Key Questions
- Who gets to be an expert?
- How do various types of people — like scientists and journalists — communicate about the uncertainty inherent in all science?
- How do people collaborate in conversation to establish certain people as experts or not?
We think a lot about expertise. Expertise isn't just a matter of credentials; it's achieved in interaction, repeatedly, when people treat someone like an expert. We're working to broaden opportunities for different kinds of expertise to be taken seriously. At the same time, our research seeks to understand the many variables that come into play.
We're also interested in how journalists, educators, and people from different fields communicate and understand different types of uncertainty in a range of contexts. Building knowledge about the world requires people to communicate about the things they do not and cannot know, and the things they are more and less certain about. There's a difference between things we can't know because there's an element of chance or randomness, and things we don't know for other reasons. (Researchers call these probabilistic and epistemic uncertainty, respectively.) We're curious about different ways to carve up uncertainty, too – are there other types that are particularly meaningful?
Finally, we're also interested in the connection between uncertainty and expertise: How does being clear about what you don't know affect the construction of expertise?
Future Directions
- How do media organizations convey (or downplay) uncertainty? We're exploring this question in relation to COVID statistics in the news and social media. How have these numbers shifted perceptions about the frequency of long COVID—and the appropriate policy responses, from mask mandates to vaccine outreach?
- How can news organizations authorize lived experience as a form of expertise that is just as valuable as academic credentials? For example, people living in areas already hit hard by climate change have a lot to contribute to conversations about mitigation.