Media, Communications, and Marketing
How can communications and marketing research help to solve the world’s most pressing problems?
How can communications and marketing research help to solve the world’s most pressing problems?
Essentially all aspects of human activity are shaped in some way by social communication and the vast majority of the global population consume and are influenced by the media. Analysing people’s responses to communications and marketing can reveal people’s current attitudes, strengthen altruistic norms and encourage rational behaviour, and improve coordination in response to crises. Consequently, media and communications research can inform our understanding of and ability to address many global problems, and can inform the actions of many different groups of decision-makers, from politicians, policy-makers and advocates to marketers and entrepreneurs.
Some key ways that research in this discipline could help improve the world involve identifying effective ways of encouraging altruistic behaviour. For example, empirical research into donor attitudes and behaviour could identify ways of encouraging donors to do more good with their donations. Research into consumer behaviour could help decrease animal product consumption by improving how alternative protein companies market their products and services.
Research could also inform efforts to raise awareness of catastrophic risks such as future pandemics and misaligned AGI, and illuminate ways of increasing the chance that effective policies gain support. For example, studying communication about advanced AI, within research communities or in the broader public sphere, could inform attempts to increase the awareness and consideration of safety concerns. Media and communications research could also help promote better coordination between relevant organisations and the public to improve rapid response efforts when crises such as volcanic eruptions, infectious disease outbreaks or food shortages occur.
If you remain in academia, you could ultimately leverage your expertise to spread valuable and neglected ideas through writing books or pursue other avenues for being a public intellectual. Media and communications is a relatively cross-disciplinary field and as such may also attract students with the generalist ability to take on roles that require an understanding of an important research area and a strong understanding of how to communicate between stakeholders, such as roles in research management, consulting, or policy research.
The profiles below are on some of the research directions that could be particularly valuable to explore through a media studies and communications lens. Some of the most useful research in these directions will likely involve focusing on a narrow subject that contributes to macro questions in other fields, such as history, economics, psychology, and political science. If you plan to pursue non-research roles in the long-term, you could also aim to build expertise that will help you work in high-impact communications roles in think tanks, non-profits, government, or businesses in future.
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This talk explores some key considerations around communicating catastrophic risks to mass audiences.
You could also look at this post on working as a think-tank researcher for considerations to take into account if you are interested in pursuing this path.
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Here are sources that feature questions a student in media and communications could take inspiration from:
Contributors: With thanks to Julian Guidote for creating this introduction.
