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Part of
Manufacturing Dissent: Manipulation and counter-manipulation in times of crisis
Edited by Cornelia Ilie
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 339] 2024
► pp. 62–84

Chapter 2
Manipulation in exceptional times

Exploiting overwhelming contextual parameters for manipulative purposes

| University of Fribourg
| University of Fribourg

This chapter offers a cognitively-grounded account of manipulative strategies speakers may use to challenge and discredit scientific discourse in times of crisis, in which the perceived reliability of scientific communication is vulnerable. Specifically, we explore how such an overwhelming context is ideally suited for manipulative attempts to spread misinformation. We illustrate our account by analysing two strategies: one by which political authorities attempted to discredit scientific expertise, and one by which minority experts tried to weaken mainstream scientific expertise. In so doing, we provide a principled account of the way manipulation targeting expert voices in public discourse can affect an audience’s epistemic vigilance mechanisms, while offering insights into the role overwhelming contexts can play in bringing about these manipulative effects.

Keywords: manipulation, epistemic vigilance, Context Selection Constraint, Relevance Theory, scientific authority
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Theoretical framework for manipulative discourse
  • Manipulation on the source of information and epistemic vigilance
  • Overwhelming contexts challenge the evaluation of source authority
  • When political authorities try to weaken scientific authorities
  • Weakening majority expertise and strengthening minority expertise
    • Weakening majority expertise: Didier Raoult’s ethotic strawmanning
    • Weakening majority expertise: The Stamina case
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 January 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.339.02mai
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