors to create the public
  representations of biotechnology.

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Metaphors in BioTech
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Positive Negative
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L P Bio-IT Metaphor Bank

• The tumor rewires itself, overcoming the drug
  therapy.
• The fingerprint of proteins.
• What is the tumor's wiring diagram?  What does
  its  circuitry look like in the pre-cancer stage?
• Fragments of biomarkers are clinging to a
  molecular mop.
• Proteomics is the sweet spot.
• The circuits are talking to each other and that's
  why they are a network.
• A public database of tumor fingerprints

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Positive Negative
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Next

• Oath?
• Dr. Rowan - actual ways to make this work when
  communicating with lay and M/M publics.