When callers offer their experience in a radio phone-in, they often not only claim it to be true but also suggest that it provides guidance as to what should be done. We explore two practices that hosts employ to resist these latter, deontic implications. First, whereas experience cannot be challenged as such, its relevance can be particularized. Hosts single out the caller as a naive individual for blindly trusting his own perceptual judgment, thereby also dismissing any deontic implications arising from that experience. When callers expand the relevance of their experience by claiming that science is on their side, hosts undermine the caller’s right to act as science’s spokesperson and to claim deontic rights on that basis. While the authenticity of the caller’s experience and the validity of science itself are left untouched, both practices undermine the caller’s rationality and portray his experience as not having any broader significance.
Details News
Vienna STS Talk: Hedwig TE MOLDER
12.05.2014 17:00
Organiser:
Institut für Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung
Location: