Twitterizing Climate Expertise: Ethical Overflows and Epistemological Conflicts

• In Event: How Has Climate Change Reshaped Scientific Expertise and the Expert? - II

Abstract

Since 2009, climate change expertise has experienced numerous public problems, notably ‘Climategate’. Institutional responses emphasised the need to improve internal processes, but failed to grasp the significance of broader, intertwined trends towards the digitisation of society and democratisation of knowledge. Here, I focus on scientists who did grasp these trends and participated in public debates on Twitter. Drawing on digital ethnography and over 30 face-to-face and over-the-shoulder interviews, I discuss three key findings. First, scientists recognised the role of socio-technical networks in Climategate, prompting increased engagement on Twitter. Second, the very openness that attracts scientists to Twitter also unsettles the boundaries of their expertise, with ethical issues overflowing from science communication practices. Third, Twitter makes visible cross-national tensions around the motivations, values and civic epistemologies of expertise. I illustrate these dynamics using scientific disputes on Twitter over fact-checking practices. ‘Twitterization’ is an emerging co-production of expertise between scientists, publics and the platform. While Twitterization is driven by scientists’ desire for clearer science communication, it also lays bare the value disagreements and boundary disputes on the road to ‘making climate social’. The paper contributes to emerging STS scholarship on the roles and practices of experts in digital societies.

Author

• Warren Pearce, Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield