Scientists, Politics, and the Rhetoric of Public Controversy

"Scientists, Politics, and the Rhetoric of Public Controversy is an impressive volume highlighting dynamic interconnections between science, politics, and public life. In addition to critique, the chapters also empower scientists and rhetoricians to debunk misinformation; advocate for science in the face of health, environmental, and democratic crises; and engage in public debate. This is a must read for environmental communication scholars."  
--Danielle Endres, Professor of Communication and Director of Environmental Humanities Program, University of Utah

"Ceccarelli and Pietrucci have assembled timely and useful essays examining the persuasive options for “Scientist Citizens,” experts who—individually or collectively, in actions or words—alert the public on the impacts of their research and often face determined backlash. For rhetoricians and scientists, the chapters offer positive and negative models of how to respond to current public crises inflected by science."
--Jeanne Fahnestock, Author of Rhetorical Figures in Science”

This book examines how scientists around the world embrace their responsibility as citizens, and how science is being used and abused by non-scientists in public spaces. As right-wing politicians, conspiracy theorists, and modern robber barons assault science in the current moment, it is time for the rhetoric of science to reconceptualize itself as a crisis/care discipline. The essays in this volume help us do that by scrutinizing particular cases of science activism, examining the public modalities of resistance that scientists are increasingly taking up as they modify their public engagement to fit evolving rhetorical situations. These essays also reveal how the authority of science is being distorted and exploited by non-experts in ways that are more dangerous than ever in the shadow of climate change and global pandemics. The book ends with a look at new possibilities for collaboration between local communities and scientists and a reflection on how a rhetorical conception of ethos can help us comprehend the negotiation of asymmetries between experts and laypeople in the current era.

Pamela Pietrucci is Associate Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Leah Ceccarelli is Professor of Communication at the University of Washington, in Seattle, USA.