Program on the Environment

Effective science communication is necessary for collaboration, innovation, creating support for science, and working toward a more diverse and representative science community. While this understanding has become core to how scientists are expected to interact with their work and the public, the pandemic has provided an opportunity to question the structures of government — technological, bureaucratic and social — that may inhibit these communicative efforts through making us more reliant on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and EGovernment than before. The aim of this study was to identify barriers within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that may impact effective science communication to lay audiences. Through an internship with the EPA, opportunities to survey and interview employees provided insight to these barriers. Beyond a formal internship, personal utilization of Twitter’s API through rtweet allowed for an independent analysis of the federal agency’s Twitter activity in comparison with like agencies. Given these opportunities, four potential barriers emerged: resources, siloing of teams, existing norms, and public perception of the EPA. Given the infowhelmed nature and the difficulty the American public experiences in distinguishing fact from fiction during a pandemic that mandates online communication, the EPA and like federal agencies must address these internal issues with solutions such as strategic communication plans and reassessing communication approval processes if they want to ensure their messaging is effective.