Accurately Communicating Factual Information That People Can Use

3. Factors That Make Conflict Intractable

This introductory article was written by ChatGPT at the direction of Heidi Burgess, who reviewed, edited, and approved the final content.
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June 24, 2026

Accurate facts are essential to constructive conflict, but facts do not speak for themselves. They have to be gathered carefully, interpreted honestly, and communicated in ways that people can understand and use. In polarized conflicts, this is especially difficult. Many people now distrust factual claims unless those claims confirm what they already believe or come from a source they already trust. This is partly because there really is a great deal of misinformation and disinformation in public life. It is also because people have seen experts, officials, journalists, and advocates use facts selectively. Once trust is lost, even accurate information may be dismissed as propaganda.

The first requirement for communicating factual information is to become a trustworthy source. This means being accurate, transparent, and willing to admit uncertainty. It also means being clear about where the information came from, how it was checked, and what its limits are. The National Academies' work on communicating science effectively emphasizes that people differ in what they need from scientific information and in how they understand and use it. Good communicators do not simply dump data on the public. They explain what the information means for the decisions people actually face.

Trustworthy communication also requires humility. If communicators exaggerate certainty, hide inconvenient evidence, or imply that technical facts automatically settle moral and political questions, they invite backlash. People need to know the difference between what is well established; what is likely, but uncertain; what experts disagree about; and what remains unknown. Uncertainty is not a sign of weakness; it is actually a sign of strength — having enough security to admit something is uncertain, rather than being afriad to admit that you don't know everything. Research on uncertainty communication suggests that acknowledging uncertainty does not necessarily destroy trust, especially when it is done clearly and honestly. In many conflicts, people are more likely to believe communicators who admit complexity, than those who sound too certain too soon.

Facts are also more likely to be accepted when they come through relationships of trust. A national expert, government agency, or major newspaper may be credible to some people and suspect to others. Local doctors, teachers, clergy, business leaders, veterans, farmers, neighborhood organizers, or community journalists may sometimes be better messengers, because they are known and are seen as caring about the community. The CDC's Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication framework stresses the importance of being right and credible, but also of expressing empathy, promoting useful action, and showing respect. This matters far beyond public health. People are more likely to listen when they feel that the communicator understands their fears and is not looking down on them.

The way corrections are made also matters. Simply repeating a false claim and saying "this is wrong" may not be enough, and can sometimes reinforce the falsehood by making it more familiar. The Debunking Handbook recommends leading with a clear factual statement, warning briefly that a myth is coming, explaining why the myth is misleading, and then returning to the accurate explanation. Corrections should be simple, concrete, and plausible. They should also provide an alternative explanation that helps people understand what actually happened. People often cling to false stories because those stories make sense of confusing events. A correction that leaves a hole in the story is less useful than one that offers a better account.

Factual communication is most useful when it is actionable. Citizens do not only need to know whether a claim is true or false. They need to know what choices are available, what tradeoffs are involved, who is affected, and what evidence supports different options. Visuals, examples, comparisons, timelines, and question-and-answer formats can help make complex information usable. But simplification should not become distortion. Good communicators should avoid cherry-picked statistics, emotionally manipulative images, misleading graphs, and slogans that conceal uncertainty. They should help people see both the main finding and the qualifications that keep the finding honest.

In intractable conflicts, accurately communicating factual information is not just a technical task. It is a relationship-building task and a conflict-resolution task. BI's materials on obtaining trustworthy information and joint fact-finding show that people are more likely to rely on facts when they have reason to trust both the evidence and the process used to produce it. Communicators therefore need to be accurate enough to deserve trust and respectful enough to earn it. When they succeed, facts can become more than ammunition in a political fight. They can become shared reference points that help people argue more honestly, make better decisions, and work together on problems that cannot be solved by belief alone.

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This page was created by ChatGPT in response to this prompt. It was then reviewed, edited, supplemented and approved by Heidi Burgess. More information about how and why we are using AI in this way, and about the growing number of ways in which Beyond Intractability is using ChatGPT, Claude and other AI systems to generate content and build out the BI system, is available on our BI/AI Overview Page.