The unbearable lightness of a medial climate-certainty trough behind scientific-intelligence failure
(2024) UNDK02 20241Department of Political Science
- Abstract
- Knowledge brokerage and science communication are roles prone to forming “certainty troughs” (MacKenzie, 1990) between scientists and science’s downstream consumers. This has been studied as pertaining to in particular the geoscience area of CO2/climate, with an eye for the security domain’s use of science’s knowledge vertical. As background, the areas of knowledge acquisition, undue politicization and deception theory were overviewed. This identified a link relatively less attended to, between organizational groupthink communicated and deception through unintentional misleading. Method-wise, Hall's (2006) single-case Systematic Process Analysis supplemented with Collier (2011) heuristics was implemented, invoking 15 processes as drawn... (More)
- Knowledge brokerage and science communication are roles prone to forming “certainty troughs” (MacKenzie, 1990) between scientists and science’s downstream consumers. This has been studied as pertaining to in particular the geoscience area of CO2/climate, with an eye for the security domain’s use of science’s knowledge vertical. As background, the areas of knowledge acquisition, undue politicization and deception theory were overviewed. This identified a link relatively less attended to, between organizational groupthink communicated and deception through unintentional misleading. Method-wise, Hall's (2006) single-case Systematic Process Analysis supplemented with Collier (2011) heuristics was implemented, invoking 15 processes as drawn from the reigning “doubt-merchant” model, or hypothesis (H1), and an all-source analysis provided by this geographer author (H2), respectively, their equifinal outcome being the current near-science communication. Results and analyses revealed, as “trough rhetoric”, a clear tendency of H1 to convey half-truths and non-decisive circumstances without regard for underlying forcing, with the use of “interactional expertise” making for the critical difference. With a probing of the areas of investigative science journalism and corporate politicization, for innovative workarounds, the idea surfaced to, e.g., equip investors’ Materiality-Assessment reporting for corporate and public knowledge acquisition. It was further suggested that Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, SSK, as part of its Fourth Wave, and Science Communication, may want to (if not done already) pay more attention to a science institution’s “rogue” fringe and its co-players, and to end-users’ supra-scientific faith. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9149801
- author
- Floderus, Sören LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- UNDK02 20241
- year
- 2024
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- certainty trough, climate, science politicization, misleading, deception
- language
- English
- id
- 9149801
- date added to LUP
- 2024-04-08 08:56:26
- date last changed
- 2024-04-08 08:56:26
@misc{9149801,
abstract = {{Knowledge brokerage and science communication are roles prone to forming “certainty troughs” (MacKenzie, 1990) between scientists and science’s downstream consumers. This has been studied as pertaining to in particular the geoscience area of CO2/climate, with an eye for the security domain’s use of science’s knowledge vertical. As background, the areas of knowledge acquisition, undue politicization and deception theory were overviewed. This identified a link relatively less attended to, between organizational groupthink communicated and deception through unintentional misleading. Method-wise, Hall's (2006) single-case Systematic Process Analysis supplemented with Collier (2011) heuristics was implemented, invoking 15 processes as drawn from the reigning “doubt-merchant” model, or hypothesis (H1), and an all-source analysis provided by this geographer author (H2), respectively, their equifinal outcome being the current near-science communication. Results and analyses revealed, as “trough rhetoric”, a clear tendency of H1 to convey half-truths and non-decisive circumstances without regard for underlying forcing, with the use of “interactional expertise” making for the critical difference. With a probing of the areas of investigative science journalism and corporate politicization, for innovative workarounds, the idea surfaced to, e.g., equip investors’ Materiality-Assessment reporting for corporate and public knowledge acquisition. It was further suggested that Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, SSK, as part of its Fourth Wave, and Science Communication, may want to (if not done already) pay more attention to a science institution’s “rogue” fringe and its co-players, and to end-users’ supra-scientific faith.}},
author = {{Floderus, Sören}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{The unbearable lightness of a medial climate-certainty trough behind scientific-intelligence failure}},
year = {{2024}},
}