“Reframe Fusion” Campaign

Posted by Rezwan on Dec 14, 2010 at 05:12 PM
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Principles

To “Reframe” something is to assign a different meaning or context to that thing.

A frame can refer to a belief that limits our view of the world. If we let this limiting belief go, new conceptions, interpretations and possibilities can develop.

Needs

There are many negative messages about the fusion endeavor which distort and distract from the real challenges.  Correcting these perceptions can go a long way toward increasing support and funding for fusion, which in turn can improve the chances for fusion success.

This is not to say that we need better “fusion propaganda”.  In fact, a lot of the negative messages have interesting policy and organizational implications.  We need to stop ignoring them, or dismissing them as jokes, and instead explore them to uncover useful areas for action. 

Goals and Objectives

• To create frameworks that emphasize a constructive, problem solving attitude;
• to come up with a more compelling, engaging narrative for the pursuit of fusion;
• to identify valid criticism and uncover opportunities for improving the pursuit of fusion
• to develop messages that activate creativity, generativity and gumption; not judgment or despair.
• To increase awareness of the fusion endeavor;
• to change people’s attitudes about the quest for fusion;
• to create a deeper understanding of the challenges;
• to get people to come up with new ways to actively supportive of fusion;
• to hopefully have a positive effect on the fusion research environment, filling fusion scientists with joie de vivre and improving their output : )

Methods

The steps of the “Reframe Fusion Campaign” are as follows:

• Gather information on fusion messages in circulation among the public, policy makers and fusion researchers (This could be done with surveys, focus groups, literature/media article search.  Also, a broad based “brand recognition” study could be commissioned, with “nuclear fusion” as the brand). 
• Collate a baseline list of fusion messages.
• Follow this with another survey to see how strongly each of these baseline messages resonates with the public, policy makers and fusion researchers.
• Assess the constructiveness of these messages and brainstorm how to reframe them if they are destructive.
• Determine if the problem is simply a perceptual problem or if there are deeper issues that can be addressed creatively.  In other words, this isn’t just about crafting pro fusion propaganda, but truly coming up with useful ways of taking on fusion.
• Gather information that refutes what isn’t factual, and provides perspective on things that are true, but currently seen in a negative way.
• Clarify the reframed messages.
• Iteratively run new messages by public, policy makers, fusion researchers for feedback until a robust, viral message emerges.
• Start using and spreading the improved messages, and working them into other fusion campaigns

Status

We have informally begun work on this campaign.  We have been talking to the public, policy makers and fusion scientists, reading articles and books on fusion and discussing these issues in our forums and on our website.  We’ve identified a few messages and gathered counter-messages as you see in the table below.  This is a starting point for brainstorming, and we invite you to add your thoughts and get involved in the “Reframe Fusion” Campaign!

More messages to come.  Add yours here or in the “Reframe Fusion” forums. 

Evaluation

How will we know if this process does what we hope?  We have to start with the baseline surveys to see what messages are out there and which ones have the biggest impact on attitude, awareness and behavior.  We also assess likelihood to invest in fusion or to support it.  We then go through the “Reframe Fusion” campaign.  At the end, we do another survey and see if things have improved.

For example, Google’s green investment director, Bill Weihl explained their fusion funding policy this way: 

If it is something that looks like it has the potential to be really earthshaking, then we could be interested. But unfortunately we can’t fully evaluate all possible technologies, so we aren’t able to make that judgment call on every type of alternative energy. Fusion and cold fusion, for example, are both areas where we felt that we could not develop enough expertise. Furthermore, the amount of money that would be required to make real progress was prohibitive: if we put $10 million into something, well in a couple years they’d need another $50 million, and a couple years after that they’d need another $200 million and so on.

This is a prevalent frame for fusion.  Can it be reframed?  Not all projects are $10million, and not all investment requires that you go it alone.  Is there a way to change the outcome of Google’s frame?  If we’re successful at reframing (and probably also at developing a few key investment instruments and policies that enable pooling resources into a larger fusion fund, for example, to spread the risk) this could change and more entities will start funding fusion.  Perhaps even Google will. 

Budget

To do a good job with this campaign requires good research, focus groups, surveys, analysis, followup, commissioning a broad based “brand recognition” study.  These in turn require some resources, TBD.  For now, we’re just chatting on a website.