Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation

This paper is an addendum to the film “Our Changing Climate”. Avenues for distributing an educational film, public service announcement or documentary to a broader audience are explored, including submitting work to a film festival, local television station, movie theater, or via the internet. By utilizing the rule of three (the idea that an audience should take home three things after hearing your message), the author explores three key concepts of science communication including keeping a message short and simple, the art of using a catch phrase, and including “the good news” to your audience. A common theme in conservation messages is to try to change people’s behavior by depicting the negative and relying on the innate goodness of mankind to drive that change. What is commonly overlooked, is when highlighting negative behaviors, you normalize and encourage the very thing you are trying to prevent. It demonstrates that the behavior is popular, and that actually encourages people who would otherwise not engage in it to act similarly. Instead, by showing how many people are currently acting to help our oceans and focusing more on the good news, we can use people’s desire to be like everyone else to our advantage.