Science communication and mediatised environmental conflict: A cautionary tale

Abstract

When Australian physicist, Peter Ridd, lost his tenured position with James Cook University, he was called a ‘whistleblower’, ‘contrarian academic’ and ‘hero of climate science denial’. In this article, we examine the events surrounding his dismissal to better understand the role of science communication in organised climate change scepticism. We discuss the sophistry of his complaint to locate where and through what processes science communication becomes political communication. We argue that the prominence of scientists and scientific knowledge in debates about climate change locates science, as a social sphere or fifth pillar in Hutchins and Lester’s theory of mediatised environmental conflict. In doing so, we provide a model to better understand how science communication can be deployed during politicised debates.

Keywords

climate change Great Barrier Reef mediatisation mediatised environmental conflict science communication

Professor Peter Ridd’s tenured position with Australia’s James Cook University (JCU) was terminated in 2018 after he continued to publicly criticise the science informing current and proposed policies aimed at protecting the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). His engagement with news media, his alliance with the conservative thinktank, the Institute of Public Affairs, and the rhetoric and focus of his criticisms provides a useful study in the role of scientists and science communicators in the processes that inform climate change denialism.

Situated off Australia’s tropical Queensland coast, in the country’s north east, the GBR is an internationally celebrated natural wonder. Campaigns to ‘save the Reef’ have been central to the formation of Australia’s environmental policy development for more than 50 years and, since being listed on World Heritage Estate register in 1981, it has become a valuable tourism asset (Foxwell-Norton and Konkes, 2018). Around the world, coral reefs are considered ‘canaries in the coal mine’ in climate change monitoring (Goldberg et al., 2017) and, while the integrity of the GBR faces many threats, including damage from agricultural runoff, its managing authority, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA), considers climate change to be the greatest threat (Thiault et al., 2020). Little wonder then that the GBR has become a centrepiece in Australia’s climate change politics.

In Australia, and elsewhere, political debate about climate change has become deeply polarised with liberals and progressive audiences much more likely to accept evidence about anthropogenic global warming and conservative audiences much more likely to endorse arguments that reject such evidence (Roper et al., 2016). Conservative news organisations, notably Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Fox Corporation that provide a platform for those seeking to obfuscate debates about efforts to mitigate the causes and effects of climate change have been noted by many (Dunlap and McCright, 2011; McKnight, 2013) for being a driving force in such polarisation. Much has been written about the cabal of politicians, industrialists, columnists, public relationists, and broadcasters engaged in these ‘manufactured scientific controversies’ (Ceccarelli, 2011), which are orchestrated to bring doubt to the credibility of the scientific knowledge informing policy and thereby, legitimising the need for delay in exercising action (Oreskes and Conway, 2010). Less attention has been spent on what communicative strategies are used to politicise this doubt (Roper et al., 2016) and the case described here offers an insight into how the mediatisation of science communication plays a role in such politicisation.

During the debate about Ridd’s criticisms, and subsequent sacking, he was variously positioned as a ‘whistleblower’ (Lloyd, 2016) and a ‘contrarian academic’ (Smee, 2020). To many, he was a ‘hero of climate science denial’ (Readfearn, 2018) whose actions were much the same as those deployed by tobacco industry (Morton and Smee, 2019). Such framing can be seen as what Douglas Cloud (2020) calls the ‘corrupted scientist’ who is solely motivated by political or financial interests. This framing, Cloud suggests, is used in contrast to the ideal of a ‘pure’, politically disinterested individual, motivated by the pursuit of scientific discovery rather than personal gain. As this article will discuss, Ridd participated in the kind of ‘manufactured scientific controversies’ that involve conservative politics, media and business that has been well-documented elsewhere (e.g. Oreskes and Conway, 2010). However, we argue that villainising Ridd as a ‘corrupted scientist’ would, as Cloud (2020: 825) cautions, ignore an opportunity to observe how the potential conflicts of interest arise in the production of science; the messy nexus of politics and science more generally; and the multiple forces informing any one individual’s actions.

In this article, we argue that Ridd’s actions, and the events that surrounded his dismissal from James Cook University, are an example of how scientists can be actors in the mediatisation of science communication that contributes to the vexed polarisation of debate about climate change. We begin by describing the events in question before discussing various approaches to science communication and how these can be included in the processes of mediatisation and use Ridd’s focus on the conflict of historic photographs as an example of these processes. Building on Hutchins and Lester’s (2015) model of mediatised environmental conflict that includes four spheres of action, or ‘pillars’, we argue for the work of scientists and other science communicators to be included in their model as a fifth pillar. By understanding the case of Ridd to be an example of how science communication can be used to enact mediatised environmental conflict, we seek to better equip scientists and other science communicators to meet the challenge of communicating science in politicised contexts.

1. The cautionary tale of Ridd versus James Cook University

In December 2015, Australian physicist, Peter Ridd, wrote an email to a journalist, Peter Michael, at Queensland’s only major daily, The Courier Mail, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. In the email, Ridd challenged claims that agricultural pollution was damaging the GBR and criticised how the GBR’s key regulating body, the GBRMPA undertook its research. He wrote,

Some work we have done recently which indicates that GBRMPA is grossly misusing some scientific ‘data’ to make the case that the Great barrier (sic) Reef is greatly damaged. It relates to the supposed decline of the Great Barrier Reef and some famous photographs of an inshore reef, one from the late 1800s showing a beautiful reef and a more recent picture supposedly at the same location showing no reef at all. The conclusion is that this reef has been destroyed by sediment and nutrients coming from the land and is representative of many other inshore reefs. The pictures are found right across the internet and in many scientific documents. They are used extensively by conservation organisations. (Ridd v JCU: 15)¹

In his email, Ridd put forward questions that Michael might ask the organisations responsible for the research. Instead, Michael forwarded the entire email to Professor Terry Hughes, the Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies that is headquartered at JCU, and a leader in the science that Ridd was criticising. Hughes immediately complained to JCU that Ridd’s email attacked his integrity and that of the institutions generally and the university responded by giving Ridd a formal censure from making criticisms and a ‘direction’ as to how he was to conduct himself in the future (Ridd v JCU:12).

Despite the direction, Ridd continued. He wrote a chapter (Ridd, 2017) for a book published by a conservative thinktank, the Institute of Public Affairs, in which he outlined what he thought were some of the ‘major quality assurance shortcomings in the way we conduct what I will call “policy science” – that is science used to inform public policy’ (p. 20) and claimed,

Policy science concerning the Great Barrier Reef is almost never checked. Over the next few years, Australian governments will spend more than a billion dollars on the Great Barrier Reef; the costs to industry could far exceed this. Yet the keystone research papers have not been subject to proper scrutiny. Instead, there is a total reliance on the demonstrably inadequate peer-review process. (p. 21)

In August 2017, Ridd appeared on the television show ‘Jones and Co’ which was broadcast on Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News channel to promote the book and his views, and in the interview alleged,

the basic problem is that we can no longer trust the scientific organisations like the Australian Institute of Marine Science even things like the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. A lot of this stuff is coming out, the science is coming not properly checked, tested or replicated and this is a great shame because we really need to be able to trust our scientific institutions. (Ridd v JCU: 29)

Following this television appearance, Hughes complained again to JCU that Ridd was ‘trashing’ the university’s relationship with various funding and managing bodies on which his research centre depended (Ridd v JCU:13). JCU investigated the claims, which included accessing Ridd’s emails and, in May 2018, discontinued Ridd’s tenured appointment. In March 2019, Ridd successfully sued the university for wrongful dismissal in the Federal Circuit Court of Australia.

The success of Ridd’s appeal was widely covered in Australian media and informed two Federal Government inquiries. The first, into freedom of speech at Australian universities, included the dismissal of Ridd in its final report (French, 2019) as an example of how Australian universities were the ‘contemporary battleground over the boundaries of the debates, discussions and collaboration’ (French, 2019: 13). The framing of Ridd as a victim of censorship was not without precedent. As Ceccarelli’s (2011) work on scientific controversies observes, these debates about freedom of speech and inquiry occur as ‘argumentative traps that constrain the response of mainstream scientists and their allies’ (p. 218) during contests over findings and their interpretation.

The second inquiry was more targeted. Under its terms of reference, it was designed to ‘identify the leading practices in ensuring evidence-based regulation of farm practices that impact water quality outcomes in the Great Barrier Reef’ (Parliament of Australia, 2019). This review was still underway at the time of writing but was seen as an effort by the Australian Government to provide a platform for Ridd’s criticisms and use these to discredit Queensland’s new efforts to limit agricultural pollution damaging the GBR (e.g. Smee, 2019). The expert panel overseeing the scientific and technical advice informing GBR-related policy appealed to both the Australian and Queensland governments to ignore Ridd’s campaign and likened his criticisms to those used by other industry-funded public relations campaigns:

We have seen the sowing of doubt play out over the years: tobacco use, lead in petrol, anti-vaccination, climate change are examples. And now possibly the GBR. In all cases, scientific evidence is, or was, disputed, only sometimes for obvious reasons – usually money. It is a reason why research on important matters of public interest should be funded by the public – again after a rigorous process of review and within a sound ethical framework. The tactic of sowing doubt works, because there can be reluctance to change policy or regulation in the face of doubt. (Morton and Smee, 2019)

In July 2020, at the time of writing, the full bench of the Federal Court allowed an appeal effectively overturning the earlier judgement that found Ridd had been unlawfully sacked and instead found that Ridd had not taken ‘reasonable steps to avoid or manage a conflict of interest between your own interests and the interests of the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) and the interests of the university’ (Smee, 2020).

2. Mediatising science communication

Science as a social field

Science can be broadly defined as

the systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge about the world and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories [which is] anchored in the willingness of scientists to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by other scientists (Burns et al., 2003: 285)

and such a definition includes the wide range of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, such as medicine. In recognition that a body of knowledge is a product of various human processes, we use the term ‘science’ throughout this article in the Bordieuan sense of being a ‘social field’ that is ‘guided by taken-for-granted assumptions [and] interactive with practices, as to what constitutes real and important problems, valid methods, and authentic knowledge’ (Bourdieu, 1991: 3). When understood as a social field, the term science can be used to encapsulate both the product, that is the body of knowledge, and the various routines and organisational norms of the individuals and institutions that produce it.

Using this definition helps challenge the assumption that science, as a body of knowledge, is the product of an objective, disinterested pursuit, untainted by bias or self-interest (Cloud, 2020). This approach runs parallel to understanding news and journalism as a social field where the ideal of objective reporting can ignore how ‘the processes and techniques of production, and the personal views of the production team’ (Hartley, 2019: 167) can inform what is determined to be ‘the news’. This tension exists between disputes about good and bad journalism, or objective or advocacy journalism (Fahy, 2018), and has similar parallels to the disputes about ‘real science’ and ‘bad science’ and, perhaps, what Ridd criticises as ‘policy science’ (see Wagner, 2003). The phrase, ‘policy science’ describes how science is increasingly drawn into the political sphere as scientific knowledge not just developed for interest or profitability but also to guide decisions (Beck, 1992). In this sense, the political sphere includes the spheres of party politics and governance but incorporates the campaigns and movements that end up informing policy and legislation (McNair, 2016). In such, we see instances of vexatious scrutiny of scientific methodologies, findings and claims, and criticisms of how these processes inform policy. In other words, much of the politics of climate change occur at the point where science as a social field, which produces scientific knowledge, engages with the political field, which produces the legislation and policy that govern society.

As Daniel Hicks (2017) observes, ‘in many cases, scientific controversies aren’t actually about the science’ (p. 67) but rather they provide an arena for greater social and philosophical debates – such as the relationship between capitalism and environmental degradation. If, as Hilgartner and Bosk (1988: 71) observed, public arenas are always marked by ‘the acceptable range of discourse in that arena’, it is of little surprise that Ridd found himself contesting the boundaries of acceptable discourse both inside the academy and in the wider public sphere. To better understand how Ridd maintained a position in both the science and political sphere, and deployed media to engage in that attack, we need to locate how mediatised science communication can become politicalised, which is to say, deployed.

The term ‘mediatised science communication’ describes the myriad ways in which media technologies, platforms, and practices continue to transform how scientists work and communicate to others (Maeseele, 2013: 164). Here, two familiar terms – science communication and mediatisation – collide.

Defining science communication

Science communication can be broadly defined as ‘the processes by which the culture and knowledge of science are understood and absorbed into the culture of the wider community’ (Bryant, 2003), which usefully locates science as both a social practice and a body of knowledge. Science communication as a practice ranges from ‘the factual dissemination of scientific research to new models of public engagement’ (Bubela et al., 2009: 514). In this sense, science communication is as old as the Gutenberg’s printing press, and certainly as old as the world’s first and longest running scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, which started in 1665 when the secretary of the newly formed Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg, began publishing the letters from scientists across Europe (Boas Hall, 2002). Neither an official publication of the Royal Society, or a profitable venture for its editor, Oldenburg described the journal as intended for those who

delight in the advancement of Learning and profitable Discoveries [and who are] invited and encouraged to search, try, and find out new things, impart their knowledge to one another, and contribute what they can to the Grand Design of improving Natural Knowledge . . . for the Glory of God . . . and the Universal Good of Mankind. (Boulton et al., 2012: 13)

From this optimistic beginning, science communication has moved beyond taking delight in the advancements (and profitable discoveries) of science. In recent decades, efforts have been taken to address the concern that science communication tends to operate in ‘a deficit model’, in which scientists are perceived as

knowledgeable experts, the public are (to varying degrees) ignorant lay people, and the key task is therefore to arrange for more and better communication of expert knowledge from the one community to the other. (Durant, 1999: 314)

Several terms often used interchangeably (see Burns et al., 2003) capture the various attempts to address this criticism. The public understanding of science (PUS) emerged in the 1980s to focus communication on understanding the content, processes, and social factors of science (Burns et al. 2003: 190), with a shift in research focus away from the production of knowledge to instead the formation of attitudes towards science (Bauer et al., 2007) and later, a rhetorical emphasis from ‘understanding’ to ‘engagement’ to distinguish a two-way communication between scientists and their audiences, or participants (Burns et al., 2003). However, Anabela Carvalho (2007) argues that even the engagement movement operates with its own deficit model and is susceptible to being used as an aid for implementing governmental policies and initiatives to wider audiences. To avoid assumptions about ignorance and other deficits, Anders Hansen (2016: 762) suggests communicators and researchers might interpret the public’s unwillingness to accept science (and here, we would include science-driven policy) as not always about a ‘lack of understanding’ of the science (or the policy), but rather a difference of values or perspectives.

For the purposes of this article then, science communication is used to describe the activities used to explain and promote the work of scientists. Observing science communication this way allows us to explore the rhetorical contests that can occur when science communication enters the political field. In other words, when science communication becomes political communication; the latter describing communication used by those in the political sphere to influence opinion and therefore power (Castells, 2019; Curran and Hesmondhalgh, 2019: 92).

Using a broad, or umbrella, definition of science communication demands some nuance and Luc Pauwels (2019: 236) offers a useful approach, which engages in both the intended audience of the communication and the means, or media, used to communicate. She describes three types of communication: the intrapersonal (how scientists use media to record their data and notes), the interpersonal (how scientists communicate with each other using email and other correspondence, at conferences and in published work), and, third, the group (in which mass media platforms are used to communicate their work and findings to non-scientific audiences).

Defining the mediatisation of science communication

So far, we have described science communication as a practice, but this definition does not fully capture how media, as a social field that includes various technologies and logics, informs this practice and here the idea of mediatisation is useful, especially when guided by Pauwels’ three categories.

The role of media in communication is often described as ‘mediation’ to denote the mediating role that media, especially news media, play in the communication between the political and the public spheres (Esser, 2013: 168–169). However, mediatisation ‘is an inherently process-oriented concept’ (Esser, 2013) that focuses on how media, including news media, social media and photography, is increasingly a major influence on society beyond the political. Contemporary media platforms and practices extend beyond mediating between an individual’s lived experiences and a wider world by media. Instead, contemporary society is marked by the extent to which ‘media logics’ permeate most forms of political communication. The term mediatisation recognises how social, cultural, and institutional settings are becoming increasingly subject to far-reaching media processes and logics – including the communication of science. While journalists and news media do mediate the various viewpoints of scientists and environmental groups and other actors during the construction of news stories (Mormont and Dasnoy, 1995: 49), the mediatisation of science communication describes how science communicators adopt perceived normative practices of media, or ‘media logics’ to attract media attention and thus audiences. The idea of mediatisation demands that we not only learn how to use media, but that we consider how media shapes how and what we communicate. A simple example would be the use of computer-based visualisation tools, such as PowerPoint, in virtually all science presentations (Bucher and Nieman, 2012) that has both enriched science communication, but has been criticised for elevating ‘format over content . . . that turns everything into a sales pitch’ (Tuffe, 2003). Of interest to us, is how the processes of mediatisation provided Ridd with a platform to communicate his criticisms of the science informing proposed and existing regulations aimed to protect the GBR. By drawing on Pauwels three categories, we can see how science communication that moves between categories can be particularly vulnerable to misrepresentation, especially when the processes of mediatisation shift the context and the intended audience.

3. The symbolic power of photography

Digital media, including social media, enables the quick circulation of visual images to communicate scientific research between scientists and audiences including government agencies and the general public. Photography can be used as qualitative data to support and illustrate observations and, in that sense, historic photographs and before-and-after sequences can be used to visually represent the effects of natural disasters, industrial incursions, and restoration (Anderson, 2014: 1). The power of photography to not only chronical events but also to engage reader interest has led to photography being an accepted qualitative method in the social sciences (Banks, 2007). While providing easily interpretable qualitative data, the symbolic power of the visual, especially photography (Lester, 2007), should not be underestimated. The capacity of photographs to be both illustrative and symbolic, especially when moving from one form of communication to another, is of interest here because Ridd used the use of historic photographs to support his criticism of scientific methodology to non-scientific audiences. These two photographs, starting with their appearance in scientific papers through to being discussed in the Federal Court of Australia, offer insights into the mediatisation of science communication.

The power of photography to not only describe, but to evoke emotion and political action, was understood by the earliest nature photographers such as Ansel Adams, and photography is a notable feature of the strategic communication of environmental groups in Australia and elsewhere (McGaurr, 2016). The iconic image of the Franklin River by photographer Peter Dombrovskis, Morning Mist, Rock Island Bend, Franklin River, South-West Tasmania, was used during the campaign to stop the river being dammed in the early 1980s and its appearance in a double-page, full-colour advertisement with the words ‘Could you vote for a party that will destroy this?’ just days before the 1983 Australian Federal election is widely credited for influencing voters’ intentions (Lester, 2007). When the campaign landed in the High Court, then Chief Justice, Sir Harry Gibbs, refused leave for Dombrovski’s photographs to be shown in court because, Sir Gibbs said, ‘we can assume [the river] is beautiful’ and, further, the photographs might ‘inflame our minds with irrelevances’ (Lester, 2007: 100). In the decision to not allow the photographs, we can see the processes of mediatisation being stopped from entering a judicial setting on the grounds that symbolism should not be tendered as evidence.

The distinction between literal and symbolic lies at the heart of Ridd’s complaint. In his email to the journalist Peter Michael, Ridd included two historic photographs which he described as,

some famous photographs of an inshore reef, one from the late 1800s showing a beautiful reef and a more recent picture supposedly at the same location showing no reef at all . . . we can only guess within a kilometre or two, and in this area it would not be unusual to find great coral in one spot and nothing a kilometre away. (Ridd v JCU: 15)

He concluded by suggesting that ‘the selection of the position of where the modern photo was taken can thus decide what message we see’ (Ridd v JCU:19) and complained that these images were ‘plastered across the internet’ in various printed and digital sources, including a GBRMPA report on reef ecology where the authors noted the images were ‘especially powerful in illustrating changes over time’ (Hockings et al., 2014: 17).

The photographs in question (see Figure 1) are part of GBRMPA’s Historical Photographs Project, which involves comparing historical and contemporary photographs of reef flats to determine changes on inshore reefs (Wachenfeld, 1997) and included photographs of Stone Island reef that was first taken in 1893 and again in 1994. When the two photographs appeared in the State of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area 1998 (Wachenfeld et al., 1998), the authors noted that the sequence of photographs showed,

that while some sites have undergone significant decline, the cause of this decline is not certain, and the mixture of results does not support the idea that there has been a systematic major decline in most reefs in the Great Barrier Reef. (Wachenfeld et al., 1998: 39)

The photographs appeared in several papers (Bell et al., 2014; Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA), 2013, 2014; Hoegh-Guldberg, 2014; Hughes et al., 2010). Another series of photographs were taken again in 2012 (Clark et al., 2016) where the authors noted that comparing photographs had ‘significant limitations as definitive proof of declines on inshore reefs’ but used alongside high-precision dating methods markedly increasing their interpretive value to managers’ (p.2) and their work, including the photographs which appeared in Australian Geographic (Dunlop, 2016). Not all agreed with their use. Ryan et al. (2016) casted doubt as to whether the 1994 images were true replicates of Saville-Kent’s images, and argued that together with quantitative data about past and present reef state, they ‘may provide additional supplementary evidence of changes in reef condition’ (p. 174) but they ‘should not be used as evidence of widespread regional decline on the GBR’.

Figure 1.

Peter Ridd’s presentation of the historic photos of Stone Reef in his email to journalist, Peter Michael, under the caption: ‘Historic photo’s (sic) near Bowen supposedly at the same location circa 1890 (left) and 1994 (right)’. Left image: Exposed reef flat around Stone Island at low tide. (W. Saville-Kent. Copyright Commonwealth of Australia (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority)). Right image: Exposed reef flats around Stone Island at low tide, with Cape Gloucester on the horizon. (A. Elliott. Copyright Commonwealth of Australia (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority)).

The debate about the usefulness of historic photographs as qualitative data were used by Ridd who, in his email to the journalist, noted the caution expressed in the earlier work on the historic photographs project (Wachenfeld et al., 1998):

so the original author said these pictures should not be used to demonstrate damage to the GBR and yet they pop up all the time in important documents [and serve as a] dramatic example of how scientific organisations are quite happy to spin a story for their own purposes, in this case to demonstrate that there is massive damage to the GBR. (Ridd v JCU: 18–19)

The journey of these photographs across more than a century and across various media is the story not only of mediatisation, but also how mediatisation can be deployed in politicised debates. Drawing on Pauwels (2019) three types of science communication, we can observe how these photographs began as intrapersonal communication by the photographers, such as Saville-Kent, and then re-purposed by scientists as qualitative data in interpersonal communication as part of a mixed-methods approach. From there, the photographs were used again to communicate to a group of non-scientific audiences in documents intended to inform and describe policy. Here, we might pause to consider how communication in policy communities can be regarded as both, or either, interpersonal or group communication, which would depend on the expertise of its intended recipients and their capacity to translate the information provided. It is perhaps this ambiguity that allows the processes of mediatisation to be hijacked by those who seek to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the information being communicated. When the images appeared in Ridd’s email, we can see them moving again, further away from the policy community and scientists into the group category of news media and its publics. The photographs, argued Ridd, were a ‘relatively trivial, although visually spectacular, example of some of the bad science on the GBR’ (Ridd v JCU:19).

As noted earlier, the literal value of a photograph can be useful as an historic record; its symbolic value is useful for those seeking to compel or persuade. The former locates it as qualitative data, that is, as intrapersonal and interpersonal scientific information; the latter, something closer to political communication. The interpretation of these two states would depend on the context of the publication, even the caption accompanying it, but it is this dual nature of the photographs where Ridd located his criticism and performed a sleight of hand by using this criticism to attack other quality assurance methods, namely the peer-review process, which he described as being ‘a quick read of the work by a couple of people who may well be ones (sic) friends’ (Ridd v JCU: 20).

The sophistry of Ridd’s complaint, and the political traction it garnered, is an example of the potential pitfalls of science communication adopting media logics – such as using images to convey complex phenomena to audiences – without due regard to the processes of mediatisation, especially when these processes leave the interpersonal sphere of the science field and enter other fields. To explain the importance of this intersection between science communication and politicised communication, we draw on Brett Hutchins and Libby Lester’s (2015) model of mediatised environment conflict.

4. Science as the fifth pillar in mediatised environmental conflict

Mediatised environmental conflict (Hutchins and Lester, 2015) describes how the complex interactions between four spheres of action – activist strategies and campaigns, journalism practices and news reporting, formal politics and decision-making, and industry activities and trade – inform contemporary environmental debate. The model draws on Simon Cottle’s (2006) ‘mediatized conflict’ which describes how political deliberations and decisions are interlocked with news media relaying and interpreting the meaning of events. It is here, writes Cottle (2006), that media is understood as a process ‘capable of enacting and performing conflicts as well as reporting and representing them; that is to say, they are actively “doing something” over and above disseminating ideas, images and information’ (p. 9).

At the heart of both approaches is Manuel Castells’ (2009) idea of ‘switching points’, a term which describes how the exercise of power is initiated when two or more ‘social spheres’ (Castells, 2009) or ‘pillars’ (Hutchins and Lester, 2015) become interlocked in the production and circulation of contending messages. Here too, we can see Ulrich Beck’s (1992) idea of ‘relations of definition’ between science, the public and the political sphere where science is asked to form the basis of political decisions and scientists are asked to provide answers to problems that are debated in the media and other public arenas (Carvalho, 2007: 224)

Hutchins and Lester (2015) argue mediatized environmental conflict is enacted when two or more spheres contest the legitimacy to claim rights to various resources. Their model does not mention science specifically and it could be assumed that science, as a body of knowledge, is variously deployed by each of the four pillars. Indeed, the work of scientists is used by activists, journalists, government, and industry. However, science is a field of action in its own right, marked by struggles for legitimacy and authority, funding and successful peer-review and publication to produce the kind of ‘scientifically-validated’ knowledge used by others (Bourdieu, 1991). We argue the role science plays in ‘manufactured scientific controversies’ is not limited to the deliberate misrepresentation of science enacted by actors in the fields of media, activism, government or industry, but rather, such contests are formed around the ‘mutually constitutive interactions’ between activism, journalism, formal politics, industry, and science (our emphasis).

Including ‘science and scientists’ as a fifth pillar in the model of mediatised environmental communication not only enables us to better observe how power is enacted within the sphere of science but, further, how that power is enacted when science engages with politics, such as when science informs the development of policy and the communication of that policy includes science communication. To understand science as a social sphere embroiled in its own power struggles and willing to engage with the power struggles of other spheres would allow, as Cloud (2020) suggests, a lens through which to view the motives and actions of scientists who engage in political communication.

Ridd’s complaint rested on his alleged concern that the photographs were being interpreted as evidence of damage to reefs, rather than examples of changes in reef health over time.

5. A cautionary tale

In the case of Ridd, we can observe how the processes of mediatisation began with the decision by the scientists, such as Wachenfeld (1997) to include photographs as qualitative data for scientific, or interpersonal, audiences and continued when the photographs were used for their symbolic power in publications for group audiences, such as the reports on the state of the GBR (GBRMPA, 2014: 213). In the interpersonal context, the photographs could be interpreted by those with scientific expertise who understood the limits of qualitative data; in the latter, the photographs could be seen as being deployed for their symbolic power, which arguably extends beyond the usefulness of conveying complex scientific information to also compel audiences towards accepting certain conclusions.

Drawing on Cloud’s (2020) call to examine more closely the motives and actions of so-called ‘corrupted scientists’, this article looks at the events surrounding the sacking of Australian academic Peter Ridd to better understand how the processes of mediatisation contributed to his campaign to discredit the science informing the protection of the GBR. We identified the processes of mediatisation that resulted in Ridd’s criticisms of qualitative scientific data being represented to non-expert audiences and, described how, with a sleight of hand, Ridd then used these photographs as powerful symbols of his wider critique of the science informing policy.

By locating science as a fifth pillar in mediatised environmental conflict and by drawing on Pauwels’ three categories, science communication researchers should be able to identify moments when mediatised science communication is vulnerable to being misrepresented for political purposes. This understanding could go towards offering guidelines for science communicators seeking to avoid accusations of conflating the literal with the symbolic, or expert scientific opinion with political communication.

The resulting knowledge and understanding could be used by those seeking to avoid their work being misrepresented or by those who find themselves in the rhetorical debates over academic freedom when they step from the scientific field into the political arenas to defend science-based policy. In such instances, a more nuanced understanding of how switching points are enacted in mediatised conflict can protect science communicators, and science, from being unwitting participants, or even casualties, of mediatised environmental conflict.

This cautionary tale serves not to justify the tactics of Ridd or chill the efforts of science communicators to convey information in a compelling way. Indeed, we are aware that this article continues the journey of these photographs as both literal and symbolic texts in the ongoing processes of mediatisation. Instead, we have sought to more clearly locate how science communication informs mediatised environmental conflict because science communication is central to our capacity to understand and act on climate change, and this powerful capacity leaves those seeking to communicate climate science vulnerable to the processes that inform the politics of climate change that too often inhibit action. An understanding of mediatisation, especially as information switches from the interpersonal communication between scientists and the communication to wider and non-scientific audiences, can help science communicators ensure that when their work becomes an act of political communication it better conveys the intended message.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Claire Konkes

Kerrie Foxwell-Norton

Notes

Author biographies

Claire Konkes (PhD, University of Tasmania) is a lecturer at the School of Creative Arts and Media at the University of Tasmania, where she heads The Media School. Her research focuses on news media’s contribution to public deliberation, law and policy formation, especially in relation to environmental and criminal matters. She is an affiliated researcher with the Institute of Social Change (ISC) at the University of Tasmania and her recent projects have looked at news media representations of Australian environmental policy, environmental public interest litigation and the public understanding of science.

Kerrie Foxwell-Norton (PhD, Griffith University) is an Associate Professor in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University. Her research focuses on environmental and climate change communication, media and journalism, where her expertise is the politics of coastal and marine environments and their communities. She is a member of the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research and a theme leader in the Griffith Climate Action Beacon. Her recent projects have explored the politics of science communication and the intersections of local and global environmental issues and media.

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