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Talk like an expert: The construction of expertise in news comments concerning climate change
- Source :
- Public Understanding of Science (Bristol, England)
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- SAGE Publications, 2020.
-
Abstract
- This article explores how readers of UK newspapers construct expertise around climate change. It draws on 300 online readers’ comments on news items in The Guardian, Daily Mail and The Telegraph, concerning the release of the International Panel on Climate Change report calling for immediate action on climate change. Comments were analysed using discursive psychology. We identified a series of discursive strategies that commenters adopted to present themselves as experts in their commentary. The (mostly indirect) use of category entitlements (implicitly claiming themselves as expert) and the presentation of one’s argument as factual (based on direct or indirect technical knowledge or common sense) emerged as common ways in which readers made claims to expertise, both among the supporters and among the sceptics of climate change science. Our findings indicate that expertise is a fluid concept, constructed in diverse ways, with important implications for public engagement with climate change science.
- Subjects :
- 010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
media_common.quotation_subject
Climate change
050801 communication & media studies
01 natural sciences
Newspaper
0508 media and communications
Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
Argument
Developmental and Educational Psychology
Sociology
Public engagement
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
media_common
business.industry
Communication
media
05 social sciences
Common sense
Articles
Public relations
online news
climate change
comments
Discursive psychology
Guardian
expertise
business
Construct (philosophy)
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 13616609 and 09636625
- Volume :
- 30
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Public Understanding of Science
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....0b058b8b65594992c9ce88f805f40329