Sheldon Ungar

Knowledge, ignorance and the popular culture: climate change versus the ozone hole

This paper begins with the “knowledge-ignorance paradox”—the process by which the growth of specialized knowledge results in a simultaneous increase in ignorance. It then outlines the roles of personal and social motivations, institutional decisions, the public culture, and technology in establishing consensual guidelines for ignorance. The upshot is a sociological model of how the “knowledge society” militates against the acquisition of scientific knowledge. Given the assumption of widespread scientific illiteracy, the paper tries to show why the ozone hole was capable of engendering some public understanding and concern, while climate change failed to do so. The ozone threat encouraged the acquisition of knowledge because it was allied and resonated with easy-to-understand bridging metaphors derived from the popular culture. It also engendered a “hot crisis.” That is, it provided a sense of immediate and concrete risk with everyday relevance. Climate change fails at both of these criteria and remains in a public limbo.

Is Strange Weather in the Air? A Study of U.S. National Network News Coverage of Extreme Weather Events

This paper asks whether extreme weather events are becoming more discernible. It uses the Vanderbilt University Television News Archives to determine if annual coverage given to heat waves, droughts, hurricanes and floods has increased on the network news between 1968 and 1996. An index of extreme weather events shows a clear trend toward increased coverage, especially since 1988. However, the different types of extreme events do not receive equal coverage: for example, annual peaks for droughts contain about twice as many stories as the peaks for heat waves. The data further reveal that there is no association between coverage of climate change and the overall coverage of extreme events. While extreme events have attracted more stories in the U.S., there has been no increase in the coverage devoted to extreme events in foreign countries. The possible effects of shifts in TV coverage on the public salience and understanding of climate change are discussed.

Bringing the Issue Back In: Comparing the Marketability of the Ozone Hole and Global Warming

This study takes advantage of fortuitous similarities to compare the role of claimsmaking activities and marketability in affecting the outcomes of warnings about ozone depletion and global warming. While global warming has produced more claimsmaking in different public arenas, it consistently obtains lesser outcomes. In lieu of differences in claimsmaking, political opportunities, or rhetorical strategies, it is suggested that a clustering of factors fostered a “hot crisis” around ozone depletion but not global warming. The analysis suggests that it is the extent to which the trajectory of a problem meshes with the prevailing institutional selection principles that determines how salable it is.

Social scares and global warming: Beyond the Rio convention

The author contends that the factors that contributed substantially to the protocols to protect the ozone layer are not likely to generalize to global warming. Instead, extreme events capable of unleashing social scares may be necessary to stimulate significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The article summarizes the sociology of social scares and argues that recent developments pertaining to global warming are best explained by this concept. It then shows that the scientific understanding of global warming has become increasingly uncertain and hence is unlikely to assume the catalytic role it played in ozone depletion. In lieu of this, significant extensions of the “Climate Convention” will probably require future social scares.

Ignorance as an under-identified social problem.

This paper examines the persistence and intensification of ignorance in the ostensible knowledge society. Given the ubiquity of ignorance, it focuses on research and observations dealing with functional knowledge deficits that challenge the ideal of the well-informed citizen. These developments are traced back to the contradictory dynamics of the knowledge society, specifically information explosions in the knowledge economy and the resultant knowledge-ignorance paradox. The theoretical unfolding of this paradox in terms of entry and speech barriers suggests that pockets of observed public knowledge - rather than ignorance - are exceptional and require specific explanation. While ignorance among individuals, as well as experts and organizations, is a serious social problem with potentially deadly consequences, ignorance remains relatively unrecognized since it has major liabilities as a marketable issue. The conclusion points to the importance of future research on the cultural and institutional production of ignorance.

Silencing science: partisanship and the career of a publication disputing the dangers of secondhand smoke

This paper examines the silencing of science, that is, efforts to prevent the making of specific scientific claims in any or all of the arenas in which these claims are typically reported or circulated. Those trying to mute the reporting or circulation of scientific claims are termed “partisans.” The paper examines silencing through a systematic examination of the “rapid responses” to a smoking study published in the British Medical Journal claiming that secondhand smoke is not as dangerous as conventionally believed. Media coverage of the smoking study is also examined, as is the question of whether there is self-silencing by the media regarding doubts about the negative effects of passive smoke. The results suggest that the public consensus about the negative effects of passive smoke is so strong that it has become part of a regime of truth that cannot be intelligibly questioned.

The sex-typing of adult and child behavior in toy sales

In order to investigate sex-stereotyping pressure in toy sales, a field experiment was conducted in which students approached 134 sales persons in 67 retail outlets, asking for help in selecting a toy for a niece or nephew, age 5. The results indicated that toy sales advice serves primarily to reinforce traditional sex-role expectations. Overall, salespersons gave more sex-stereotyped than neutral responses, and their responses did not vary by retail setting (specialized vs. department/chain stores) or the age of the salesperson. As expected, more stereotyped responses were received by male than by female buyers, especially when both sought suggestions for a male child. The results were consistent with the hypothesis that salespersons hold stereotyped conceptions of adult socialization practices and channel interaction in ways that behaviorally confirm these stereotypes. A number of other findings are presented and discussed.

The Effects of Others' Expectancies on the Fabrication of Opinions

Summary Three field experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that the expectations which generalized or proximate others hold for knowledge about a subject will affect the rate at which people fabricate opinions. In what was ostensibly a man-in-the-street interview for a radio program, respondents were asked to comment on both actual public events and on “counterfeit” but plausible public events. In Experiments 1 and 2, Cs were used to manipulate the expectation that one should or should not be knowledgeable about public events. Experiment 3 used a subject for which one would expect knowledge to be differentially distributed by sex. Consistent with the self-presentational hypothesis that individuals use the cues provided by others to determine how to optimize the public image they convey, it was found that the rate of fabrication increased as various sources of information (others expectations, others knowledge, the specialization of the topic) suggested that one should be knowledgeable about t...

Total War, Social Impact of

Despite the massive changes that occur during the course of total war, it is very difficult to identify the specific, long-term consequences that follow. After reviewing some of the home front impacts of the world wars, this article finds limited and mixed evidence to support the ‘war-as-watershed’ hypothesis. In contrast, the nuclear arms race, which involved prolonged preparations and readiness for the ultimate total war, had several clear social consequences. First, it unleashed moral panics that resulted in the institutionalization of the military–industrial complex. Second, it created levels of secrecy and deception that helped spawn distrust of governments. This article concludes by pointing out questions pertaining to the ideas of ‘chronic war’ and ‘asymmetric total war’ that have followed the ending of the Cold War.