35.224, Review: Science Communication in Times of Crisis: Hohaus (2022)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-35-224. Wed Jan 17 2024. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 35.224, Review: Science Communication in Times of Crisis: Hohaus (2022)

Moderators: Malgorzata E. Cavar, Francis Tyers (linguist at linguistlist.org)
Managing Editor: Justin Fuller
Team: Helen Aristar-Dry, Steven Franks, Everett Green, Daniel Swanson, Maria Lucero Guillen Puon, Zackary Leech, Lynzie Coburn, Natasha Singh, Erin Steitz
Jobs: jobs at linguistlist.org | Conferences: callconf at linguistlist.org | Pubs: pubs at linguistlist.org

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
           https://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

Editor for this issue: Justin Fuller <justin at linguistlist.org>
================================================================


Date: 17-Jan-2024
From: Sarah Clark [sarahc4 at illinois.edu]
Subject: Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics, Text/Corpus Linguistics: Hohaus (2022)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/33.2920

EDITOR: Pascal Hohaus
TITLE: Science Communication in Times of Crisis
SERIES TITLE: Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture
96
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2022

REVIEWER: Sarah Clark

SUMMARY

With the sudden and intense onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic,
societies across the globe were confronted with the dissolution of
well-established knowledge boundaries and communicative strategies
gatekeeping those borders in and between the institution of healthcare
and the general populace. In the edited volume, Science Communication
in Times of Crisis, the editor Pascal Hohaus (2022) and the
contributors of the volume attempt to reveal both the covert and overt
elements of this dissolution process and more importantly the complex
effects of new practices and behaviors of scientific communication on
human life and social activity. Drawing together a diverse mix of
erudition and expertise, the volume is unprecedented in crossing
disciplinary boundaries and allowing ample theoretical and empirical
space to attend to a wide array of considerations. However, access to
the volume requires an audience with at least some general knowledge
of communication theory, as well as linguistic and sociological
theoretical constructs.

The first chapter, penned by the editor, is a necessary world-builder
and provides an illuminating outline of the chapters to follow. We are
living in a “crisis society” that is no longer limited to small
pockets of the globe, but is disrupting the lives and livelihoods of
many, and in a multitude of ways. He points out, and the other
contributors are certainly in agreement, that we have always been
living in a crisis society; the COVID pandemic has simply been an
abrupt intense spotlight on the perennial issue of scientific
information flow across the boundaries of institutions, demographics
and cultures. The general populace is more and more requiring, and in
some cases demanding, clarity on medical terminology and knowledge,
since the COVID-19 pandemic is becoming increasingly interwoven in
daily activities. The editor immediately points out that the solution
is not a simple one – but instead there are several considerations to
recognize before proceeding: (1) should we classify science
communication as a separate field of study to allow for rigorous
analysis of the models in place for getting high-level medical
knowledge into the general populace? (2) how do elements of science
communication interact with and overlap other avenues and disciplines
of communication, e.g. political communication and media
communication? (3) how can we mitigate the problems inherent in the
distinction and practice between internal science communication and
external science communication?
He argues that the answers to the above questions and the ultimate
need to fill a gap in understanding the relationship between science
communication and societal crises requires a multi-tiered innovative
approach, with which this volume proceeds. These innovations are as
follows: (1) embracing a multi-disciplinary and multi-paradigmatic
approach - to include: terminology work (Bowker, Chapter 4),
philosophy of science (Böhnert and Reszke, Chapter 2), corpus-based
cultural and contrastive linguistics (El-Dahks, Chapter 6 and Haddad
Haddad, Chapter 5), discourse analysis (Koca-Helvaci, Chapter 8),
rhetoric (Syfert, Chapter 3), news value analysis (Molek-Kozakowska
and Struchkova, Chapter 7), and political communication (Callahan and
Jensen, Chapter 9); (2) employing a cross-cultural focus to better
attend to many national contexts; and (3) examining the array of
agents/institutions involved in different types of crises and their
roles in the perpetuation of pre-existing communicative boundaries or
their attempts to productively traverse those same boundaries.
This initial chapter is concluded with an adept outline of the volume.

Chapter 2, “Which facts to trust in the debate on climate change? On
knowledge and plausibility in times of crisis” by Martin Böhnert and
Paul Reszke, fittingly begins the discussion at the very foundation of
communication – at the level of knowledge itself. They challenge our
very understanding of which elements and expectations, in our own
acquired belief system(s), lead us to qualify/quantify a fact as
undeniable reality and then make decisions based thereupon. Knowledge
is certainly a commodity, and facts are the “gold standard”. But what
is often unexamined in this definition, they argue, is that agentive
decisions of value, trust and authority are always dynamically at play
in the acceptance of the fact as a truth and then the manifested
behaviors that result from these decision points – i.e. how do we know
what we think we know and why are we driven to act based upon this
constructed epistemological framework? The communication setting then
is a critical element in the unpacking of this concept – how are facts
transmitted to us for us then to make decisions about their
plausibility.
To illustrate, the authors provide three examples across a historical
spectrum, showcasing the complex interplay of institutional influences
(the Catholic Church in this instance), semantic frameworks and
epistemic norms involved in the access to and transmission of
knowledge:  (1) the universal ordering debate between Galileo and
Bellarmine in 1615, (2) the astrophysicist Harald Lesch’s 2019 video
about “clarifying misconceptions about climate change,” and (3)
politician James Inhofe’s 2015 senate speech labeling global warming
as a hoax. In all cases, the authors make the astute observation that
the reader is already judging these instances of knowledge crises
based upon what they already know/expect to be true. In the global
warming examples, the roles and positions of the speakers are
spotlighted as a crucial element – in order to interpret the opinions
of the scientist and politician as true, the reader places an already
established trust value on the societal position of the speaker,
thereby elevating or demoting the status of the fact itself to fit
like a piece into our uniquely normed epistemological puzzle. This
process happens mostly at the subconscious level and is unproblematic
except when these norms come into hard conflict through confrontation
with opposing comprehension systems – at which point a knowledge
crisis occurs. The authors conclude with the summation that all crises
with which we are faced are indeed epistemological at the core and
thus in order to attend to the broader focus of this volume, we must
“develop strategies in science communication which focus on the
settings of comprehension of the group of people in question.”

Chapter 3, “Letters to power: Authority appeals in the communication
of scientific consensus,” by Collin Syfert introduces a rhetorical
studies perspective into the conversation and simultaneously continues
the examination of the value of positionality in the complex interplay
of uptake potential of scientific communication in the public domain.
Syfert rightly considers the influence of political ideologies on the
public legitimation process of information – arguing that especially
in times of crisis, effective and persuasive communication is impacted
by these “divergent political ideologies that encourage the
interpretation of scientific findings and subsequent policy
recommendations along policy lines.” In other words, the value of
scientific information is at the mercy of political allegiances.
Therefore, it is critical for science communicators to establish and
sustain authority in order to have any hope of getting that
information through to demographics that may not have trust in them
due to this political influence. At the same time, this same
legitimacy must be robust enough to reach news consumers that are able
to customize and filter news feeds. To examine a potential avenue of
success for the science communicator, in the publicly published open
letter, Syfert conducts a comparative analysis of the rhetorical
strategies found in two open letters written by the Union of Concerned
Scientists (UCS) as they attempt to establish, or perhaps reaffirm,
the integrity of science to the public. Syfert finds that each letter,
one written during the George W. Bush administration and the other
during the Donald Trump administration, is a reflection of the other
in both strategy and narrative execution, especially in the claim of
consensus (consensus of scientific opinion) to gain authority by
providing no other option by which to seek a counter-truth. The author
concludes that this claim to consensus, and the open letter itself,
stands poised to be the most effective option for the UCS.

Chapter 4, “Pivoting to support science communication in times of
crisis: A case study of the Government of Canada’s ‘Glossary on the
COVID-19 pandemic’”, by Lynne Bowker is a narrative round-of-applause
to the effective yet unconventional terminology work that has been and
is still being performed by the Translation Bureau in support of
providing the public with clear and impactful medical terminology
resources. The chapter provides a straight-forward attestation, and a
supporting case study, of the central role of terminology in how the
public behaves in a crisis situation. A successful resource in which
to locate a corpus of terms requires semantic transparency, speed of
publication, attending to the multilingual needs of the public, and
above all maintaining agility in shifting the terms in order to
fulfill the ultimate goal of providing a real-world resource. For
example, when the practice of “social distancing” was highly
encouraged as a protection against contracting the COVID-19 virus,
some in the Canadian populus interpreted this to mean that ALL contact
(including virtual or safe social contact) were prohibited to maintain
health. This of course was not the intent of the Canadian Public
Health Office, so they communicated via twitter that they were
modifying their term – and thus encouraging physical distancing.
Bowker concludes by applauding the Bureau on their innovative glossary
production and sustainment methods and offers some advice, e.g.
providing multiple definitions for one term and monitoring the popular
use of the terms to align with the glossary (in both cases this stands
to increase uptake of the information) to continue this necessary
work.

Chapter 5, “COVID-19 neologisms between metaphor and culture: A
multilingual corpus-based study,” by Amal Haddad Haddad continues the
examination of science communication at the lexical and phrasal level.
Haddad Haddad inquires as to whether the transfer of COVID-19 related
phrases and instructions is successful from one language to another
and one culture to another in both form and function. A further
consideration in this inquiry is the often complex sociolinguistic
activity at the local level and how that affects both the uptake and
lifespan of neologisms in circulation and how it affects the coining
of new ones. Acknowledging the pivotal role of this type of linguistic
activity in the shaping of perceptions about the pandemic and the work
that language does in framing behaviors, Haddad Haddad embarks on a
multilingual corpus-based analysis of mass media articles published
during the pandemic, as well as additional scientific articles in
Arabic, English and Spanish. The study’s findings indicate that there
were indeed failures in successful transfer of neologisms from English
to Spanish or Arabic, as a result of the erroneous assumption of
similar semantic and sociolinguistic frameworks by the
English-speaking scientific community. Haddad Haddad advises that
before a neologism is coined, consultation with specialists and
linguists is an important step in producing sociolinguistically
appropriate terminology; and concludes with a plea to remember that
these neologisms might be literally life-saving and thus should remain
under analysis to keep open the flow of communication.

Chapter 6, “Persuasion in health communication: The case of Saudi and
Australian tweets on COVID-19 vaccination,” by Dina Abdel Salam
El-Dakhs explores a unique set of discursive strategies employed by
the governments of two distinct cultures to provide comprehension and
influence vaccination compliance in the general public. Identifying
Twitter to be the most fruitful location of data for the study,
El-Dahks comparatively analyzed 200 tweets sourced from the Twitter
accounts of the Saudi Ministry of Health and the Australian Department
of Health. The analysis was guided by the Aristotelian understanding
of persuasion that included three main elements:  (1) ethos, the
nature of the communicator, (2) pathos, the emotional state of the
audience, and (3) logos, the message arguments. The study revealed
that the selection of the persuasion strategies employed by the
different governments – Australians used significantly more
logos-based strategies and appeals to the individual, while the Saudis
favored ethos strategies and appeals to the collective – are
indicative of the distinct nature of the cultures themselves. El-Dahks
concludes that cultural variation is certainly a critical factor in
the selection of persuasion strategies in healthcare and scientific
communication, and calls for further research to build an analytical
model that better fits the current trends of persuasive discourse than
the traditional Aristotelian model.

Chapter 7, “Communicating risks of an Anti-COVID-19 vaccine in Poland:
A comparative case study of content, style and advocacy of three media
outlets,” by Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska and Sofiia Struchkova, shines
the spotlight on one of the most contested battle grounds of
information in recent years – the news media. Empirically locating the
case study in the Polish media as they communicated the risks and
potential ban of the AstraZeneca vaccine and analytically situating it
in the realm of discourse analysis and framing theory, the authors
undertake a deep exploration into how much actual science is included
in the sample data, and how newsworthiness is created. They
specifically focus on the narrative construction of sensationalism,
risk, and panic in news headlines; and this construction, they argue,
is how this powerful discursive tool influences public framing of the
vaccine and the validity of the science behind it. The authors find
that much of the media coverage was much less about informing the
public about the science behind the vaccine and more about
capitalizing on the uncertainty of various governments and
institutional bodies, thus inciting a panic via a binary dilemma of
whether or not to vaccinate, instead of actually communicating
acceptable risk thresholds – which serves to foreground political
agendas and background the safety of the populus. Molek-Kozakowska and
Struchkova conclude with a call to media outlets to better shoulder
the responsibility of assisting the public with improving their
science literacy, warning against exacerbating panic and fear in
future health crises.

Chapter 8, “Coronavirus as a political weapon: The COVID pandemic
through the lens of the US Alt-Right Media” by Zeynep Cihan
Koca-Helvaci, continues the examination of the interplay of media
influence and political agenda steering public opinion of the virus,
but leads the conversation down the specific path of intentional
misinformation – established and sustained by the Alt-right media.
Fueled by the Trump Administration’s incendiary and polarizing
rhetoric, the naming preferences, characteristics, topics, and
argumentation strategies employed by the Alt-right media in its
coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, dangerously delegitimized and even
vilified science and scientists. Seeing the pandemic as an opportunity
for maligning the Left and thereby creating a toxic us vs them
dichotomy, many lives were lost in the proliferation of the
Alt-Right’s catalog of racism, sexism, and general hate. The authors
successfully uncover this agenda in the study, employing the Discourse
Historical Analytical method bolstered by a Corpus Linguistic Approach
to show how, in news texts and commentaries published in Alt-Right
websites between March and May of 2020, that collocation strategies
and concordance choices combined with a construction of the enemy (the
them) are a machine of misinformation. They conclude with the warning
that although the Alt-Right stepped to the side of the mainstream
spotlight after the Trump presidential campaign loss, the discursive
and biological damage of this COVID-19 misinformation continues to
negatively impact the public knowledge and response to the pandemic.

Finally, Chapter 9, “Science Versus? The U.S. response to the COVID-19
pandemic,” by John M Callahan and Robert Jensen, concludes the volume
by both honing in on the initial missteps of the US government in its
response to the outbreak of the virus, which he asserts is the source
of the concentration of avoidable deaths across the nation in
comparison with other affected nations, and simultaneously tying
together the themes found in the preceding topics of the volume. The
authors focus their attention on four points of the discussion: (1)
the inefficient use of an established federal government crisis
communication strategy and support structure; (2) deliberate spread of
misinformation by the Trump administration that curtailed public
support for prevention methods and support of scientific advancements
to lessen the spread of the virus; (3) the weakened authority of
mainstream media to elicit public trust in non-politicized science
communication; and (4) the unchecked confluence of disparate groups
bent on the spread of mistrust in science via misinformation on social
media, ultimately leading to the weaponization of the news. Callahan
and Jensen elaborate on each point in turn, aligning in stance with
many views presented in previous chapters, ultimately concluding that
how science communication is framed, regarded, and used is the key
outcome decider in a crisis, and certainly in the COVID-19 pandemic.

EVALUATION

This volume is absolutely relevant, thought-provoking, and successful
in reaching its aims. The novel, and refreshing approach allowed for
an array of linguistic theories in many of the chapters to take center
stage in the conversation. Many other purportedly multidisciplinary
volumes do not allow for the rigorous and appropriate analysis of the
very building blocks of communication, i.e.,language and discourse. By
contrast, this volume was a paradigm of inclusivity. Another merit of
this volume was the logical organization and productive succession of
topics and research. This allowed for the chapters to discursively
intertwine, ultimately strengthening each argument. There is one
shortcoming in the volume, however: the paucity of attention given to
the interaction of race (via raciolinguistics) and socioeconomic
status with the communication events of a crisis; while only really
mentioned only once, this could be a thread to pick up for future
research as this volume offers a strong foundation for research in
that vein. Overall, this volume is a valuable resource to address the
perennial topic of science communication in times of crisis; it will
certainly be a seminal starting point for future studies in this
domain.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

N/A



------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please consider donating to the Linguist List https://give.myiu.org/iu-bloomington/I320011968.html


LINGUIST List is supported by the following publishers:

Cambridge University Press http://www.cambridge.org/linguistics

Multilingual Matters http://www.multilingual-matters.com/

Wiley http://www.wiley.com


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-35-224
----------------------------------------------------------