Cartoons as a means of communicating research results

The latest IRANZ Connections newsletter (from the Independent Research Association of New Zealand) pointed me to this post from MRINZ, which in turn pointed to this new article by Cilein Kearns (MRINZ) and co-authors, published in the journal Journal of Visual Communication in Medicine (sorry, I don't see an ungated version online, but there is a non-technical summary here). They compared study participants' preferences for receiving summaries of research results, across three different types: (1) a summary using a comic format; (2) a traditional non-technical lay summary; and (3) a published scientific abstract. Their research participants were 1236 research participants from a previous study, receiving a summary of earlier research (see the MRINZ post linked above), who received all three types of summaries in a random order, and rated each of them. The results are interesting:

The most preferred summaries were the comic N=716 (57.9%), lay summary N=321 (26.0%), and scientific abstract N=199 (16.1%). The least preferred summaries were the scientific abstract N=614 (49.7%), lay summary N=380 (30.7%) and comic N=242 (19.6%)... The trend of a majority most preferring the comic, and a majority least preferring the scientific abstract, was observed in all groupings except 18-24 year olds, where although the comic was still most preferred, the preferences for scientific abstract and lay summary were reversed.

When scored separately on understanding, satisfaction, and enjoyment, they get the following picture (although we are mostly left to guess at whether the differences are statistically significant):

What did the research participants like (and dislike) about comics? Kearns et al. report that:

The comic was reported to be easier to read and understand, more interesting, engaging, enjoyable, better at communicating data, to be relatable, provide more useful information through context, and to be more memorable. Many felt it was a faster format to read, despite being the longest in terms of both scrolling required, and text content. Many commented specifically on enjoyment of the art style and use of humour, and felt that the comic medium was non-threatening compared to the other media...

For the minority of respondents who least preferred the comic, reasons included finding the visuals distracting, the format too long or too short, that it had not enough or too much detail, could undermine the seriousness of the topic with the style or use of humour, and could be patronising or childish for some people.

This is some interesting research, because there is definitely a push from funders and research organisations for researchers to find better ways of communicating their results and conclusions (and methods) to the general public. The Conversation is one way of achieving this. Blogging, Twitter, and other social media are also available.

However, the format of the message is also important, and it is here than more novel ways of communicating may be important. Comics were used by Siouxsie Wiles and artist Toby Morris during the coronavirus pandemic to communicate important public health messages. Motu summarises each of its working papers in the form of a haiku. I've also seen some examples of using a movie-trailer-style video to summarise research (I can't find the original examples I recall, but here's a student assignment example, and research that finds using movie trailers to summarise course topics increases student interest - perhaps more on that in a future post).

The NZAE Conference last week had a poster session, with posters that were mostly uninspiring. Perhaps some cartoon posters are in order? Of course, the problem with these ideas is that time spent on communicating research through cartoons or other novel means takes a lot of time to do well, and the opportunity cost of that time spent is lost time on other research. Most researchers aren't cartoonists, graphic designers, professional type setters, or haiku poets (except for Motu, it seems). This is where research organisations (universities or other employers of researchers) could step up and make an important contribution. The Wiles and Morris collaboration could provide a model for collaboration in science communication that reduces the time cost to the researcher, and likely results in a higher quality output for the interested general public.

Who knows? Maybe in future I might summarise some of my research in comic form. Of course, in that case I would definitely like to collaborate with my preferred artist.