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Showing posts from 2018

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 analysi...

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...