By Rose Hendricks. From The Nonprofit Quarterly. Posted on 5/29/18.
Working in FrameWorks’ “metaphor kitchen” on the thorny problem of how to convey the ocean’s centrality to environmental health, a team of smart, seasoned social scientists hit on a candidate metaphor: Our planet is like the Internet. Just as the Internet is composed of interdependent components, so, too, is our planet, and the ocean is one of the planet’s key components. If the ocean is unhealthy, it harms the atmosphere, the climate, and the planet more broadly—it takes them “offline.”
The metaphor of The Planet as Internet seemed promising, since the Internet is something we all experience every day, and the web-like nature of the Internet seemed to accurately illustrate the connections among planetary systems. But what looks good inside the kitchen often fails the taste test on the street.
When this metaphor was beta-tested as a communication tool for members of the public, it failed. In interview after interview, participants showed limited knowledge of how the Internet actually works and, as a result, they struggled to connect the idea of the Internet to the planet and the ocean in particular. From these conversations on the street, it was clear that The Planet as Internet was a no-go.
The metaphor of The Planet as Internet seemed promising, since the Internet is something we all experience every day, and the web-like nature of the Internet seemed to accurately illustrate the connections among planetary systems. But what looks good inside the kitchen often fails the taste test on the street.
When this metaphor was beta-tested as a communication tool for members of the public, it failed. In interview after interview, participants showed limited knowledge of how the Internet actually works and, as a result, they struggled to connect the idea of the Internet to the planet and the ocean in particular. From these conversations on the street, it was clear that The Planet as Internet was a no-go.
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