No. 54 - Raoni Rajão: The role of mass media in promoting fake environmental controversies in Brazil

Fake controversies have influenced policy-making on health and environmental issues for decades, leading to major setbacks in the implementation of environmental conservation policies worldwide. In this paper, we expand on Rajão et al (2022) to examine fake controversies produced by a small group of Brazilian scientists that have had serious impacts on environmental conservation in the country, particularly regarding deforestation and climate change. Based on a literature review, we propose a typology of strategies deployed in fake controversies, including manufacturing uncertainty, misusing scientific credentials, and disregarding the scientific literature. We also argue that the spread of these fake debates has been amplified by mass media, which has often provided visibility to fringe claims and false equivalences in the name of balance or sensationalism. Editors and journalists have therefore played a key role in legitimizing and disseminating these controversies and should adopt more responsible practices when covering scientific issues. Subsequently, we examine the influence of these ‘fake-controversy makers’ on environmental policy-making, particularly within the National Congress. We further analyze the fake controversies promoted by these scientists and argue that, to properly understand them, it is necessary to consider a strategy that has so far been overlooked in the literature: the manufacture of alternative facts. Unlike in other contexts, where denialists primarily attempt to cast doubt on consensual issues by highlighting supposed uncertainties, in Brazil alternative facts on deforestation have been produced and circulated outside peer-reviewed literature. We conclude with recommendations on how professional journalism could help to counter fake scientific controversies and promote evidence-based environmental policy-making.

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About the author:

Raoni Rajão

Raoni Guerra Lucas Rajão is a Brazilian environmental scientist and associate professor in environmental management and social studies of science & technology in the Department of Production Engineering at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Brazil. In 2018, he was a ZeMKI Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Bremen. He is an affiliated member of the Brazilian Academy of Science (ABC), Global Future Council on Forest Economy from the World Economic Forum and a former fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Wilson Center) in the U.S. He worked as Director of the Department of Policies to Deforestation and Burning Control of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, in Brazil, between January 2023 and December 2024, being responsible for the plans to control deforestation.