The Comeback of Trust? Reflections on Corona in Germany
By Michael Baurmann
Originally published in German at wissenschaftskommunikation.de on June 30, 2020.
Science and politics have regained lost trust during the Corona crisis in Germany. What is necessary to secure this development after the end of the pandemic?
The Corona pandemic is a disruptive historical event of global impact. It is not yet apparent how societal life will change as a result and which changes will be permanent — and which of those will be desirable and which not.
In Germany one of the astonishing effects of the Corona pandemic has been a remarkable comeback of trust — especially in areas of society which were diagnosed with a veritable trust crisis in the recent past. Maybe most impressive is the renaissance of political trust, but also trust in science recorded a significant upturn. Citizens in Germany are willing to put their personal well-being into the hands of politicians and physicians in a risky situation. [1]
However, the newly gained trust may be fragile. Aggressive demonstrations against lock-down measures and recent attacks on science are maybe indicators of a renewed erosion. Revival as well as a renewed declining of trust could be connected with the special situation: a time of crisis it is the much cited hour of the executive authority and, one could add, in the case of serious and opaque dangers the hour of experts. Such a threatening situation could trigger a willingness to trust combined with the acceptance of even substantial burdens. But after some time these burdens could challenge the newly acquired trust again.
No Knowledge Without Trust
The comeback of trust in this time of crisis highlights a fundamental precondition of a modern knowledge-based society which was in danger of being undermined in the years before Corona: a functioning epistemic division of labour in regard to knowledge acquisition and distribution, to information collection and transfer.
The essential need for such a division of labour results from the basic fact that the major part of our personal knowledge is not acquired through our own experience and considerations but stems from the testimony of others: it is second-hand knowledge — and for the overwhelming part of it we do not have the resources to form our own judgement about the truth of this knowledge.
If we are dependent on information without being able to examine its veracity, we can only believe other persons as sources of this information if we judge them as trustworthy: that is if we trust in their competence and knowledge and in their benevolence to transfer their information to us reliably. Such a trust relationship could be complicated by a competence gap. Laypersons lack the skills to easily acquire the specialised knowledge of experts or to scrutinize their statements. This competence gap is omnipresent. Most of the time and in most areas, all people are laypersons.[2]
The response to this problem is usually the establishment of socially accepted criteria which should enable everyone to identify trustworthy experts: certificates from educational institutions, testimonies, diplomas, degrees or doctorates, affiliations to organisations such as universities, research facilities, hospitals or courts. The belief in the trustworthiness of experts derives in this case from trust in these institutions.
But how can persons without the relevant knowledge assess the reliability and quality of these institutions themselves? One possibility is offered by proven track records: whether medicine can cure diseases, meteorology accurately predict the weather, engineering build stable bridges, or virology correctly calculate the spread of a pandemic, can also be judged by persons without special knowledge and expertise.
However, as a substantiated foundation for such a judgement the individual experience of a single person can only provide a tiny fraction of the relevant information. Everybody is dependent on the cumulative experience of numerous further sources if he or she wants to reach a sound estimation of the successes and failures of science. And, as always, trust in the reliability of these very different sources is the crucial factor.
Intermediaries such as professional science journalists or the actors in the education chain play an important role here, but also trust networks in the social environment have particular weight. In close-knit relationships, trust is based directly on personal experience and can be reinforced by emotional bonds.
An efficient epistemic division of labour is, therefore, embedded in an intricate and complex network of trust-relations. In order for this network to convey trust in reliable information sources, the production of valid insights is only one necessary precondition. For trust in these insights to develop, it is decisive that, in turn, those persons and institutions are trusted who vouch for the epistemic authority and trustworthiness of science in different societal contexts.[3]
The current crisis paradigmatically exemplifies the relevance of a functioning epistemic division of labour: if an imminent danger exists which can only be mastered by special expertise, then it is essential that people and politics have confidence in the competence of experts and will take appropriate measures following their recommendations.
Digital Viruses of Mistrust
Against this background, an important aspect of the problematic development of the last years becomes apparent: the undermining of an epistemic division of labour which ensures an effective distribution and application of the available knowledge in a society. The primary problem thereby is not a loss of people’s abilities to acquire knowledge by themselves or to distinguish fake news from the truth. What has really suffered in particular is the ability to distinguish between trustworthy and competent and unreliable and incompetent information sources.
The digital transformation is the main cause of this deterioration. The revolution of personal, social and political communication by digital media has contributed to the erosion of the trust basis of the epistemic division of labour by three processes:
Networking: people who see themselves as members of a marginalised and isolated minority and who have a profound mistrust of societal institutions anyway, have been able to identify kindred spirits and connect with them successfully with the help of digital media.[4]
Polarization: digitally mediated communication in separated and exclusive arenas entrenches extremist positions and world views und deepens mistrust towards politics (“Voksverräter”), established media (“Lügenpresse”) and also towards science (“Handlanger”).[5]
Indoctrination: the social dynamic in these groups generates new trust relationships, for example towards political opinion leaders with their attacks against the “ruling elites” or towards alternative authorities as witnesses against the “mainstream science”. Trust in these cases is the breeding ground for nurturing further mistrust to the existing societal system and its institutions. [6]
This development takes place in the context of informal social environments, beyond the established communication spaces and institutions of a developed knowledge society. With the trust in these institutions it undercuts the impact of the education system, of the traditional media, of science and it thwarts opinion formation in a deliberative democratic public.
The Battle for the Digital World
In the present Corona crisis, this development seems to have been at least partially and temporarily revised in Germany. Is it possible to maintain the new readiness to trust beyond the crisis and its exceptional conditions?
In the search for success factors one quickly and rightly ends up with the usual suspects: comprehensive and transparent communication, intelligible justification of decisions, understandable explanation of relevant facts and authentic orientation towards the public good. But if the social mechanisms of the digital world are especially salient causes of the erosion of trust, it should be here first and foremost that possible leverage and counterstrategies are sought.
Citizen participation: if citizens are experts in their own right and dispose of relevant knowledge and problem awareness in a certain area, then the legitimation for political decisions without their participation ceases and mistrust and resentment may arise. This applies to national legislation down to municipal regulations. But full citizen participation on all levels is not feasible without technically advanced digital platforms that allow flexibly adjustable formats. Some variants of such platforms for online-participation are already available and successfully applied, yet they must be developed much further.[7]
Public sphere: digital communication must not be left to populists, conspiracy theorists, right-wingers and pseudo scientists. Also in the digital world a public domain has to be established in which the influence of anti-democratic, demagogic and denialist forces is counteracted, and trust in the institutions of democracy and a knowledge society is promoted. As we have already learned from painful lessons, this is not a trivial challenge. There is a substantial need for innovative instruments and strategies to achieve this aim.
Science communication: the Corona crisis has shown the important role of effective communication for trust in science. Scientific analyses and projections must be explained clearly and comprehensibly, including their uncertainty, provisionality and principal fallibility. During the Corona crisis successful communication of scientific findings in Germany was largely dependent on single persons and their individual skills. But formats of knowledge transfer are needed which surpass occasional podcasts, individual appearances in talk shows and sporadic tweeting. And the same holds for science as for other societal institutions: the future of trust will be very much dependent on their presentation in the digital world. The visualisation of pandemic data on interactive dashboards such as those of the Johns Hopkins University in the US or the Robert Koch Institute in Germany are good examples of innovative formats which are possible in a digital context.[8]
Conclusion
All in all, it is not surprising that trust must be maintained and restored where it is threatened the most: in digital media where, beside the classical democratic public sphere of deliberation, a parallel world of fragmented sub-public domains has taken root which nurtures and spreads mistrust of democracy, science and traditional media. But science has to deliver a contribution itself by advancing research on digitalization and thus actively participating in the design of this brave new digital world.
Michael Baurmann is the Scientific Director for the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) in Bochum, Germany.
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[1] https://www.uni-mannheim.de/gip/corona-studie/
[2] Michael Baurmann: Kollektives Wissen und epistemisches Vertrauen: der Ansatz der Sozialen Erkenntnistheorie. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie. Sonderheft 50 (2010) p. 185–201. https://www.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/fileadmin/Redaktion/Institute/Sozialwissenschaften/Soziologie/Dokumente/Baurmann/Aufsaetze/Kollektives_Wissen_und_epistemisches_Vertrauen.pdf
[3] Michael Baurmann & Geoffrey Brennan: What Should the Voter Know? Epistemic Trust in Democracy. Grazer Philosophische Studien. Internationale Zeitschrift für Analytische Philosophie 79 (2009) p. 159–186. https://www.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/fileadmin/Redaktion/Institute/Sozialwissenschaften/Soziologie/Dokumente/Baurmann/Aufsaetze/What_Should_the_Voter_Know.pdf
[4] Robert Vehrkamp und Wolfgang Merkel: Populismusbarometer 2018. Populistische Einstellungen bei Wählern und Nichtwählern in Deutschland, Gütersloh, Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2018. https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/fileadmin/files/BSt/Publikationen/GrauePublikationen/ZD__Studie_Populismusbarometer_2018.pdf
[5] Cass R. Sunstein, The Law of Group Polarization. The Journal of Political Philosophy 10 (2002) p. 175–195
[6] Michael Baurmann, Gregor Betz & Rainer Cramm: “Führer befiehl, wir folgen dir!” Charismatic Leaders in Extremist Groups, in: Thomas Christiano, Ingrid Creppell & Jack Knight (eds.), Morality, Governance, and Social Institutions. Reflections on Russell Hardin, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke (2018) p. 259–287. https://www.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/fileadmin/Redaktion/Institute/Sozialwissenschaften/Soziologie/Dokumente/Baurmann/Aufsaetze/Baurmann_Fuehrer_befiehl_wir_folgen_dir.pdf
[7] Tobias Krauthoff, Christian Meter, Michael Baurmann, Gregor Betz &Martin Mauve: D-BAS — A Dialog-Based Online Argumentation System, in: Computational Models of Argument, September 2018, p. 325–336 http://ebooks.iospress.nl/volume/computational-models-of-argument-proceedings-of-comma-2016
[8] https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/478220a4c454480e823b17327b2bf1d4
