Is there a communication problem?

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Regional Agency for the Environmental Protection of Friuli Venezia Giulia

Unione Meteorologica del Friuli Venezia Giulia - ONLUS

Berlin 12-16 September 2011 – EMS Annual Meeting

[email protected]

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Arpa FVG- Agenzia Regionale per la Protezione dell'Ambiente del Friuli Venezia Giulia Berlin, 12-17 September 2011

I do not know if there is a communication problem, but session of conferences devoted to “communication affairs” are almost always crowded

Why this question (and work) ?

I personally enjoyed all the EMS sessions devoted to communication and

communication problems. In Zurich (last EMS meeting) the proposed paradigm was that of a communication “short and sexy”

I tried to face the question of the “Communication problem” with a “physicist approach”

Split the question “is there a communication problem” in elemental constituents, trying to quantify (if possible) each element

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Communication:

Problem:

exchange of information between a

source and a target

complication that creates a difficulty in the normal or expected evolution of events Information

Target Source

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Newspapers World Wide Web

Quantification is language dependent: so far only

Italian and English languages have been used How to quantify the “transmission pipe”?

CAVEAT

Look for words pertaining to different fields (society, culture, technology, ...) trying to evidence differences in frequency and trends

A newspaper with a National distribution was chosen

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Average number of occurrences in the different years from 2007 to 2010 rescaled to year 2007

Research was done on “Italian” words here translated for “communication” problems

Love Wine Sex Climate Weather Weather forecasts Football Climate change 0,4 0,6 0,8 1 1,2 1,4 1,6 1,8

2 Number of occurrences rescaled over 2007 2007 2008 2009 2010 Frequency Newspapers hardcopy

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How to quantify the “transmission pipe”?

Average number of occurrences in the different years from 2007 to 2010

Research was done on “Italian” words here translated for “communication” problems Weather Rain Weather

forecasts Severe weather Footbal Sex Climate Climate change 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000 5500 6000 6500 7000

Average number of word occurrences

Num

be

rs

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Weather Rain Weather

forecasts Severe weather Footbal Sex Climate Climate change 0 0,25 0,5 0,75 1 1,25 1,5 1,75 2 2,25 2,5

Normalized relative frequency trend of different words

2007 2008 2009 2010 Fre qu en cy Trend in the number of occurrences normalized according to a “neutral” word (e.g., sex or love)

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How to quantify the “transmission pipe”?

There is a general increase in the number of expressions related to the weather.

Is this a signal that weather culture is penetrating more and more into society?

If yes, then the transmission canal is solid and effective

How to interpret these findings

There is a general decrease of expressions related to climate and climate change.

Is this a signal of the fading of climate climax after the burst of IPCC 2007 report?

If yes, then the transmission canal seems to be selective.

We seem to be more effective in transmitting short term information e.g., weather forecasts

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World Wide Web

Research was done on “English” words

Weather forecasts Sociology Archaeology Economics Mathematics Physics Climatology Astronomy Meteorology 0 50 100 150 200 250 300

Disciplines (Number of pages 31 Jul 2011)

Google Altavista

Million of pages

Meteorology and climatology are less present on the web than other disciplines and even than weather forecasts

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World Wide Web

How to quantify the “transmission pipe”?

Professionals of Meteorology (Weather forecasters) are present like other scientific professionals. Climatologist are the “cinderellas”...

Weather forecaster Sociologist Archaeologist Economist Mathematician Physicist Climatologist Astronomer Meteorologist 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Professionals (number of pages 31 Jul 2011) Google

Altavista

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World Wide Web

The ratio discipline vs professional is lower for meteorology and weather forecasts. Professionals are relatively more relevant than discipline for meteorology and weather forecasts

Weather forecasts Sociology Archaeology Economics Mathematics Physics Climatology Astronomy Meteorology 0 10 20 30

Pages disciplines/Pages professionals

Google Altavista

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World Wide Web

How to quantify the “transmission pipe”?

The ratio discipline vs professional is lower for meteorology and weather forecasts. Professionals are relatively more relevant than discipline for meteorology and weather forecasts

Weather forecasts Sociology Archaeology Economics Mathematics Physics Climatology Astronomy Meteorology 0 10 20 30

Pages disciplines/Pages professionals

Google Altavista

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World Wide Web

Even on the web the transmission canal seems to be more effective and solid with the

communication of the “ready-to-be-spent information” (weather instead climate)

How to interpret these findings

Meteorology (in particular operational meteorology) seem to be more oriented toward “free-lancers” than toward teams. It is hard to transmit a message when many people speak together

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How to quantify the “information” value?

Weather forecasts (ready-to-be-spent information) are almost always associated with

horoscopes and, even worst, with stock exchange information (both on newspapers and television)

The risk is that extremely

valuable information

(weather forecasts) might be considered as poor information and just a sort of entertainment

Horoscope App Weather

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1) There are no problems in the transmission canal. We can effectively transfer information into society using currently available media.

1.1) These information, in general, seem to be mainly “ready-to-use”, then they might have only a reduced “educational” impact on Society

2) Communication seem to be more oriented toward “communicators” than toward the “information”.

1.2) There might be a risk of “saturation”. Too much information often become noise and this might reduce the impact of communication itself

3) “Short and sexy” is surely an effective approach but it is dangerous, because it might bring the system to dismiss the “short” to keep only the “sexy”

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Is there a communication problem?

1) Reduce information to its essence, avoiding excesses

The “fast” and “thin” approach (Italo Calvino; American Lectures)

2) Supply information when Society is prone to receive it

In some sense yes, even if differently from what might seem at the beginning

What to do

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