For the coming two years I’m going to be part of the international PERITIA team investigating trust in expertise. The branch of the project I’m going to be working on together with Prof. José van Dijck at Utrecht University is specifically interested in the impact of the changing media landscape on public trust in expert and scientific knowledge.
The project’s investigation of trust in scientific expertise focuses of the issue of climate change, but will also touch on the Covid-19 pandemic. I’m especially looking forward to better understanding the role of social media and platforms within the wider dynamics of how the trust that the public and policymakers have in scientific institutions can be built and/or undermined. These seem like important times to be addressing such questions.
For this project I’m going to be doing analysis of online content and social media data as well as qualitative, ethnographic research with respondents/media users.
Donya Alinejad 