Speaker
Description
"Our house is burning down and we're looking away." Twenty years after Jacques Chirac’s statement, this observation has evolved into a profound sense of dismay for many scientists. Faced with polarisation and persistent inertia, their responses are diverging: some, discouraged, are deserting the social media landscape —a trend accelerated by Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter— while others are choosing to intensify their communication efforts there. Our analysis focuses on the latter, presenting the results of a research on their strategies and reception effects on the X platform. Using a mixed methodology combining quantitative mapping of 70 profiles and qualitative analysis of four contrasting cases, the study shows that the stance adopted by scientists shapes the dynamics of interaction. The analysis reveals a divide between two reception configurations: on the one hand, a technical stance geared towards peers generates a protected ‘epistemic community’; on the other hand, a highly politically engaged ‘public intellectual’ stance gives rise to a ‘polarised arena’. In doing so, our study highlights the ‘paradox of engagement’: the quest for maximum visibility mobilises those who are already convinced but seems to reinforce the hostility of sceptics, transforming expert discourse into an identity marker. The discussion of results will then propose a model for understanding the trade-offs between visibility, credibility and exposure to conflict that scientists face today.
| If your abstract is not accepted for an oral presentation, would you be interested in presenting it as a poster instead? | Yes |
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| If accepted by the Scientific Board, I agree to have my presentation/poster and abstract published on the Belgian Climate Centre websites and social media. | Yes |
