Yes! Actually, I also have a paper under review about how the public perceives it when climate scientists communicate their emotions. It turns our scientists' credibility is not detrimentally affected if they communicate their affect in personal stories over 'neutral' factual accounts.
Instead, we advocate for redefining the boundaries of acceptable influence of values in scientific communication and offer practical strategies to move beyond the misleading myth of neutrality. 3/3
The myth of a scientist as a purely rational thinker, a “brain in a jar” devoid of emotions and values, still exists in some scientific circles. Yet, it is a fundamental misconception to believe that science can be entirely free of values and function as a neutral entity. 2/3
👉Lastly, it’s time to investigate processes of DEpolarization as well. 7/7 Enjoy your summer breaks 🌞
👉Not surprisingly, Twitter is the most-studied platform for climate change discussions. However, platforms with visual content are being neglected and deserve more attention 📸🎥
👉Leading me to my next point, we need inductive labelling approaches to study polarization. Deductive, binary labeling can lead to biased evidence and oversimplification. Inductive methods can reveal the presence of more than two groups and more moderate positions.
👉Most studies focus on polarization around the scientific consensus on climate change, labeling the groups as ‘climate skeptics’ vs. ‘mainstream’. However, I argue that these groups need to be reconsidered, as public debates have shifted to discussions about climate policies.
👉Most studies conceptualize polarization as a ‘state’. I argue we need more research on polarization as a process, which could reveal the mechanisms underlying the contestation.
👉I’ve conceptualized online climate change polarization as a multi-dimensional phenomenon comprising six dimensions of polarization. I demonstrate how the majority of research focuses on the first or second dimension.
