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In my role here at The Conversation U.S., I’ve edited a lot of articles about cool research and new discoveries. But today’s article by Beth DuFault, a marketing scholar trained in economic sociology, offers a different take on science than I usually get to cover.
DuFault studies the ways disciplines like science, religion, medicine and education, that tend to be viewed as independent from market logics, in fact do use the tools of marketing to build credibility and authority. She draws a direct line from the devoted disciples of Newtonian ideas in the 1700s to the science influencers who might pop up in your social media feed today.
While it’s been going on for centuries, it feels very of-the-moment to consider science as part of the “marketplace of ideas, competing for belief, attention and authority.”
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Maggie Villiger
Senior Science + Technology Editor
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For science ideas to catch on, they had to be promoted.
Hulton Archive via Getty Images
Beth DuFault, University of Portland
Science has always been part of a marketplace of ideas, where claims vie for audiences, resources and belief, and where power, persuasion and status shape which ideas are heard, trusted or forgotten.
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