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Short abstract:

Using microbiome science as a case study, this paper examines how scientists navigate the concurrent professional pulls of mobilizing and contesting hype. It argues that positioning with respect to hype is a key mode of enacting professional legitimacy and self-fashioning as a “good scientist.”

Long abstract:

Surrounding the emerging field of microbiome science, hope and hype abound regarding the medical potential of microbial interventions to revolutionize personal medicine and treat a stunning range of illnesses, from gut and metabolic illnesses to autoimmune, mood, and developmental disorders. However, many U.S. microbiome scientists show concern with balancing public interest and funding, on one hand, with realistic expectations on the other, wanting to avoid the mistake of overpromising they associate with genomic medicine and other translational efforts. For science studies scholars, this raises an important and undertheorized question in the study of technoscientific hype: what role does the management of hype play in the professional norms and virtues of biomedical science? While science studies scholars have begun to understand the economic, affective, and technological facets of biomedical promise, few approaches have considered how scientists enact and perform their own relationships to hype. Using U.S. microbiome science as a case study, this paper examines the role of hype in scientific professional praxis. It draws on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews with U.S. microbiome researchers, and science journalism analysis to draw new connections between hype in technoscience and enactments of scientific expertise (Carr 2010). It argues that navigating the concurrent professional pulls of mobilizing and contesting hype enacts expert legitimacy and ethical self-fashioning as a “good scientist” (Lloyd and Raikhel 2018; Daston and Galison 2007). By considering hype through the lens of scientific professional praxis, this paper offers a new perspective from which to consider hype and its contestation in technoscience.