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Rodrigo Reyes Cordova, understanding the public’s perception of science

After completing a PhD at the médialab from 2022 to 2026, Rodrigo Reyes Cordova defended his thesis on June 26, 2026. Entitled “Retying the Knot: Four Articles on Science and Expertise in a Polarized World”, it was completed under the supervision of Jean-Philippe Cointet and Achim Edelmann.

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Can you describe your academic background?

Before coming to the médialab I did my Master's in Quantitative Sociology. I was mostly trained in doing cross-national analyses of survey questionnaires, but after arriving at the médialab my focus went to more experimental designs.

What is your thesis topic and why did you choose this subject?

My research focuses on the intersection between politics and the public's perceptions of science.

I have always been interested in this topic. Around 2016 or 2017, the discussion about science, at least regarding the US context, was that the left was pro-science and the right was anti-science. This was the common narrative, and I thought that this cannot be so simple. My thought was that it's not necessarily about science, but rather about how science is implemented, and also perhaps about the solutions that people think about when they are presented with scientific facts that evidence societal challenges. 

So this was my main point of departure: how, when presented with scientific information from two different sources, do the perceptions of that same piece of information change depending on someone's political leaning?

What methods did you use for this research?

I used quantitative methods. I mostly used experimental designs, which I reinforced in my time at the médialab.

I also used national surveys and analyses, thanks to the skills that I already acquired in my previous education.

And I also present the results of a textual text analysis, which I owe entirely to being in the médialab and learning this type of computational analysis.

Did you encounter some difficulties during your research, and how did you overcome them?

I started my PhD in the last months of 2022. Then 2023 came, and Twitter was shutting down. Our whole project depended on collecting Twitter data, so this was the first big challenge that we faced. 

We had to work a lot in those first few months with Achim Edelmann, Benjamin Ooghe-Tabanou, Kelly Christensen, and Inès Girard, and we pushed really hard to clean the data that we had, querying Twitter using Minet. Guillaume Plique also helped us a lot.

Otherwise, I remember I had a very hard time getting into the STS literature. And in that sense, a lot of people in the médialab helped me regarding who and what to read, where to look for information, because I was struggling with framing my work in that literature. 

What are the main contributions of your thesis?

I think the main contribution is that I found evidence suggesting that the contestation of science is not due to ignorance. 

The literature used to attribute science skepticism to lack of education, lack of knowledge. But recent literature suggests that this is not the case. Rather, if someone contests science, it may be because they're very well versed in the methods that science uses, and they can challenge it. 

I also found that science contestation is not necessarily about science in general, but rather how science is used in regulation. So it's not that people don't believe in the scientific method, in experimentation, or in experts, but rather they question the way that knowledge is used in domains that affect their lives.

How was your experience as a PhD student at the médialab?

I really enjoyed being at the médialab in the first years of my research. 

Everyone was very nice, and I received a lot of support from both of my supervisors, Jean-Philippe Cointet and Achim Edelmann. Alex Kindel, Amélie Vairelles and Barbara Bender were also very supportive during the PhD with practical stuff.

What will you remember most about your PhD? Maybe something that left an impression on you: a moment, an encounter, an achievement ?

I think what I will remember most is my first presentation at the médialab seminar, where I presented the findings of my first paper. I remember Thomas Tari telling me that he wasn't convinced by my theoretical framework. 

At the time, I argued that science is more politicized today than ever before. Thomas pointed out that science has, in fact, always been closely intertwined with political power and governance. 

And from there, I started wondering: if science has always been politicized, why does it feel more politicized than ever? So his question made me think a lot. And it really helped to frame my thesis and write the introduction.

What advice would you give yourself if you could go back to the first day of your research?

Maybe talk more with everybody else at the médialab. I think that feedback was so helpful that if I could have gotten more of that, it would have helped, especially at the beginning.

And also to keep a good index of every article that I have read, because I have lost a lot of time trying to look for articles that I read like six months ago.

What are your plans now that you defended your thesis?

Right now I'm looking for a postdoc. If it were still about public perceptions of science and expertise, it would be great. But I think that anything that has to do with public attitudes, I would like, and if the research is quantitative, that would be the best for me.