Seeking the Principles of Power and Danger

Next talk is the USYD's Department of Sociology and Social Policy Seminar Series.  Details here . 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 analysi...

Day of the talk. (Photo credit:  Kirstin WIlmont ) I have another LCT roundtable coming on - 23rd of March, 2018.  Title : Explanatory or Axiological Power? Determining the Basis of Cosmologies in Janus-Faced Discourses Abstract:  This roundtable will explore criteria to determine if explanatory power or axiological power is the finial basis for the selection and organization of knowledge practices on the climate sceptic blogosphere.   Climate sceptic bloggers frequently engage in political and policy discussion yet insist that the core problem of climate science and policy is the weakness of the empirical and conceptual underpinnings of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis.   Explanatory power is presented as the basis for legitimacy in climate science and climate politics, yet there is a case that the code matching of contrarian position with the mainstream position on climate science serves as a basis to contest knowledge-building and delay...

Title: Constellations of Scepticism: Contesting Climate Science with Hyper-Knowledge Codes Mathew Toll, PhD Candidate, LCT Centre for Knowledge-Building Abstract: Report after report assessing climate science details a growing mountain of evidence that climate change is indeed happening and that it is human caused. Considering this: how do climate sceptics maintain their scepticism? What can the LCT concept of constellations reveal about their belief systems and inform strategies of engagement with climate sceptics? This roundtable will employ constellations analysis to three central climate sceptic blogs and propose an extreme form of knowledge code that impedes knowledge-building. The climate sceptic blogosphere is a key venue for the development and distribution of climate misinformation. Recent political events have underscored the importance of understanding how climate denial is cultivated and legitimated online. Malcom Robert’s maiden speech to the Australian Senate, fo...

The Second International Legitimation Code Theory Conference  is happening at the University of Sydney, July 2017.  I have a paper in the conference:  Title:  Hyper-Knowledge Codes: Contesting Knowledge-Building on the Climate Sceptic Blogosphere . 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, ...

Author/s: Mathew Toll Affiliation/s:  Postgraduate member, LCT centre for Knowledge-Building, University of Sydney. Title: Unpacking the Black Box:The Climate Sceptic Blogosphere and the Idealization of Knowledge . Abstract:  Discussion of the role of the blogosphere in propagating climate scepticism echoes the focus on misinformation implicit in the deficit model. This characterization of the climate sceptic blogosphere suggests an arena without rules or evaluative logics. Yet this is not borne out by a cosmological analysis of climate sceptic blogs. In this paper, preliminary research is presented on the legitimation codes that underpin how ideal knowers and legitimate knowledge are construed on the climate sceptic blogosphere. On the blogosphere there is a commitment to unpacking the black box of science and evaluating it from the position that can be characterized as a toxic knowledge code , a schema for the legitimation of knowledge that emphasises the proced...