Myth-Busting or Meaning-Making? Public Science Communications and the Infodemic

Maya J. Goldenberg, PhD
Professor of Philosophy
University of Guelph

Abstract: A growth area of public-facing science communications during the COVID years has been the counter-offence against misinformation, that is, fighting the “infodemic.” Since the start of the pandemic, legions of well-intended healthcare practitioners, scientists, and concerned citizens have taken to social media platforms to debunk myths and provide corrective facts. These efforts were buoyed by emerging cognitive and social psychology research into strategies for addressing misinformation, such as debunking, pre-emptive inoculation, and nudging. Yet this concentrated focus on the epistemic status of propositional claims (i.e., separating “facts” from “myths”) has serious limits. The field of communications research offers important insights that undermine the soundness of “myth-versus-fact” message frames as public communications practice. Serious consideration of communication as meaning-making, especially in the fraught social context in which the infodemic has flourished, points to difficulties with the interpretive story line that the myth-busting message frame conveys. These considerations support an alternative focus on trust-building for science communications to the publics.

Sponsored by the Center for Philosophy of Science

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