This is where you’ll find recaps of each our five 2021 Media Impact Forum sessions. This year’s Media Impact Forum is focusing on evidence-based communications through one online discussion a month from February to June. The recorded sessions appear in chronological order below.
Agenda
Date: Wednesday, Feb. 17 | 1-2:30 p.m. ET
Session 1: Addressing vaccine hesitancy
Billions of dollars were invested in developing COVID-19 vaccines, but they won’t protect us until they are broadly accepted and taken. We need a widespread public communications that is rooted in science to build confidence in the vaccine.
This fall, the Center for Public Interest Communications at the University of Florida collaborated with 16 scholars from the disciplines of behavioral economics, social psychology, medical anthropology, political communication, and neuroscience with funding from the United Nations Verified initiative. They developed a research-driven communication framework for decreasing vaccine hesitancy, and their eight-part framework offers guidelines for creating an effective communications strategy.
We explored the framework in depth during this session. (See the team’s presentation here.)
Then, we’ll break out into two concurrent sessions:
- FOR ALL FUNDERS: Funders will explore the essential role philanthropy can play in testing and promoting effective communications about the necessity of the COVID-19 vaccine by investing in strategies that translate this research into meaningful, actionable and trustworthy messages targeted to specific communities.
- FOR JOURNALISM FUNDERS: In this breakout, we’ll reframe the insights in a way that offers value to news organizations that are covering the vaccine rollout. (This session will be facilitated by Joy Mayer, Director, Trusting News; and Matt Sheehan, Managing Director, Center for Public Interest Communications; Senior Lecturer, Journalism, University of Florida)
Speakers:
- Ann Christiano, founder and Director of the Center for Public Interest Communications, University of Florida
- Jack J. Barry, Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the Center for Public Interest Communications, University of Florida
- Joy Mayer, Director, Trusting News
- Matt Sheehan, Managing Director of the Center for Public Interest Communications
Date: Wednesday, March 17 | 1-2:00 p.m. ET
Session 2: Mastering vaccine messaging: Funder strategies & collaborations
This session was co-hosted with Grantmakers In Health.
Building off the principles outlined in Session 1 of the 2021 Media Impact Forum, in this second discussion we heard how funders are supporting organizations, projects and collaborations that are promoting vaccine confidence among communities of color and more generally across the nation.
In order to build confidence, though, it’s important to understand vaccine hesitancy among these groups from a historical perspective. Decades of racist practices in the healthcare industry have contributed to ongoing social inequities and mistrust among communities of color. Dr. George Mensah of the National Institutes of Health gave us an overview of the impacts of race-based treatment on healthcare outcomes for people of color.
Then, we heard from the Colorado Health Foundation on its Vaccine Confidence/Equitable Uptake and Strategic Communications Outreach Project, which centers on communities of color in Colorado.
We also learned about the Ad Council’s communications effort to encourage vaccination against the virus. Launched in partnership with the COVID Collaborative, the effort represents one of the largest public education campaigns in history.
We heard from:
- George Mensah, MD, Director of the Center for Translation Research and Implementation Science, National Health, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health (see his slides here)
- Karen McNeil-Miller, Ed.D , President and CEO, The Colorado Health Foundation
- Taryn Fort, Senior Director of Communications and External Influence, The Colorado Health Foundation (see her slides here)
- Kate Emanuel, Chief Strategy Officer, Ad Council
- Cara V. James, Ph.D, President and CEO, Grantmakers In Health (Moderator)
Date: Wednesday, Apr. 21 | 1-2:30 p.m. ET
Session 3: The path forward to more inclusive science communications
In our third session of the Media Impact Forum, which this year focused on evidence-based communications, we explored what efforts funders can support that will make the field of science communications more equitable and inclusive.
Even with increasing interest in science communication and public engagement with science, marginalized individuals and communities are still largely overlooked and undervalued in these efforts. We need to engage diverse audiences in topics related to science and health, and we can’t do that without bringing diverse voices to the field. This discussion explored what interventions funders can make to build and sustain this critical field of practice.
We heard from Dr. Sunshine Menezes of the University of Rhode Island on the state of inclusive science communications. She went over the findings of a landscape study—supported in part by the Kavli Foundation and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund— she conducted with her colleague Dr. Katherine Canfield last year.
We also heard from Dr. Jedidah Isler, Assistant Professor of Astrophysics at Dartmouth College, who is an outspoken advocate of inclusion and empowerment in STEM fields.
Lastly, we heard from Ralph Bouquet, Director of Education and Outreach at NOVA, and scientist/activist Evelyn Valdez-Ward, who founded Reclaiming STEM, a workshop that provides training for diverse scientists to learn how to communicate their science at the intersection of research and social justice. Bouquet and Valdez-Ward discussed initiatives that are trying to move the needle on inclusive science communications.
Kishore Hari, who manages strategic partnerships for science engagement at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, moderated the discussion. See her slides here.
Speakers:
- Sunshine Menezes, Ph.D, Executive Director, Metcalf Institute at The University of Rhode Island (see her slides here)
- Jedidah Isler, Ph.D, Assistant Professor of Astrophysics, Dartmouth College
- Evelyn Valdez-Ward, co-Founder and co-Director, Reclaiming STEM
- Ralph Bouquet, Director of Education and Outreach, NOVA
- MODERATOR: Kishore Hari, Strategic Partnerships, Communications & Engagement, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
