How the new digital knowledge order is impacting science

Abstract

In today’s “knowledge societies,” solutions to local and global emergencies like energy crises, climate change, and public health risks increasingly depend on the public’s engagement with scientific knowledge and expertise. With people increasingly using social media to engage with scientific knowledge about complex phenomena, the mediating influence of these platforms becomes all the more important.While there is plenty of research and policy attention for what the contemporary media environment means for democracy and political discourse, there is far less emphasis on what this situation means for science itself. With platform leaders further aligning with anti-science politics, we see an intensification of earlier concerns about the societal power of large social media platforms when it comes to defining what knowledge, truth, and reality are in the context of major policy issues.This piece argues that the rise of platforms’ epistemic power more than ever necessitates information and knowledge governance that safeguards independent academic knowledge production and communication. It also reflects on some of the possibilities and challenges associated with such governance solutions.