Project Details
Projekt
De- and restabilization of evidence during the corona crisis
Applicants
Professorin Helena Bilandzic, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Sascha Dickel; Professorin Dr. Mariacarla Gadebusch Bondio; Professorin Dr. Susanne Kinnebrock; Professorin Dr. Ruth Müller
Subject Area
Empirical Social Research
Term
from 2021 to 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 282210851
The project aims to investigate how the production, communication and social negotiation of scientific evidence about COVID-19 takes place under the conditions of the corona crisis. The rapid spread of COVID-19 and the associated pressure to act and make decisions increase the need for trustworthy scientific knowledge: however, dissenting experts, the repeated adjustment of figures, statistics and recommendations, and the intensive medialization of divergent opinions and conflict foster, at the same, skepticism towards authorized sources of evidence. Against this background, this interdiscipli-nary project aims to investigate the de- and restabilization of scientific evidence in the corona crisis. We investigate four central arenas where evidence about COVID-19 is being negotiated (scientific research, medical practice, science journalism, and social media), thereby combining the expertise of four research fields (science & technology studies (STS), medical ethics, communication science, and sociology). This allows us to examine the evidence dynamics in these arenas and, most importantly, their interactions in the de- and destabilization of evidence. Furthermore, the integration of the project into the DFG Research Group "Practicing Evidence – Evidencing Practice" allows us to investigate what might be novel about the production, communication and social negotiation of evidence during the corona crisis and whether and how continuities with other conflicts about evidence in contempo-rary knowledge societies can be established.
DFG Programme
Research Units
