2007
Many contemporary scholars argue that science communication needs to shift its portrayal of science from “truth” to “levels of confidence”. The public mIn this paper, Carvalho traces, through content analysis, the variant ways in which climate change science has been represented in the news media across time and platforms. Carvalho argues for “a politicized reading of science reports in the press”, since “the media read scientific papers politically”. Each major news media organization uses unique discursive representations of climate science which ultimately reveal the individual ideologies of the journalist and the collective ideologies of the organization (ideological culture). Before climate change became a popular topic, most news agencies reiterated the certainty and legitimate authority of science and scientific “facts”. After, however, restricted by capitalist corporate demands, they all began representing science with less certainty, some organizations delegitimizing climate science in whole. Discursive traces demonstrate the impact of ideology in interpreting facts, determining who is or is not a source of authority, and how behaviors should or not be changed.
This article helps me to further develop my general hypothesis that public opinion and interpretation of climate change science is dependent on one’s relations to economic structures and one’s normative and ethical preference towards individualism or collectivism. For example, an individual or media organization, be them a reader, journalist, or news organization, with sympathies towards collective equality and anti-capitalist sentiments, will likely interpret climate science as conclusive, confirming that capitalism and hyper-individualism are fundamentally destructive and unsustainable forces. Whereas an individual placing stock in individual freedom through free market relations as the mode towards universal freedom, will interpret the science as uncertain, quick to dismiss any suggestion that free-market capitalism is incapable of forming sustainable social and environmental relations. This article, which has influenced Kahan, D., et al. (2012), should further influence science communication to turn its focus towards understanding personal and cultural ideologies and the effects those have in making sense of science.
Reference:
Carvalho, A. (2007). Ideological cultures and media discourses on scientific knowledge: Re-reading news on climate change. Public Understanding of Science, 16(2), 223–243. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662506066775