Why parasocial communication around complex ideas is important – and why we need more of it
Conveying facts and figures is an important communication strategy – but relationship-based communication and engagement have a unique and often under-appreciated role in empowering audiences at scale
To many academics (although by no means all), the level of popular support for Donald Trump in the last US election came as a surprise. They simply could not understand how so many people could possibly ignore facts that — in their view — called into question Trump’s fitness for office.
The only conclusion — or so it seemed — was that his supporters were suffering from a deep deficit of knowledge and understanding that, if filled, would have led to a very different outcome.
Of course, the irony here is that the most glaring “deficit” in this scenario is the lack of understanding that some people have of how individuals and society work. And much of this comes down to not recognizing how important relationships are in how people think, behave, and make decisions — including “parasocial” relationships where individuals feel a personal and intimate connection with a public figure, despite not engaging with them directly.12
It’s easy to dismiss such parasocial relationships and their influence as dangerous, and of course history is replete with examples of how feelings of connection and meaning — and of being “seen” — have led to widespread social manipulation and control. Yet these same relationships also have the power to elevate and empower individuals and communities if used smartly and responsibly — especially when it comes to navigating highly complex technology transitions in an equally complex world.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently in the context of relational versus transactional communication — and more specifically, parasocial communication.
The distinction between relational and transactional communication is often implicitly understood by highly effective communicators. And it’s a distinction that’s been studied extensively — especially within the area of science communication and relationship-based communication.3 Yet despite a few notable examples, it’s surprising how little of this research translates into widespread practice — in particular in the sciences, engineering, and technology.4
Just from my own professional experiences (and those of many people I work and collaborate with), it’s still very common to find experts who believe that “bad” decisions are simply due to a deficit in understanding — which they are happy to fix!
And yet, as the illustration of the recent US election above illustrates, the distinction between transaction and relational communication is one that’s critically important when it comes to understanding the relationship between knowledge, understanding, communication, and impact within society.
To be clear, transactional communication has its place, and can be highly effective. But where it’s driven by a belief that seemingly irrational behavior is simply due to a lack of knowledge (the “deficit model”), it runs into problems. Yet this is a model of expert-public communication that has been repeatedly shown not to be effective.
Despite this though it still persists, and is deeply engrained in how we teach and train engineers, scientists and technologists to this day.5
Countering this, researchers have been studying the role of two-way (or multi-way) public engagement between experts and publics for years now as an alternative to one-way communication. Engagement-based approaches are seen in various public engagement models and practices, and have been shown to be a powerful way of navigating complex issues where there are no black and white answers.6
Yet these relationship-based approaches to communication are often not the norm within expert circles. I suspect that this is, in part, because they are messy and inefficient. They requires experts to invest time and to make themselves vulnerable, and to recognize the value of ideas and perspectives from people whom they might otherwise dismiss.
They also incredibly hard to scale. Where transactional communication can connect a single expert to tens of thousands of people, most relationship-based approaches to communication and engagement are limited to tens to hundreds of participants. And while they may be highly effective within specific contexts, they often lack the ability extend beyond these.
Then there’s the subtle distinction between relationship-based communication and relational communication.
In many cases these are — or appear to be — synonymous. But there are also differences that intrigue me, and that I think are important.
My thinking is still evolving here, particularly in the context of communication and engagement at scale around technology, society, and the future. And one way I find myself approaching this is to consider relationship-based communication as a more specific application within the broader domain of relational communication — and one that often (but not exclusively) uses relationships to bring about specific outcomes or endpoints rather than simply facilitating the flow of information and ideas.
This makes sense when considered through the lens of more conventional science communication paradigms which, irrespective of the approach used, tend to focus on outcomes — increasing trust in science for instance, or science-based decision making, or helping people make the “right” public health decisions.
To me, relational communication is broader than this. It’s a mode of communication that draws on relationships in many different ways to facilitate the flow of information and ideas — not just to bring about pre-determined outcomes, but to enable participants to benefit from this flow in ways that benefit them on their own terms.7
The distinction is important as it opens the way to thinking about parasocial communication as a form of relational communication that is distinct from transactional or relationship-based approaches, and one that potentially has the reach of transactional forms of expert-public communication, and the impact of relationship-based communication and engagement.
And yet, beyond the tacit understanding of practitioners, remarkably little is known about parasocial relationships in the context of expert-public communication and engagement — especially around science and technology.8
Perhaps the best known example in recent years is that of virologist Dr. Christian Drosten and the podcast Das Coronavirus. Started early on during the COVID pandemic, the podcast quickly shot to the top of the Apple Podcast charts in Germany as a trusted and relational source of information and insights. It purportedly received over 41 million downloads in the first couple of months, and reflected a hunger amongst listeners for a personal connection with someone they trusted, and not just facts.
Drosten’s experience reflects existing research in media studies around the diffusion of knowledge through parasocial relationships. It also illustrates how parasocial communication can be highly scalable within the context of science and technology (although in this particular case the public health context most likely had an outsized influence). But it still feels like an outlier rather than the norm.
I suspect that this is due, in part, to parasocial communication being seen as somewhat fringe by many, rather than central to the free and effective flow of ideas and knowledge within society.
This is anecdotally illustrated by considering other experts who have blended expertise with parasocial relationships to great effect and who, while successful, are often seen as exceptions rather than the norm. These include Carl Sagan (who was famously sidelined by academia for his public communication and engagement), Bill Nye, John and Hank Green (who masterfully transitioned their early YouTube following to the massively influential SciShow and CrashCourse), Alice Roberts, and many others.
Each of these has been able to connect with large audiences because people connect with them emotionally and personally. The parasocial relationships they establish with listeners, viewers, and readers, effectively give them permission to talk about what they know. And even though the communication may seem one-way, this permission-granting makes it far more nuanced and relational.
Yet while individual experts have had success reaching and engaging with audiences at scale through combining expertise and relational communication, the potential reach and power of parasocial communication and engagement remains largely overlooked — or even looked down on — in expert circles.
Part of this, I’m sure, has to do with how many people think about the purpose of expert-public communication, and how they respond when parasocial relationships seem at odds with this.
One useful way of parsing out why experts communicate with non-experts is by looking at this through the lens of four categories (recognizing that these are porous and are far from absolute). These include: Instruction (filling a perceived or actual deficit), ego (self-aggrandizement or self-promotion), impact (directly or indirectly setting out to bring about change or push an agenda), or empowerment (providing others with access to information that they are able to utilize on their own terms).9 None of these are necessarily right or wrong — and effective communicators often straddle different categories. Nevertheless they do color how people assess and judge communication approaches and practitioners.
In many expert circles (including academia), instruction and impact are often assumed to be the default modes of communication. These are typically transactional, meaning that the communicator is considered secondary to the information that is being communicated — and often irrelevant, apart from where their communication skills are useful.
This is laudable. But as I discuss above, this approach doesn’t always have the impact that people expect — because effective communication is so often relational.
Yet attempts to switch from transactional to relational communication faces a very real challenge: Relational (and especially parasocial) communication depends on audiences connecting with the communicator as a person. And as soon as this happens, the communicator is no longer secondary to the process but very much a part of it.
And when this occurs, they run the risk of being perceived as slipping into ego-driven communication.
This is particularly the case in academia, where experts are often employed because they are amongst the best at what they do — and they are self-aware enough to know it — and yet any whiff of perceived self-aggrandizement is looked down on with disdain. As a result, anyone who develops a personal relational approach to communication and engagement risks being branded as self-promoting, and risks being censored — irrespective of whether they truly are just in it for themselves, or whether they’re using parasocial relationships as a way of empowering others.
The consequences of this range from academics and academic institutions not supporting parasocial communication and engagement, to actively discouraging it — or worse, confusing it with transactional communication and assuming that hard-won parasocial relationships can be co-opted for other uses.10
And yet, if this is a mode of communication that can mobilize expertise to empower people at scale in ways that other modes cannot, not supporting it — or actively discouraging it or misunderstanding it — are not helpful.
Of course, much of the evidence we have to go on here is anecdotal rather than systematic, and there’s a lot of research that’s still needed to establish whether parasocial communication could lead to impact and empowerment at scale (and how to achieve this). But based on the experiences of practitioners, this is a mode of communication that has the potential to combine the reach of transactional approaches with the impact of more intimate public engagement — especially when it comes to connecting complex and potentially transformative ideas with people who are striving to build better futures for themselves and those around them.
For people who are familiar my work, it won’t surprise you to discover that the idea of parasocial communication resonates deeply with me. In many ways it’s what I’ve aspired to for much of my career: communication and engagement that focuses on empowering others through relationship building, and that opens the way to potentially transformative exchanges of understanding. But being a little slow on the uptake, I’ve only recently begin to think of this through the lens of parasocial communication. And the impetus that finally got the mental wheels turning was the Modem Futura podcast that I co-host with my colleague Sean Leahy.
As anyone will know who’s tried to launch and maintain a podcast, it’s grindingly hard work. The discipline of producing impactful content week in week out is really tough. And it’s not made any easier when colleagues view it as a vanity project, rather than part of your commitment to making knowledge and understanding accessible.
Added to this are the constant questions that Sean and I get around why we have such long cold opens on the podcast, why we don’t just focus on educational content, why the episodes are so long, why we don’t have X, Y and Z on as guests (irrespective of whether they fit our aims and purpose), and why we sometimes talk about personal stuff and often have long and winding conversations around seemingly irrelevant topics.
All of these are aspects of our relationship-building mission that make no sense whatsoever to someone with a transactional communication mindset.
As a result, Sean and I are constantly re-evaluating what we are doing, and why, with the podcast. And the answer keeps coming down to the parasocial relationship we’re building with our audience, and the permission they grant us as a result to talk about things that matter.
This is why the cold opens are important. It’s why we focus on building connections rather than instructing listeners. It’s why we’re picky about the guests we have — because nothing sours a relationship faster than someone who can’t read the virtual room (or doesn’t care to). And it’s why we weave personal stories and serendipitous diversions into the topics we explore.
And we do this because those topics are incredibly important for what it means to be human in the times we’re living through — and far too important to be sacrificed on the alter of misguided ideas about what constitutes right and proper communication.
Of course, relational and parasocial communication through media like podcasts, video, social media, and the like, are part of a broader landscape around increasing the impactful flow of knowledge, ideas and insights from where they are concentrated to where they are needed. But the more I think about this in the context of my own work and that of others, the harder I find it to imagine this flow moving from a trickle to a flood without relational — and parasocial — communication between experts and public audiences becoming more prominent.
This, though, will take a recalibration in how experts and institutions across multiple domains think about the purpose and practice of expert-public communication — and how to ensure it has impact at scale.
There’s been a lot written about how appearances on prominent podcasts helped Trump win the 2024 US election (this is one example from the Financial Times). Something what isn’t always obvious though is that Trump successfully forged meaningful parasocial relationships with key audiences, and these mattered more than facts when push came to shove — especially facts from sources that hadn’t put the time and effort in to forging similar relationships. By being himself and not talking politics he established himself as someone listeners would feel comfortable hanging out in a bar with with or having round for a pot luck. Of course, to anyone who assumes that all politics are transactional, this makes little sense. But then, sense tends to reflect the world as we wish it was, not as it is.
The classic text on parasocial relationships is Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl’s 1956 paper "Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction." (Psychiatry 19(3): 215-229. DOI: 10.1080/00332747.1956.11023049). Remembering that this was the 1950’s, they write “One of the striking characteristics of the new mass media – radio, television, and the movies – is that they give the illusion of face-to-face relationship with the performer. The conditions of response to the performer are analogous to those in a primary group. The most remote and illustrious men are met as if they were in the circle of one’s peers; the same is true of a character in a story who comes to life in these media in an especially vivid and arresting way. We propose to call this seeming face-to-face relationship between spectator and performer a para-social relationship.”
There’s a rich literature on the importance of two-way/relational approaches to communication and engagement, often described by terms such as dialogic, participatory, inclusive, and relationship-based. A lot of this is focused on science communication (and by extension, communication around technology, engineering and mathematics). The 2017 report Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda from the National Institutes of Sciences Engineering and Medicine does a good job of mapping out the landscape, and reflects the research and thinking of some of the leading experts in the field. Yet eight years on there continues to be a deep disconnect between the “science” of science communication and its practice.
A recent paper by Nancy Staus, Julie Risien and Holly Cho in the Journal of Science Communication looks at scientists' views about relationship-based science communication strategies through the lens of the STEM Ambassadors Program — a science communication training program that aims to build relationships for open-minded exchange between scientists and the public. As well as providing a good overview of current attitudes toward science communication and programs that take a more relational approach, it highlights continuing challenges to fostering and maintaining relationship-based science communication.
See, for instance, Scheufele, D. A. (2022). "Thirty years of science–society interfaces: What’s next?" Public Understanding of Science 31(3): 297-304. DOI: 10.1177/09636625221075947. Dietram provides a good overview of persisting challenges in science communication. It’s also worth reading Simis, M. J., H. Madden, M. A. Cacciatore and S. K. Yeo (2016). "The lure of rationality: Why does the deficit model persist in science communication?" Public Understanding of Science 25(4): 400-414. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662516629749.
Public engagement approaches include (but are not limited to) deliberative forums such as citizen juries and consensus conferences (such as the Danish Consensus Conference), Participatory Technology Assessment (such as Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology), and scenario-based approached to collective decision making. While some public engagement approaches attempt engagement at scale, many are limited by the need for small-scale in-person dialogue.
This is likely to be a contested distinction — especially when research and practice around relationship-based communication in healthcare is considered. For instance, ChatGPT insists on reminding me that “Relationship-based programmes focus on designed behaviours that foster trust in role-asymmetric settings, whereas relational communication is the broader descriptive lens on the cues people exchange about their bond.” (As an aside, I’m intrigued to see it slipping into British English!). My sense is that this is a distinction that’s grounded in some literatures, but that isn’t necessarily one that is invariant in the face emerging challenges and opportunities around navigating the impacts of transformative technologies (for instance) on society and the future.
A Scopus search for “parasocial AND communication AND expert AND public*” focused on titles, abstracts and keywords returned just one record — Celebrity Scientists as Mediators Between Science and the Public in an Acute Health Crisis by Jessica Gall Myrick and Helena Bilandzic, in A. Fage-Butler et al. (eds.), Science Communication and Trust (2025): https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-96-1289-5_5 Similarly, a Scopus search for “parasocial AND science AND communication AND public*” returns just two records. Despite this, there is a rich vein of research around parasocial communication (searching using “parasocial AND communication AND public*” returns 59 records and “parasocial AND communication” 311 records), but only a small subset of this is directly focused on science, technology, and public communication/engagement.
Using ChatGPT (model o3) as my “reviewer 2” it rather sternly informed me — multiple times — that there’s a fifth category of “accountability or service” missing here — which are important for civil society organizations and universities — especially land grant universities. However I would argue that communication focused on accountability and service is often a blending of instruction, impact, and empowerment.
In its role as “reviewer 2” ChatGPT also chastised me here, noting that “Several universities now reward public scholarship in tenure dossiers; NSF Broader Impacts is 25 years old. Totalising language (‘tends to be branded as self-promoting,’ ‘risks being censored’) will sound dated to scholars in those institutions.” Clearly ChatGPT has not spent much time on the ground in academia! The point is actually well taken — and there are concerted efforts in academia to counter very traditional attitudes toward public scholarship. I should know as my work is deeply intertwined with some of these (and as chair of my own university’s promotion and tenure committee get to read and review over 100 cases a year). And yet, even in progressive institutions, valuing public scholarship — especially where it pivots on public profiles and relational communication — remains an uphill struggle. And as for the NSF Broader Impacts, there is a deep chasm between intent and practice, as one of my PhD students recently showed in their dissertation (Dania Wright, Balancing Broader Impacts: A Study of the NSF's Merit Review Criteria from Individual and Institutional Perspectives (2024), https://keep.lib.asu.edu/items/198300)
Excellent and timely article. I'm recommending it to our Men's Discussion Group for July's discussion.
I've enjoyed your articles and podcasts but had wondered why you spent so long on the podcasts getting to the topic! I have sometimes skipped through that part. I also get irritated when the guys on The Rest is History do the same, even though I recognise that part of their appeal is their relationship banter. And as someone, who decades ago, learned a little bit about paralinguistics and the importance of the other aspects of speech meaning beyond the words themselves, this was an interesting read.