SSPS Magazine article on S-Club

I had short article for the SSPS Magazine published about S-Club, a data analysis workshop with the LCT Centre for Knowledge-Building.  You can find it: here.

Department Talk: Flyer

Next Talk: Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Seminar Series

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 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.

LCT Roundtable: Explanatory or Axiological Power? Determining the Basis of Cosmologies in Janus-Faced Discourses

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 policy action (Toll, 2017). Glenn (2016) found that representatives from think-thanks who opposed carbon pricing did so on explicitly for ideological reasons – free market and libertarian ideals. Climate sceptics bloggers explicitly engage with the social science literature and reject these kinds of ideology driven explanations of their position and knowledge practices. On the blogosphere, the organizing principles of the climate sceptic cosmology are obscured and sensitivity needs to be paid to the construction of their epistemological and axiological constellations and how various elements are selected and evaluated.  Constellation analysis reveals tendencies that suggest axiological power and not explanatory power is the basis of climate sceptic bloggers’ cosmologies.

References. 

Glenn, E. (PhD, 2016) From Clashing to Matching: Examining the legitimation codes that underpin shifting views about climate change, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney, Australia.
Toll, M. (2017) Hyper-knowledge codes: Contesting knowledge-building on the climate sceptic blogosphere, Second International Legitimation Code Theory Conference, Sydney, Australia, July.