Mind the gap: questioning the existence of a ‘knowledge deficit’ in conservation social media message evaluation by scientist, science-trained, and general public audience groups

Abstract

Conservation communication tends to assume a knowledge gap between scientists and target audiences and focuses more on education rather than invitational forms of communication. Known as the knowledge deficit approach to science communication, this approach assumes a significant gap between the public and science-trained professionals and hopes to overcome that gap through communicating ‘better’ facts. Through the use of focus group data, this study examines whether a knowledge deficit exists between scientist, science-trained, and general public audience groups’ understanding of conservation concepts and evaluation and interpretation of conservation social media messages. We show that a significant knowledge deficit does not exist between these groups, and furthermore show between group overlap on key themes surrounding the presentation of social media messages. Altogether this suggests that adopting other styles of communication may enhance engagement with conservation issues.