Joaquim Pires VALENTIM, University of Coimbra, Portugal
Teresa FORTE, University of Coimbra, Portugal
Western societies have been witnessing a largescale rise of emerging outlooks on health and well-being at odds with the scientific method. If, on the one hand, these trends raised alarms within scientific circles regarding public health consequences, on the other they came to evidence a mismatch between a scientific-laid worldview and citizens’ functional processes of meaning-making of health and well-being. The present research project takes this debate of conventional (CM) vis-à-vis complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) as case in point, proposing a fourth mode – Fragmentation – to Moscovici’s communication modes of science dissemination: Diffusion, Propagation and Propaganda. This new mode, tuned with the contemporary communication media, operates through a specific logic that allows for an inner coherence sustained by ideological, pragmatical, and social functions. Indifference to the law of non-contradiction, and the use of fragmentary pieces of information are nuclear features of this communication mode, also accounting for functions of resistance towards scientific dissemination by different publics. Privileging homogamic communication, fragmentation easily produces polarization while serving an important function of common-sense production through generating alternative explanatory systems that question the scientific knowledge and authority of CM. Social media and the current new wave of populist politicians are their privileged social ecosystem. Three interrelated studies will be conducted aiming at:
1. Exploring how health and wellbeing’s conventional and alternative outlooks are represented in the media through the analysis of group-polarized contributions published in Portuguese newspapers and in official sites of Portuguese networks and association taken as proxies of CM and CAM;
2. Providing a representational map of health and wellbeing, encompassing conventional and alternative therapies and practices on a common topological space, from which main areas (as organized clusters), beliefs, relevance and risk vectors and relative positioning of pre-defined social groups (scientists and science communicators; practitioners and proponents of alternative therapies and lay people) can be identified;
3. Identifying the ways in which key information used by conventional and alternative outlooks is judged and evaluated by lay participants and ascertain up to what extent these judgements are influenced by values orientations and attitudes towards science and conventional/alternative outlooks.
4. Exploring the usefulness as well as the argumentative and psychosocial features of the proposed fragmentation mode of communication.
The overarching goal is to provide a benchwork to guide more sensible communication tactics to mitigate public health risks and foster informed decision-making on health-related issues, also tailored to the demands of current times.