
Sunday, April 29, 2018
Friday, April 20, 2018
Next Talk: Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Seminar Series
Title:
Constellations
of Scepticism: Contesting Climate Science and Scientists on the Blogosphere.
Abstract
Discussions
of the role of social media in spreading ‘alternative facts’ and ‘fake news’
often centre on misinformation. Falsehoods and conspiracy theories need to be
debunked. Yet, focus on misinformation alone can suggest an arena without rules
or evaluative logics. This talk engages with the case study of the climate
sceptic blogosphere and how they construe, construct, and contest knowledge.
Analysis of the climate sceptic blogosphere, one of the first arenas of online
alternative facts, suggests that there are rules that organise legitimate
knowledge. The organisation of knowledge claims in this sphere hints towards an
underlying worldview that makes the arrangement of some claims and stances
valued and others devalued. Missing this logic leads to an analysis that falls
back into a deficit model of pubic misunderstanding of science and policy that
assumes high information costs underlie rejection of stabilised facts. This case study suggests that it is the
willingness to select certain facts and misinterpret others that sociology
needs to explain to understand the spread and reception of alternative facts
online.
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