Cultural Mediations of Brands

8The Temptations of Scientific Mediation

We have previously seen strategies that consisted of mobilizing a discursive mode to evoke the characteristics of a brand. They have with scientific mediations the same “claim to tell the truth” mentioned by Claire Oger in her development “Voix au chapitre” (Right to speak on the matter) on scientific writing and academic authority (Oger 2013, p. 119).

This chapter highlights an additional step in the social claim. It is not only a question of transmitting knowledge, but even moreso of determining it and installing it in the scientific field. The organization of the examples shows an intensification: from the mobilization of expertise to the creation of institutions with a scientific vocation.

8.1. Scientific mediation and expertise: a construction of authorities in the public space

Scientific theories are universal statements. They are systems of signs or symbols, “nets designed to capture what we call ‘the world’, to make it rational, explain and control it” (Popper 1973, p. 57).

To theorize is to propose a set of disseminated knowledges gathered into a coherent, understandable whole. Popper proposes an explanation of an aspect of the world and thus he closes off knowledge. This “rationalization enterprise”, to use Habermas’ (1973) expression, makes it possible to legitimately tell the world and what is said constitutes a seizure of power. It is practiced and manifested through speeches and leading figures in scientific mediation: ...