Why do we put people at the heart of science stories?

Putting people at the heart of stories is Comms 101. But why is it? A question from the floor at a conference recently prompted me to think afresh about this question.

I had been talking about how engaging with the media can help researchers to create real-world impact for their work.

I’d written my presentation quickly and had, almost as a reflex, told the story about an impactful area of research at the University of Sussex by focusing on the narrative arc of its lead scientist.

I told the tale of how he had defied the odds. How others had scoffed when he first proposed his idea, how he’d chosen Sussex as his home because the university welcomes bold thinkers, and how, through grit, he was now emphatically proving the doubters wrong.

And how, year after year, the media and public affairs teams at Sussex had quietly and persistently been at his side, raising his profile, inch by inch.

“You made that entire case study about one person. Why?” came the question from the floor.

Great question. Scientific advances are made incrementally by whole teams not individuals, after all. But the alternative - listing press releases about a series of research papers by a cast of researchers - would have been… pretty dull. Finding a “human interest” way into the stories we tell is standard practice for comms folk.

It is said that every story ever told follows one of only six basic plots. We love to hear stories about people overcoming hurdles, or rising phoenix-like from the ashes of past failures.  And in science, I think we want to hear about researchers who prove their doubters wrong: the Cinderellas who get to go to the ball, and the Davids who face down the Goliaths of their naysayers.  

“Our audiences need stories. So we must tell the right stories about our [research] findings, if we are going to treat those findings with the respect they need” wrote linguist Nick Enfied in the Guardian in 2018 in a piece about communicating science.

In his book Telling Science Stories, Martin W Angler develops this.

“Why does the audience “need” storytelling? Because our brain reacts to stories on a physiological level. When we consume stories, this reaction connects us among each other, and it connects us with the storyteller and the story.”

Enter, stage left, ‘the storyteller’.

Does the identity of the narrator matter? I suspect, at least with scientific topics, that it does.

It seems to me that the best narrators of science are people we like. David Attenborough. Maggie Aderin-Pocock. Alice Roberts. Brian Cox. Jane Goodall. We learn science from them not just because they’re good tutors… but also because they engage us. It is as though each of them is speaking directly to us, and we feel that on an emotional level.

In his book, Angler covers how we experience stories. Told well, they cause physiological changes in our brains and trigger the release of hormones like dopamine and oxytocin.

Charities know this. They use case studies – real people with experience of the relevant cause - to voice their campaigns. On the home page of the British Heart Foundation is the story and photo of Thalyta who relies on a battery-powered device to keep her alive. A photo of severely malnourished nine month old Fatima features prominently on the Save the Children home page. With Oxfam, it is the story and image of Seinab in Kenya to encourage donations for their East Africa crisis appeal.

We did it at the University of Sussex too. We told the stories of the university through the voices of the people who make up the community. The website and social feeds are populated with interviews with incredible post-grad researchers like Naimat Zafary. Reels from undergrad digital media creators like Cecilia who shine a light on what it means to be a student at Sussex. Videos with our barrier-smashing researchers like Linda Morrice. Profile interviews with our dynamic professional service colleagues like Sam Waugh.

It's about connection, isn’t it.

Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe writes in Saving Us, her book about climate communication:

“Whoever we are, we are human. And as humans, we have the power to connect with one another across many of the broad, deep lines scored across our societies and our psyches. We can’t do this by bombarding people with more data, facts and science.”

So what should we do?

“I search for and collect and share stories and good news about people who are making a difference”, offers Hayhoe.

And that sounds, to me, like a pretty good place to start.