Scott Weedon

PhD Assistant Professor

Texas Tech

Description of Work:

My work is in technical and scientific communication and RHM. I have a forthcoming article in Poroi at the intersection of RHM and the rhetoric of technology on ultrasound and speech and display laws, and this summer, I composed a conference proceeding for the IEEE ProComm conference on belief in pseudoscience and science communication. Currently, I am interested in the phenomenon of wellness culture and the role it plays in the beliefs people have about science. Some important components of wellness are taste and aesthetics, which I believe also play an influential part in the science and medical information people take up. My research this year has been preoccupied with finding in-roads to that dynamic through the topics of aesthetics, affect, health and consumerism, and health and science communication. In the paper I have submitted for the symposium, I am looking at the rhetorical strategies one wellness brand (goop) employees to both align and distance itself from science. I argue that the goop Lab series serves as a kind of propaeduetic for viewers/consumers to learn to reconcile a dichotomy between scientific evaluation and wellness therapies.