Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
scepticism
for readers. 'Positive scepticism' of the sort articulated by the
likes of Curry and Christy is different from
cynicism
. Even the best cli-
mate science deals in probabilities not certainties. Rather than replace the
'bias of balance' with virtually no coverage of climate science contrarians,
a more responsible press would have given (and should still give) scepti-
cism its due - even while acknowledging the enormous weight of scientific
evidence pointing to the reality of climate change. It would have distin-
guished between (1) politically motivated scepticism voiced by non-experts;
(2) science-based scepticism voiced by capable non-specialists (like Stephen
McIntyre); and (3) science-based scepticism voiced by specialists (like Judith
Curry).
Such properly 'balanced' reporting would not, of course, pre-empt
answers to the difficult questions of what to do about anthropogenic climate
change (conventionally phrased as questions of 'mitigation and adaptation'),
but it would better communicate messages from a large and complex epi-
stemic community (climate scientists) whose public voice depends almost
entirely on the quality of the representations offered by the news media (and
the 'serious' part of the mass media more generally).
SUMMARY
This chapter has focussed on the mass media in general and the news media
specifically. It's done so because the tens of thousands of epistemic workers
employed by the media industry exert considerable influence on our collec-
tive understanding of nature (and everything else besides). The chapter has
explored the key contribution that 'serious' parts of the media make to the
existence of the public sphere and the quality of debate within it. Though
'alternative' media are more important than ever before, I've argued that
the 'mainstream' media remains far more visible to most people in their
daily lives. The chapter concluded with a focus on mainstream newspaper
reporting of the science of global climate change. This has served to illus-
trate two important points. The first is that the news media is (still)
the
route
along which the representations of other epistemic communities must travel
if they're to capture public attention. The second is that the content of news
media representations is heavily conditioned by a combination of journal-
istic norms and institutional pressures. In the case reported here, there was
arguably a skewed representation of the findings of climate scientists. This
raises questions of how better to regulate the news media, which I touched
upon briefly towards the end of the chapter.
In the next chapter - the topic's final one - I want to focus squarely
on this question of regulation. Throughout this topic, I've argued that we're
epistemically dependent on others for representations that shape our values,
beliefs and actions. It follows that the most influential epistemic communi-
ties operating at any one moment in history need to be regulated effectively,
