Knowledge codes are
not guarantees of knowledge-building; in fact, some may hinder it. This paper
explores a ‘hyper-knowledge codes’ through a cosmological analysis of climate
sceptic blogs. Studies of the field of production that employ Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) have principally focused on disciplines where the basis of
legitimation is a knower code. Maton (2014: 38) identifies the potential of
social knower codes to fragment disciplines and undermine knowledge-building.
While studies of knowledge code disciplines, e.g. physics, chemistry and
biology, have focused on impediments students face to educational attainment
and the realization of legitimate knowledge and not the field of
production. Yet, outside knower code disciplines, LCT suggests that the
relative emphasis on relations between knowledge practices and the known (ontic
relations) or relations between knowledge practices and other knowledges
(discursive relations) can produce divergent trajectories in knowledge code
fields and impose costs on knowledge-building (Maton 2014: 175, 182). As
Maton (2014: 182) notes “knowledge codes are neither homogeneous nor royal
roads to cumulative knowledge-building: stronger epistemic relations do
not by themselves guarantee intellectual progress.” Here a form of knowledge
code is proposed that destabilizes knowledge-building by establishing idealized
standards of legitimate knowledge and legitimate knowers which are difficult
for actors to approximate.
The substantive case
study for this theorization is the construal and contestation of legitimate
knowledge and knowers on the climate sceptic blogosphere. Bloggers
question the core-set of experts, the assessment reports and statements of
leading scientific institutions. Normative literature on the blogosphere either
positions it as a positive intervention into the climate change debate as an
“extended peer community” (Ravetz 2011: 149) or, more typically, a component of
the “denial machine” (Dunlap and McCright 2011: 147) that echoes doubt and
misinformation about climate science. This raises the question of how to
describe the knowledge practices of the climate sceptic blogosphere and how
bloggers construct, construe and contest knowledge around climate change.
While the importance of the blogosphere for the circulation of climate
scepticism is widely acknowledged, and the discourses of the blogosphere have
affected the public debate on climate change, there has been comparatively
little empirical examination of this sphere (Dunlap 2013). LCT provides a
language of description to unpack the knowledge practices of these actors and
assess their engagement in processes of legitimation.
To address this, a
cosmological analysis and analysis of the Specialization codes was conducted.
Cosmological analysis provides a means to see how, form a standpoint, the
different practices or stances of a field can be arranged, condensed with
meaning, and positively charged or negatively charged (Maton 2014: 149-150) and
thus allows for an analysis of what knowledge and knowers climate sceptic
construe as legitimate. Blogposts from high-value climate sceptic blogs
identified through their centrality in the hyperlink network of the blogosphere
are used as the primary data in this paper. Thematic analysis was first
conducted to identify the reoccurring patterns of the climate sceptic discourse
after which a constellation analysis and an analysis of the Specialization
codes was applied to the themes generated from the data. The analysis
reveals a constellation of stances, from the positively charged climate
sceptics, to lukewarmers, and negatively charged alarmists. Evaluation of
these relative positions in the field is based on an idealized conception of
science and scientists as disinterested, sceptical and falsificationist.
Technical competence is emphasised as the basis of achievement (ER +) and
indications of the gaze of scientists or potential axiology is negative
evaluated (SR-). Open puzzles, interpretative latitude, semantic density
or tight social networks of scientists can become the basis of
contestation. From this idealized conception of science, bloggers
critique mainstream climatologists, scientific institutions, and boundary
organisations that deviate from their ideal of a hyper-knowledge code.
The trouble of maintaining this ideal, provides a basis to contest knowledge
without providing alternative explanatory power, and thus aims to impedes
knowledge-building.
References.
Dunlap, R. (2013). "Climate Change Skepticism and Denial: An Introduction." American Behavioral Scientist 20(10): 1-8.
Dunlap, R. E. and A. M. McCright (2011). “Organized Climate Change Denial.”, The Oxford Handbooks of Climate Change. J. S. Dryzek, R. B. Norgaard and D. Schlosberg. London, Oxford University Press: 144-160.
Maton, K. (2014). Knowledge and Knowers: Towards a Realist Sociology of Education. London, Routledge.
Ravetz, J. (2011). "‘Climategate’ and the maturing of post-normal science." Futures 43(2): 149-157.
 |
| Giving the talk at #LCTC2, 7th of July, 2017 |
No comments:
Post a Comment