The 'March for Science' as a showplace of the socio-political polarization between elite and population: a contribution of interpretative approaches to the analysis of postfactual times
Abstract
Science denial has become a central political phenomenon in the first year of Donald Trump's presidency. Since the beginning of 2017, many scientists in the US have reacted by calling for a public defence of truth and have recurrently pointed out the danger of Trump's anti-science positions.
The early high point of these protests was the March for Science organised on 22 April 2017. The interpretative analysis of this protest and the public debate surrounding its organization in the American media reveals a binary opposition between a supposedly fact-oriented 'elite' and an emotional, ignorant 'people'.
The paper interprets this binary opposition as an instance of a more fundamental socio-political polarization. At the same time, such a contextualization makes it possible to discuss the role of interpretative approaches for understanding the current discourse on postfactual times.