Talk like an expert: The construction of expertise in news comments concerning climate change

Journal article

Coen, S., Meredith, J., Woods, R. and Fernandez, A. 2020. Talk like an expert: The construction of expertise in news comments concerning climate change. Public Understanding of Science. 30 (4), pp. 400-416. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662520981729
AuthorsCoen, S., Meredith, J., Woods, R. and Fernandez, A.
AbstractThis 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.
KeywordsNewspapers; Communication; Experts; Climate change
Year2020
JournalPublic Understanding of Science
Journal citation30 (4), pp. 400-416
PublisherSAGE Publications
ISSN0963-6625
1361-6609
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662520981729
Official URLhttps://doi.org/10.1177/0963662520981729
Publication dates
Online30 Dec 2020
Print01 May 2021
Publication process dates
Deposited19 May 2021
Publisher's version
License
File Access Level
Open
Output statusPublished
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https://repository.canterbury.ac.uk/item/8xw3z/talk-like-an-expert-the-construction-of-expertise-in-news-comments-concerning-climate-change

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