Stories

Civic Science Fellow Michelle Amazeen advocates listening at the local level

In 2022, Michelle Amazeen led two focus groups to find out what science topics worried people most. She expected answers like climate change or COVID-19 to top the list. Instead, the conversation turned to food additives lurking in breakfast cereals.

One participant looked up the preservative BHT online during a session. “She said ‘Look, it’s banned in Europe. If it’s safe, why is it banned elsewhere?’” Michelle recalls.

That unexpected detour provided her with a key civic science lesson: What matters to experts isn’t always the same as what keeps communities up at night. “Health and wellness came up over and over again, and I was not expecting that,” Michelle says. “People had urgent questions that touched their daily lives.”

Michelle was already immersed in research on science misinformation as a professor at Boston University. But the pandemic, and then her Civic Science Fellowship, pushed her beyond debunking false claims to new and urgent questions about how trust, history, and exclusion shape the way people encounter information.

“We were surrounded by COVID misinformation,” she says. “It felt like the stakes for understanding misinformation had never been higher.”

The Fellowship—a partnership between Boston University’s College of Communication and the Rita Allen Foundation—offered Michelle a chance to move beyond large-scale surveys to explore why certain communities felt alienated from scientific conversations. For her project, Michelle focused on Boston’s Black and Latino communities, groups that are underserved by science communication and frequently targeted by misinformation.

The conversations revealed an issue deeper than just factual misunderstandings. Many participants rarely saw themselves reflected in mainstream science news, creating an information vacuum where misleading claims could thrive. Others referenced historical injustices—like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study—that had eroded trust in scientific authorities for generations.

“For many, the distrust wasn’t just about misinformation,” Michelle says. “It was about painful lived experience of being ignored, excluded, or even harmed by institutions claiming to inform or protect them.”

Yet the groups also revealed moments of connection and discovery. When one participant, a landscaper, initially dismissed science as irrelevant to his work, another pointed out that mixing lawn treatments was indeed scientific. “It was wonderful to see participants helping each other recognize how science shapes their everyday lives,” Michelle says. “That peer-to-peer realization is more powerful than anything an outsider can say.”

Testing counter-strategies

Armed with fresh insights from the focus groups, Michelle and her team set out to test a range of interventions designed to help communities resist misinformation, using a survey experiment among a nationally representative sample of adults in the United States. One of the most promising tools was “pre-bunking,” a strategy borrowed from psychological research in which people are warned about common misinformation tactics before they encounter them.

“Pre-bunking is like a vaccine for the mind,” Michelle says. “If people know what to watch out for—like emotionally manipulative headlines or cherry-picked data—they’re better equipped to spot misleading information when they see it.” Early results were encouraging: Participants exposed to pre-bunking messages were more likely to question dubious claims and less likely to share them with others.

But for all its promise, pre-bunking also has its limits. “We found that people who were already defensive—who rejected information that conflicted with their core beliefs—weren’t swayed much by these warnings,” Michelle says. And some participants who considered themselves highly health-literate often misunderstood key facts. “They thought they already knew the answers, so they dismissed our interventions outright.”

Other common approaches, such as fact-checking campaigns and celebrity spokespeople, also fell flat with the focus groups. Participants expressed skepticism and sometimes outright distrust of information delivered by distant experts or high-profile figures, seeing those messengers as disconnected from the day-to-day life of regular people.

What did resonate, though, was the idea of community-rooted communication. “People told us, again and again, that they wanted information from leaders who really understood their neighborhoods—local politicians, pastors, librarians, or community advocates,” Michelle says. “Trust didn’t come from a title or a platform. It came from shared experience and genuine relationship.”

Working with communities

Most of Michelle’s past work has drawn upon national surveys and broad experimental designs. But her time as a Civic Science Fellow left her convinced that real impact often starts much closer to home.

“The Fellowship changed how I think about research,” she says. “Large national surveys are valuable. But they can miss the nuance of what’s happening in specific neighborhoods or cultural groups. Now, I’m much more interested in what’s happening on the ground, in people’s everyday lives.”

This new perspective is already shaping her next chapter. In the coming year, Michelle plans to launch a project-based class at Boston University that partners students with local organizations such as libraries, schools, and community centers. The goal is for students to work directly with residents to identify their information needs and co-create practical solutions, such as hosting workshops, developing resource guides, or designing new communication channels.

“Instead of academics developing interventions in isolation, we’re flipping the script,” she says. “We’ll ask community partners what matters to them and then work together to respond—whether that’s debunking medical myths, helping multilingual families navigate online health advice, or something we haven’t even thought of yet.”

This shift is about more than research methods; it’s about moving beyond simply conducting studies for a community, to working with community members as equal partners, listening to their concerns, and tapping into their expertise. “Civic science is about meeting people where they are,” Michelle says. “It’s about building trust and resilience together, not prescribing solutions from afar.”

The Civic Science Fellowship itself embodied the collaborative principles Michelle was studying. Weekly virtual meetings with other Fellows created a microcosm of the community-centered approach she advocated. “I really grew to appreciate those weekly meetings,” Michelle says. “There was true mentorship and friendship. We could be candid about our obstacles and learn from each other’s experiences.”

This Fellowship structure modeled the very approach that proved most effective in her research: knowledge-sharing among people with different backgrounds, where expertise is distributed rather than centralized. Just as community members shared valuable insights in her focus groups, Fellows from diverse backgrounds contributed unique perspectives to collective challenges.

Start locally

Despite the stubborn persistence of misinformation, Michelle remains hopeful.

“The wheels of justice turn slowly—but they do turn,” she says. “Tobacco misinformation eventually faced societal accountability. Disinformation spread by fossil-fuel industries currently faces court challenges. Accurate information, in the end, matters deeply.”

If she has one piece of advice for funders, policymakers, and the next generation of civic scientists, it’s this: start locally, and really listen. “So much of our work comes down to building genuine, respectful relationships with communities,” Michelle says. “People want information that’s immediate, relevant, and rooted in their lived experience, not handed down from outside experts.”

She sees her role—and that of her students and fellow researchers—not as distant authorities, but as partners alongside communities, co-creating solutions that fit unique local realities. “Civic science means honoring local expertise, being humble, and helping people build the tools they need, together.”

For Michelle, this local focus isn’t a retreat from big ambitions, it’s the foundation for lasting, large-scale change. “If we’re going to build information resilience, it will happen one community at a time,” she says. “That’s how real progress begins: with the courage to listen and the commitment to act, right where people live.”

Michelle was a member of the 2021-23 Civic Science Fellows cohort. Her Fellowship was supported by the Rita Allen Foundation.