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Introduction
Summary
This introduction frames an anthology examining how media across journalistic and digital platforms represent scientific facts and contested truths in domains including climate change, environmental pollution, and science communication. The editors outline the anthology's coverage of misinformation, conspiracy theories, expert authority, and the role of political actors in shaping or contesting public understanding of science.
The role of media in conflicts and dilemmas arising from the contested status of facts and truths in science, climate change, and the environment cannot be overstated. Across a multiplicity of different media outlets, from journalistic sources to digital platforms, this anthology examines various representations of factuality. This covers topics such as mis-and disinformation, conspiracy theories, and counter-knowledge representations on the one hand, over to authorities and other political actors’ use of more mainstream media outlets to either build public trust or to discuss and contest authoritative scientific discourses on the other. This introduction positions the individual studies in the chapters within a constructivist and discursive framework. Science, climate change, and environment conflicts therefore consist of a number of different discursively constructed positions competing for attention in the public media spheres; some reflect expert discourse while others draw on more popular science positions which are explicitly political.
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Conclusion
This concluding chapter synthesizes the anthology's findings on how both knowledge and counter-knowledge discourses are constructed through media logic across different outlets, showing how news media both reinforce and contest institutional science positions in ongoing public negotiations about trust in expertise. The chapter emphasizes that even in polarized media environments, including social media, discursive contestation of scientific authority follows structured patterns tied to specific media forms.
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