SCIENCE FOR WHOM? Elite control of scientific information in NZ during COVID-19

Rerecording of a paper presentation. The Australian Sociological Association Conference (TASA), November 2022, Melbourne Australia. Jodie Bruning.

Abstract:
SCIENCE FOR WHOM?
Manufacturing social consent for government policies through the control of science production.

For decades the science diplomacy community have emphasised the importance of evidence-based science and the role of the honest broker. This presumes that the science produced and presented equally represents the complexity of issues and risks at stake. However, I suggest, this is where the public-interest rift occurs, unarticulated by ‘honest brokers’. Science is a collection of social processes. Who funds the science, sets the scope, and declares the values, ultimately structures what is produced. Science is social and political, from its conception, through production, peer review and publication.

This discussion highlights this public interest rift. Like democracy, science should have space and the production of science should be at ‘arm’s length’ from those with the political or financial interest in the outcome. Without a robust scientific community, risk of policy capture will be amplified in times of crisis.

I discuss as a case study, the COVID-19 emergency, arguing that the New Zealand
government failed to make a safe space for contested and uncomfortable knowledge. Narrow forms of science and directed data modelling shaped what was publicly known and considered politically legitimate. These processes effectively sabotaged the socio-political and scientific demosphere, establishing a troubling precedent for future public health emergencies.

More writing can be found at JRBruning.Substack.com or TalkingRisk.NZ