Telling Tales: Using Fairy Tale Characters to Communicate Energy Research
The need for research to be communicated to policymakers and the general public in a more accessible and creative way led a team of researchers from Lancaster, Strathclyde and Manchester Universities to develop new ways of communicating research on social sustainability science. Their approach is to use fairy tale characters in their storytelling to make their research more engaging and relatable.
Renewable energy, low-carbon transportation, and plastic pollution are major challenges of climate change that society faces. Researchers at Lancaster University delivered a response by presenting three “telling stories” based on fairy tale characters to illustrate their ideas:
1. Renewables are sirens: These are seductive and attractive solutions to policymakers, but they are a single part of many routes to Net Zero, such as reducing demand. Renewables should not be considered the only solution for a transition to Net Zero and should be accompanied by different strategies.
2. Cars are vampires: Policy makers too often shake garlic against them instead of considering how the future can be reimagined without such deadly and dangerous systems, which separate workplaces and outlets from homes.
3. Plastics are witches: An often-misunderstood material, plastics, can be harmful in some cases but have benefits as well. Rather than demonising them, policies should encourage systems that maximise their benefits while minimising harm.
Staying true to their approach, the team worked with illustrator Véronique Heijnsbroek to create images that convey the essence of their stories. The aim was to make their academic research understandable and relatable for non-experts.
The IPCC calls for “transformational adaptation,” and the authors’ work offers alternative policy approaches to make significant changes. They aim to bridge the gap between researchers and policymakers, enabling policy changes that bring about real change.
In communicating academic research to the wider world, it is essential to understand that the use of specialist language falls short in conveying messages to the intended audience. Accessible communication channels play a critical role in achieving this desired goal. The combination of complex research findings with intuitive storytelling and relatable illustrations makes academic research meaningful, understandable, and inspires transformational adaptation.
The authors hope that their storytelling approach would ignite the same passion in the scientific community to develop user-friendly communication channels that will allow policymakers to gain a better understanding and drive policy changes that are needed.
Additional piece: Beyond Storytelling – Bridging Academia and Policy Makers
The world of policymaking is a different universe from that of academia, and the language in each setting differs. The researcher’s primary language is mathematical and scientific terminology, and while important, it is often unintelligible to policymakers and the general public. Policymakers’ language involves politically-driven language that considers how their decisions could impact the community’s welfare. Therefore, academics need to communicate their research findings on sustainability science using storytelling to ensure that policymakers can make informed decisions based on their research.
As seen in the story of Renewables as sirens, Renewables require policymakers to review different options. While renewables are attractive solutions for policymakers, demand reduction could be another viable option for a transition to Net Zero. The aim of academic research isn’t just to share mathematical and scientific knowledge but to use storytelling as a form of communication, so policymakers understand the impacts of their decisions.
Academia typically looks at a problem or issue in a very complex manner, seeking mathematical and statistical evidence to back up theories and assumptions. The language used in academia is sophisticated, and as a result, it can be challenging for policymakers to understand. This is where storytelling comes in. Storytelling takes complex information and simplifies it, making it easier for policymakers to grasp and better informed about their decision-making process.
Recently, there has been a significant drive by the scientific community to explore new forms of communication to reach society, not just fellow academics. Researchers need to communicate their findings in an accessible way to a broader audience while maintaining scientific accuracy. Communicating via stories, as seen in the case of the fairy tale characters, is one effective solution to this issue. Storytelling is flexible and can be used in various forms, from visual to written, blogs, podcasts, and videos.
The challenge with communicating in the language of policymakers is how to deliver information without compromising the research’s quality. Storytelling offers an effective solution by making information relatable, relevant, and memorable while still maintaining academic rigor. Storytelling allows policymakers to understand better and use the research findings to make informed decisions.
Conclusion
Academics can use storytelling to communicate important research such as sustainability science to policymakers and the general public. Storytelling can make complex information and research more accessible, and the use of fairy tale characters has provided inspiration for academic researchers. Storytelling’s flexibility in its various forms, such as blogs, videos, podcasts, and written articles, makes it an excellent tool for communicating research findings. As more and more academics embrace storytelling, policymakers are better informed to make decisions that are in the interest of society, transforming adaptation, and building a sustainable future.
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A team of researchers, led by Lancaster University, have been developing accessible and creative means of communicating social science sustainability research to policy makers and the general public.
Using fairy tale characters – mermaids, vampires and witches – as metaphors, the team, including researchers from the Universities of Strathclyde and Manchester, have tried to communicate typically complicated plots in evocative and engaging terms.
His article, ‘Telling Tales’: Communicating UK energy research through fairy tale characters, has been published in the journal, Energy research and social sciences.
In response to some of the challenges of climate change (electricity generation, low-carbon transportation, plastic pollution), the research team presents three “telling stories.” These ‘translate’ existing academic research, drawing inspiration from well-known fairy tale characters, to cast this research in an accessible and powerful light:
- Renewables are sirens: seductive and attractive solutions for policymakers in the face of growing energy demands, but a distraction from other important routes to Net Zero, such as demand reduction. Like the figureheads of sirens on sailors’ ships, renewables should accompany our transition to Net Zero, but they should not be the only destination.
- Cars are vampires: dangerous entities that are deadly and suck up the well-being of communities by separating workplaces and outlets from homes, creating long commutes. Policymakers, until now, have shaken garlic at them to control how fast and where they travel, instead of reaching for the stake and reimagining everyday life without cars.
- Plastics are witches, a complex category that the research team says is poorly understood by the current witch hunt against plastics. While they can be harmful (eg single-use plastics), they also have ‘healing’ properties (ie durable and useful materials that can substitute for more harmful materials). Policy makers should work towards reuse systems to maximize their benefits, rather than simply ‘demonise’ plastics in general.
Having developed these tales, the team worked with illustrator Véronique Heijnsbroek to create a range of inspiring images.
This work responds to the call of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for ‘transformational adaptation’. This document offers serious messages and alternative policy approaches with the aim of communicating in an accessible way the types of changes that this will entail:
- Renewables, while important, are not the only measure required for a future of electricity generation free from fossil fuels. Demand reduction, while a less attractive solution, must be considered to ensure that this future is possible.
- Cars are known to be deadly and dangerous, but we have designed everyday life and society around their use. Stricter measures are required when thinking about what role they should play in the societies of the future.
- Plastics are currently demonized. Plastics are not to blame, as much as the production, consumption and disposal systems to which they are linked. Policies should encourage reuse systems to maximize their benefits, rather than just demonizing plastics in general.
“It would be easy to interpret this work as a trivialization of the research or even as an endorsement of potential readers,” says lead author Dr Carolynne Lord of Lancaster University.
“This is not our intention. The point is that communicating through specialized language does not adequately convey the message to the communities it is intended to reach. We need to start communicating our work in more accessible ways.”
Dr Torik Holmes, from the University of Manchester, adds: “Storytelling has been gaining ground in the field of energy research in the social sciences. We have built on this by using fairy tale characters to argue how UK politics reflects a fixation on renewable energy, over precautionary responses to car ownership and use, and too limited an understanding of and reactions to plastics”.
And Dr Katherine Ellsworth-Krebs, from the University of Strathclyde, comments: “It is important to communicate in new and intelligible ways that combine the complexity of research with inspiring stories. There is now a real urgency that transformative responses to the climate change”. Although much of the work of the social sciences offers potential solutions, it can do so in ways that are difficult to understand for those with the power to make change a reality.”
The authors hope that their concept will inspire the scientific community to re-communicate energy-based social science research in more digestible forms.
They plan to hold an online workshop from the 28thhe August with other researchers and illustrators to develop and expand this cast of characters. You can find more information here:
https://tellingtalesofenergyresearch.wordpress.com/.
Their hope is that by taking research findings beyond academia and to policy makers and the popular public, this type of work can help bring about the changes that are needed.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/05/230531101550.htm
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