Does medium matter? Political orientation and variability in scientific self-perceptions

Abstract

Trust in scientists has declined among US conservatives, while belief in science itself remains high among nearly everyone. This indicates a political differentiation of scientific authority where political ideologues are increasingly getting their scientific information from different scientific sources. But beyond pure information consumption, those who have eschewed mainstream scientific authority are also more likely to find support for their scientific identity in a more differentiated medium like the Internet. To examine this possibility, we use the General Social Survey NSF Knowledge scale and a question measuring self-perception of scientific competency to operationalize a concept we call “scientific humility/arrogance.” We then compare liberals and conservatives on this measure across self-reported mediums of scientific consumption. We find that accessing scientific information through the Internet has the general effect of humbling extreme liberals with no such effect found among conservatives. We discuss implications for researchers and stakeholders in scientific communication and understandings.