Credibility and the Consumer: why and how do we trust and use scientific claims about what we buy

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Credibility and the Consumerwhy and how do we
trust and use scientific claims about what we
buy?
??
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• Sally Eden
• Department of Geography
• University of Hull

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Consumers and credibility

• Message
• Credibility of scientific/technical claims on
  consumer products, e.g. vitamin supplements,
  anti-ageing cosmetics, energy-efficient boilers
• Messenger(s)
• Credibility of producers who make such claims
• Intermediaries
• Credibility of NGOs/campaigners who verify or
  contest claims

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Why are academics like me interested?

• How scientific and technical information reaches
  and is interpreted by consumers
• (deficit model/public understanding of science)

Scientists and experts
Public and policy
Scientists and experts
Public and policy
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Why are academics like me interested?

• It is in everyday encounters with science and
  technology that public perceptions may most
  (frequently) be shaped
• (social construction)
• Consumer influence over production,
  competitiveness and environmental quality
• (consumer sovereignty/consumption politics)
• How power works with knowledge
• (heterogeneous networks)

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Aims of current research project

• 1. to analyse and compare the strategies of
  private-sector operators in making scientific
  claims about commercial goods and the roles of
  knowledge intermediaries, such as NGOs, in
  validating or contesting these claims
• Why do companies want/need science?
• to examine the public evaluation of these
  scientific claims and consider the implications
  for perceived credibility and purchase decisions
• Do consumers believe company/NGO claims?

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Aims of current research project

• 3. to analyse how scientific information is
  produced, monitored and audited along product
  supply chains, especially internationally, as it
  is translated from point of origin to point of
  consumption in terms of its content, authority,
  affiliation and specificity
• How is science managed and transported?
• 4. to explore how being attached to product
  claims and consumption influences not simply the
  business use of science but more widely the
  epistemic authority of science in the public
  domain.
• What does this means for science generally?

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Academic debates

• science as part of a products USP
• business competitiveness (commercial objective)
• promotion of better purchasing (policy
  objective)
• black-boxing science into a logo
• consumers find logos unfamiliar, confusing and
  difficult to interpret (NCC 2003)
• scientific credibility as credence quality
• proxy qualities (certification)

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Academic debates

• intermediaries provide credence
• more trusted than industry/government (MORI)?
• cartography of credibility and boundary-work?
• questioning black-boxing
• extended and heterogeneous networks and alliances
  to build credibility
• verification effect at work?
• continual renegotiation
• new economies of certification (branding)

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Examples for study

• Claims about the point of origin and conditions
  of production, e.g. sustainable

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Examples for study

• Claims about the point of consumption and
  conditions of application, e.g. smart or
  functional

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Examples for study

• Claims about both conditions of production and
  conditions of consumption, e.g. organic

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Methodology

• 1 Scientific claims-makers and verifiers
• Secondary data analysis of grey literature
• Primary data in-depth interviews Q
  methodology (statement-sorting) exercise
• In the middle of this
• 2 Consumers of scientific claims
• Primary data focus groups Q methodology
  (statement-sorting) exercise
• Starts in May

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Problems

• Corporate access
• Negotiating confidentiality and gate-keepers
• Consumer access
• Selecting
• Incentives and support
• Tracing product chains (commodity chains)
• production, chain of custody, retail
• What is science?