The Coaxing Architecture of Reddit’s r/science: Adopting Ethos-Assessment Heuristics to Evaluate Science Experts on the Internet

ABSTRACT

Concerned with how individuals assess scientific experts on the Internet, our research investigates the virtual r/science subreddit and their popular Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) series, where scientists engage with an audience for a question-and-answer forum focused on their research. We attend primarily to the Reddit architecture and social norms, examining their role in mediating ethos – that is, the scientist’s performance of expertise. We argue that r/science AMAs promote the adoption of simple ethos-assessment heuristics that enable participants, with little cognitive investment, to presume the trustworthiness and credibility of participating scientists and therefore defer to their expertise.

KEYWORDS:

• Cognitive heuristics
• expertise
• ethos
• rhetoric of science

Acknowledgments

This line is in appreciation of Tim Kenyon whose guidance provided the catalyst for this work. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their critical insights on earlier drafts of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. All heuristics are cognitive, and thus ‘cognitive heuristics’ is often simplified to ‘heuristics’; in the cognitive science literature these terms are interchangeable and refer to the same concept (Metzger, Flanagin, and Medders 2010, 436).

2. Regrettably, the r/science AMA series was cancelled in May 2018, largely, it is contended, due to changes in ranking algorithms and the prohibition of post manipulation by moderators that resulted in ‘AMA visibility drop[ping] off a cliff’ (u/nallen 2018). ‘How Reddit killed one of its most popular AMAs’ documents the public disagreement between Reddit CEO Steve Huffman and head moderator for r/science, Nathan Allen, and the decision to cancel the AMA series. Both, however, express hope that the r/science AMAs will return (Tracy 2018).

3. Notable is that r/science itself does not typically employ the ‘dialogue model’ that emphasizes ‘bidirectional communication between […] active scientists producing research, and a lay public engaging with information about that research’ except for in the form of the AMA series (Jones et al. 2019, 9). Indeed, r/science is not simply a ‘lay audience,’ but a diverse public comprised of credentialed and uncredentialed science experts alongside enthusiasts and non-experts. Users of r/science may apply for ‘verified flair’ which means one has to prove to r/science moderators that they are an expert in their scientific area, and redditors with verified flair are asked ‘to limit their conversations mostly to their areas of expertise’ (Jones et al. 2019, 9).

4. Another testament to the success of this series is r/science’s partnership with the Public Library of Science to host an AMA weekly titled ‘PLOS Science Wednesday,’ featuring PLOS authors (see: ‘Complete Schedule and Archive of PLOS/R/Science AMAs’ n.d.) .

5. As of March 2018, Reddit has changed the front page default ranking to ‘best,’ for redditors that are logged in, thereby curating content specifically from subreddits that a redditor has frequented. The ‘hot’ ranking is still the default ranking for anyone who is not logged in, and remains popular for many redditors who express a preference for ‘hot’ over ‘best’ (see comment feed incryptolemur 2018).

6. In the early ‘life’ of content submitted to r/science, scores are not shown in previewed content for 60 minutes to prevent a bandwagon effect.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ontario Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science under the Early Researcher Award Program; Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada under the Insight Grant program and the Talent program.

Notes on contributors

Devon Moriarty

Devon Moriarty is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo. Her research examines political and science communication within online social-voting communities like Reddit.

Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher

Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo. She is the author of Science Communication Online: Engaging Experts and Publics on the Internet (Ohio State University Press, 2019) and the co-editor of Emerging Genres in New Media Environments (Palgrave, 2017).