Can Argumentation Help Understand How Scientific Information Reaches the Public?
Description
Our work aims to make the arguments underlying a scientific controversy more clear and more understandable. A long-term goal of our research is to use argumentation theory to help improve science communication, and particularly to help reduce information disorders such as misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation (Wardle, 2018). We conduct a case study about one public controversy: whether masks can interrupt or reduce the spread of COVID-19. We are mapping this controversy using an argumentation theory called polylogue analysis (Lewiński and Aakhus, 2022). The polylogue diagrams resulting from our case study could be used in the future to determine whether argumentation theory can help improve the quality of communication about controversies in science. In the future, the landscape of a controversy could be used to determine the alignment of players and positions (for instance to highlight conflicts of interest); to help stimulate people’s critical thinking and analytic skills; and to elucidate the subtle positions in controversies.
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References
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- van Eemeren, F. H., Garssen, B., Krabbe, E. C. W., Henkemans, A. F. S., Verheij, B., & Wagemans, J. H. M. (2014). Argumentation and Artificial Intelligence. In F. H. van Eemeren, B. Garssen, E. C. W. Krabbe, A. F. Snoeck Henkemans, B. Verheij, & J. H. M. Wagemans (Eds.), Handbook of Argumentation Theory (pp. 615–675). Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9473-5_11
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