Last week, an anthropology PhD student in New Zealand wrote a summary and response to a paper I gave at the Association for Journalism Education annual conference, in September this year. I though her commentary was a thoughtful piece with a fair set of conclusions: that bloggers self-select their networks based on beliefs. And that my beliefs were as rigid as any “climate sceptic”.

One thing Picking Up Sticks noted in the piece was the lack of engagement across the networks; “deniers” and “believers” rarely talk. This is a currently recognised theme online, and not just around climate change: take the U.S. election, for example. The TV producer Adam Curtis described blogging self-selection in an interview with The Register last year:

…the people who do blogging, for example, are self-selecting. Quite frankly it’s quite clear that what bloggers are is bullies. The internet has removed a lot of constraints on them. You know what they’re like: they’re deeply emotional, they’re bullies, and they often don’t get out enough. And they are parasitic upon already existing sources of information - they do little research of their own. What then happens is this idea of the ‘hive mind’, instead of leading to a new plurality or a new richness, leads to a growing simplicity.

The describing of my views as ‘rigid’ is something I do agree with; but it is also something that I do try to challenge. This is why Picking Up Sticks refers to me as a counter to the argument above: that I do communicate with and address bloggers/people who have different views from mine. In fact, most bloggers I’ve engaged with through this blog have different, opposing views.

I’ll be honest. I had backed away from publishing a summary of the paper, because of the experience of being attacked by other bloggers previously, when trying to think through the issues around accountable media communication. Some of those attacks were valid, in that an original blog post on this subject had been lazy and ill-thought through. People make mistakes. Which I addressed. Some comments did not warrant a response, as they were personal, abusive and added nothing to the debate.

So, following Picking Up Sticks covering my paper, the process of amplification and social channeling that both I and she describe has kicked into gear. It seems that her article (or possibly some comments from Doc Bud on a post from Dark Optimism) were picked up by Australia’s Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt, and an Englishman’s Castle, which then fed into Longrider’s post and Moderna Myter’s response; meanwhile, the well-read, eloquent and formidable Devil’s Kitchen has already prompted Sam Tarran to get involved in the response. And of course there are the comments (although far less this time, so far, than the previous flare up of this issue, as mentioned above). There are some problems with the attacks:

1. There’s some selective quotation going on (see Andrew Bolt, Moderna Myter)

2. There are some unfair attacks on those not connected with this blog, e.g. my university

3. Naivety regarding how science is necessarily organised for it to have social and democratic efficacy

However, here’s a summary of responses (some attacks, some accusations, some heartfelt and constructed arguments) that are worth responding to, e.g. not those who just throw around expletives. So, these were the important responses:

Responses
1. That I am wrong in accepting the IPCC’s findings and those of other credible scientific sources in my understanding that dangerous climate change is happening, is a global threat to our biosphere and ways of life, and is anthropogenic

2. That I am not a scientist

3. That in the paper I made a specific call for censorship of climate scepticism (online)

4. Concern that I am a lecturer, preaching a faith rather than teaching investigation and reporting

Quick responses to these:

1. It doesn’t make sense to me that thousands of scientists, including ecologists, geologists and climatologists, could or would organise such a hoax, either for funding or prestige, as some of the bloggers and commenters accuse. If the IPCC is so wrong, then how has it established such a growing and credible agreement that climate change is happening, is dangerous and is anthropogenic? Why would the Geographical Societies of Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK issue a joint public statement signalling a commitment to action on dangerous anthropogenic climate change in October’s Geographical magazine? Why would an economist such as Nicholas Stern now work to convince people that action is cheaper than inaction? Or, conservative groups to come out in acceptance of its impacts?

2. No, I’m not a scientist. As Mark Lynas says in his researched communication on the scientific basis for climate change, Six Degrees, “I am not a climatologist, I am merely the interpreter”. The Devil’s Kitchen doubts that I read scientific papers, or at least not to the extent that he does. I’d be happy to meet in person and have a chat about it? I read a lot of scientific peer-reviewed papers, and try to make the best sense of them that I can. I am continually learning, and most probably making mistakes in that learning. I would in fact respond to most of the bloggers here who attack my views to the same challenge on the depth and breadth of their engagement with the primary scientific, social scientific and policy processes involved in climate change. If people can assign credibility to Devil’s Kitchen–aka Chris Mounsey, a freelance writer and graphic designer–then why not also a journalism lecturer who is also engaging in researching and writing on climate change?

3. Actually, there is no specific call for censorship in the paper. Those that have been discussed in relation to online in general were rejected as “repressive” or “dangerous”. To be explicit, there is a single call for research into the impact of disinformation (and some scepticism, although not all, is disinforming: there is a long history of this). There is also a learning towards Ladle et. al’s (2005) paper calling for more clarity and transparency online regarding climate change science and argument. Jeff Jarvis wrote a column in the Guardian on Monday discussing the post-article internet. One potential next step is the Twine. Maybe this is a step towards a positive and democratic, free and open electronic agora, that does include scepticism but rejects disinformation.

4. As my blog clearly states, the views here are not those of my employer, and not a single person who has picked up on this point (Sunderland and my students have come in for a bit of stick, which I feel is unfair) can prove that I “preach the global warming faith” to my students. I don’t. Full stop. This is my blog, my work, and in no way should I or do I let my ideas in formation affect the teaching of the basics of journalism that I teach to my students regarding the passion and determination they have and hold for their future careers. I think very little of celebrity gossip, but if one of my students wants to pursue a career in this field, I give them everything they need. The same is for those who want to write for fossil-fuel intensive industries, such as the car magazines. We engage in debate on lots of issues including environmental, and some, if not all, of my students, are pretty engaged, and far more polite when in disagreement, than many of the bloggers and commentators here.

Ways to improve
One thing I am always telling my students is that there are always ways to improve. And one of the reasons for engaging with those with different views from your own is to help this process: arguments have to be tested and strengthened if they are to hold up. And ‘green communication’ is difficult in academia also. So, improvements I can see, from the criticisms, would include:

1. Proper definitions of differences between scepticism and disinformation. Scepticism is a doubting or questioning. Disinformation is knowing something to be false and yet communicating it with the hope/intention it is believed. (There are also arguments here around what is ‘knowing’ that need to be unpicked, particularly when psychological understandings of denial are brought into the discussion. Although these factors can make ‘knowing’ difficult to identify–do we know unconsciously what we refuse consciously, etc–that doesn’t mean the differences should be mistaken for each other.) Recently Nestle and GlaxoSmithKline were found guilty of making claims in their advertising that were just not true. This is disinformation.  Who agrees that banning this disinformation is an infringement on their freedom of speech? How about Lexus’s claims, found to be misleading by the ASA, about their “climate-friendly” SUVs. What I am attempting to get through is a thinking of the regulations that are already in place, e.g. Ofcom and the IPCC, that govern our media responsibilities and protect free speech, and restrict disinformation.

2. Should not have called Steve McIntyre just a sceptical blogger: thanks DK. People do need full crediting and context for their work and words. (By the way, Chris Mounsey (DK) and Englishman’s Castle, knowing your backgrounds would also provide some context. Any chance? Chris, I see you are a graphic designer but you allude to scientific training. What would it be?)

3. Make more of Robert Dahl’s sense of competing sets of information, and establish more clearly that i recognise that as part of the necessary debate, where it is information and not disinformation.

Finally, for those who’ve not been for a while, or have not attended, academic conference papers are generally presented in rhetorical or provocative ways to stimulate debate and interrogation. They can be, at least in my experience, formative ideas that do take up positions to be picked apart. They are also extremely limited in time: this one had 15-minutes. It was to an audience of some of the most insightful names in journalism education, such as Mick Temple and Bob Franklin. There were a few questions, one of which was along the same lines as the bloggers re: freedom of expression.

One of the parts of the paper that no-one has quoted or commented upon is the reference to Raymond Williams, who introduced the idea of the “extreme social choice” in responding to the ways in which technology can come to control and affect our lives. Not only the media, but the fossil-fuel dependent lifestyles of the Western world who have benefited from industrialisation in ways that the developing world have not. As Andy Revkin’s Dot Earth formulates, the question of climate change is invariably interlinked with that of energy and of our growing population: 9 billion by 2050. As he asks, how can we move forward with the fewest regrets for all the world, not just the privileged. It’s the same frame that Nicholas Stern uses in his reports. Bloggers are asking if growth needs to stop, and can we achieve instead ’steady-state economics’ that looks after both sides of the Oikos?

If what I have done is put this question alongside the statement from the IPCC that we have only seven years left to act, then this extreme social choice must be asked. And I disagree with my critics that I cannot ask that question AND support freedom of expression, where it is held fairly, and is not disinformation.

A number of academics I know began blogging, and then stopped, because they felt blogs were not conducive to the depth of thought and debate that is required to ask really hard questions. I both agree and disagree. The abuse of Longrider, for example, pointless. The disinformation of the right-wing blogs of thinktanks such as Cato-at-Liberty, for example, is harmful and needs a response. The strength of argument from people such as Devil’s Kitchen, worthwhile, and worth responding to, even if in disagreement.

I re-read this article this morning, from Stephen Schneider publishing in Ernest Zedillo’s book on Global Warming, and it is still what makes me blog, despite the attacks (my comments in bold):

Expertise is required in every stage of the assessment of climate change and associated key vulnerabilities [including its communication and dissemination through the media], which is why governments set up assessment bodies of scientists and policy analysts to help them sort out the bewildering set of often contradictory claims found in the public debate. But in the end these scientific judgements must be supplemented with value judgements of what is just, or how much should be invested in adpatation and mitigation activities, or who should pay for these policies now and over time, or even what questions are to be assessed.

Finally, rational polcy is best accomplished when stakeholders, decision-makers, and the public are well informed, which means an accurate media accounting that does not simply pit a few extreme opposite opinions against each other as if they were representative of a wholly divided expert community. Rather, the media should report the preponderance of evidence as assessed by peer-reviewed reports like those of the IPCC or those of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, rather than polarized, non-peer-reviewed press releases of myriad special interests that all too often dominate the media debate and do not reflect the best judgments of the relevant expert communities. Democracy thrives on credible information… to achieve that condition, assessments that both report literature and assign confidence to the many available conclusions are essential.

An ‘accurate media accounting’ is perhaps a good phrase to think on for now.

(Originally posted on AlexLockwood.net)