With the rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2, we have been confronted with a worldwide post-normal challenge (Funtowicz and Hidalgo, 2021), not just scientifically but also at a political level and in terms of social resilience. When the pandemic first broke out, urgent political decisions were needed with a high social risk attached to them, in part because many of the scientific facts on which these decisions were based were still far from sure. Since the situation was made public through the media and official communiqués and science was assumed to play an important role in stamping out the virus, the initial months of the pandemic are a useful context for assessing the role of science and the importance lent to it by the public at crisis points, i.e. in order to offer a more realistic insight into the issue than one that might be gained from national surveys on public understanding of science (PUS) in pre-pandemic periods.

The first, imported, case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Mexico on February 28, 2020. On March 23, on-site educational activities and all non-essential activities in the public and private sectors were suspended, among other mandatory social distancing measures. These precautionary and disease-containment measures were implemented or socially recommended (e.g. stay-at-home and some hygiene and protection measures) at national level as part of the so-called Phase 2 of the epidemic, which was the beginning of the Jornada de Sana Distancia (Safe Distance Phase) federal policy. The Consejo de Salubridad General (General Health Council) declared a national health emergency due to the pandemic on March 31. On April 21, the Phase 3 was announced, activating more socially restrictive policies given the rise in the number of infections and hospitalizations. The Jornada de Sana Distancia national policy ended on May 30, when the Government established that subsequent restrictions and measures to follow would be decided in each region, based on the number of cases detected locally (Secretaría de Salud de México, 2020; see also note 7). Vaccination campaign in Mexico did not start until December 24 of 2020. During its first phase, only considered essential workers acceded to it.

This paper starts by outlining the results of two surveys conducted in 2020 (since the enhancement of Phase 2 and before starting the vaccination) on perceptions and attitudes to science and the role of scientists in the fight to combat COVID-19. Several surveys have been conducted on the subject at an international level (e.g. WiD, 2020; Bucchi and Saracino, 2020; VA, 2020; Mora-Rodríguez and Melero-Lopez, 2021; Vieitez et al. 2020). The results for the (mainly indigenous) population living in rural communities are compared with those of urban areas of the country; the two target populations of the surveys. Next, all the data is compared with information from the latest PUS surveys conducted in Mexico prior to the pandemic (Conacyt 2017; Kindell et al., 2018).

Our aim is to assess the cultural authority of science during a pandemic, i.e. to explore how the public regards science and people’s confidence in scientists. For this purpose, tentative use is made of the indicators and Bungee Jump Model currently being developed by Bauer and colleges for this purpose (Bauer et al., 2018; Liu et al., 2019). Through regional data and a specific post-normal scenario, this paper contributes to international debate on PUS and to cultural debate in the field of science and technology studies, particularly for those interested in the inequalities that might determine the social appropriation of science.

In October 2021, the Mexican government announced over four million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and over 300 thousand deaths (Gobierno de México, 2021). The pandemic continues to be an unprecedented management problem for Mexico ever since the emergence of the virus in 2020, when governments worldwide were forced to contend with it. Part of the challenge is the fact that it has put the national science and technology systems of different countries directly to the test, in several senses. One of the main ones -given that this is a health crisis which everyone must tackle on a day-to-day basis- is the scientific culture of the population as a whole and, in particular, the public’s confidence in science.

Although differing policies and initiatives had been implemented by the Mexican government to foster new developments in science and technology, the 2002 Science and Technology Act was an important landmark at a general level and, more particularly, through its efforts to boost scientific literacy, for instance, by officially promoting the social dissemination of science (Sanz-Merino and Tarhuni-Navarro, 2019). Mexico came to form part of the most dynamic group of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean in this regard (Polino and Cortassa, 2016). Instruments were also used to diagnose the success of these measures; more specifically, the Survey of Public Perceptions of Science and Technology, conducted biennially from 2005 to 2017. Nonetheless, federal investment into science has never surpassed 0.5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Unesco, 2018) and, since 2018, the National Council for Science and Technology (Conacyt) has changed tack, bringing Mexican scientists into confrontation with regulators. Big differences of criteria with regard to the social importance of science in today’s scenario of budgetary cutbacks and scientists’ steady loss of control over the management of scientific affairs (DOF, 2020; Toche, 2021) ¹ have become more acute and more publically obvious during the pandemic ² . In fact, during the early months of the health crisis, the Mexican media gave broad coverage to the escalating tension between the new administration and the scientific community -upset by the recently announced austerity measures and reductions in public expenditure on science (Wade, 2019; FCCYT, 2019)-. In addition to the direct involvement of science in the fight against the disease, these events placed it at the core of the political agenda and public opinion, particularly during the implementation of our first survey.

The background context for the development of Mexico’s national system of science and technology has always been a big challenge, particularly when the country’s different populations and the big divides among them are taken into account. There are acute regional differences in the availability of basic infrastructure, such as health, education and telecommunication services, and access to them. According to recent studies, 63% of Mexico’s population lives in municipalities with a medium vulnerability in access to these infrastructures, while about 30% live in municipalities with a high or very high vulnerability level. Almost 9 million Mexicans live in a critical situation (7%) (Suárez Lastra et al., 2020). In addition to these sharp socioeconomic differences, similar to those of other Latin-American countries (Polino, 2019), Mexico’s population is ethnically very broad ranging. Big cultural differences (e.g. language) can be found, making any general measures to boost the population’s scientific literacy impractical.

Over 21% of the country’s population consider themselves to be indigenous. Among the groups especially prone to economic, social and educational inequalities, rural communities stand out particularly, mainly with indigenous populations (Unesco, 2020). Not only have these communities suffered from a high incidence of COVID-19 during the pandemic, they also have a high risk of suffering from severe forms of the virus (Ortiz-Hernández and Pérez-Sastré, 2020). Additionally, the disparity in the local informal economies and social or political development have influenced the regional governors to implement sanitary and policy measures not always in line with federal recommendations or policies (Peci et al., 2022) ³ .

The current pandemic is a post-normal situation in several different senses. A post-normal situation occurs when the framework for action and for finding a solution is outside the confines of normal scientific and technical knowledge and mechanisms, and yet decisions must be urgently taken, often accompanied by value clashes during the assessment of the problem (Funtowicz and Hidalgo, 2021). This is because the issues to be tackled involve a high degree of uncertainty, whether it is epistemic, technical, ethical or social. When these problems become public, their management or resolution sparks off public controversy. Over the last two years, pharmacological and epidemiological science and the medicine practised in health centres have both entered a state of post-normality, together with political management of the pandemic. In the fight to combat the disease and its spread, the general public has been the target of genuine social and political experiments and also at an individual psychological level.

Despite all this, in post-normal situations like the current health crisis, not only does science play a key -or even determining- role, but also the public’s scientific culture. Socially, acceptance or rejection of governmental public health policies partly depends on comprehension of the available evidence and also on attitudes to the uncertainty that some scientific practices might involve (Broomell and Bodilly, 2017). However, in post-normal scenarios (and risk situations like the current one), when the population itself is forced to take urgent decisions, they tend to be based on reasoning from authority as opposed to a direct process based on the available evidence. The credentials of the chosen authorities by the population have largely been socially and culturally shaped over time (Kahan, 2017).

Given the above, it is important to analyse what is known as the «cultural authority of science»; that is, the social legitimacy of science as an institution and supplier of truths for use in decision-making (Bauer et al., 2018, p. 7). In situations calling for science-based decisions (in our case, the acceptance of preventive restrictions and hygiene-related measures and the use of new vaccines), the status accorded to science by the general public ⁴ is an important source of information; for instance, in the formulation of risk-management intervention and communication strategies.

In this paper, we present the results of an evaluation of the cultural authority of science in Mexico during the pandemic, using the Bungee Jump Model. To measure the success of public policies for the promotion of science, Bauer and colleges recommend this model’s use instead of the ones normally used to interpret general PUS data (Bauer et al., 2018, pp. 8 and ss.). Whilst the latter equates social mistrust of certain scientific issues with a loss of scientific credibility in general, we start out from the assumption, like Bauer and colleges, that society can, on the whole, confide in science and yet also question certain social, ethical and environmental aspects.

The cultural authority of science depends on a combination of two circumstances: «on the level of general goodwill of society towards science and the type and intensity of the controversy» (Bauer et al., 2018, p. 10). The first of these variables can be determined from general PUS surveys. We re-examine recent national and international studies of Mexico, comparing them with the results of our own two surveys in order to shed light on the second variable. From all the findings, we select and analyse the most relevant ones at a thematic level in accordance with the PREK indicators matrix developed by Liu et al. (2019), which we adapt to fit in with our scenario as follows:

Hence, the general aim of this research study is to evaluate the cultural authority of science during the most post-normal period of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Mexico. At the same time, we add another assumption: that knowledge, attitudes and statements regarding the role of science in the fight to combat the virus might vary, depending on the specific cultural features of the population groups taken into account in our surveys. Consequently, our second aim is to empirically support the PUS discussion taking into account the cultural differences between Mexico’s urban and rural population.

When the results were grouped and analysed according to the PREK indicators, general conclusions could be drawn about considerations of science in urban and rural areas in the current pandemic. These are shown in Table 2.

Outlined below is the most recent data for the same indicators prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. All the data will then be compared in order to evaluate the cultural authority of science in Mexico.

The second hypothesis put forward in our study was that there would be differences between the answers of the urban population and the largely indigenous rural one. Generally speaking, this hypothesis has been corroborated.

If science must necessarily be interlinked with each community’s political and social processes for society to take advantage of its potential and be suitably prepared in post-normal situations (Funtowicz and Hidalgo, 2021), what should we infer from the socio-economic differences in access to crucial infrastructure and from the cultural differences that are structural to these processes in Mexico? Our study sheds some light on debate about how to boost the scientific culture of the Mexican population as a whole (and not just in specific post-normal situations). Let us examine this issue before we conclude.

In urban areas, thanks to greater access to ICT and their more widespread use, the population could consult, compare and verify information (Tarhuni-Navarro and Sanz-Merino, 2021), indicating that this population group’s social appropriation of science could be potentially higher and more critical, in comparison with the rural population at least. However, if we consider the low level of knowledge and engagement in Mexico prior to the pandemic, then possibly science’s high authority in the current post-normal situation is more attributable to faith in science (based on decades of governmental and scientific propaganda and fear of the pandemic) than to real social appropriation of science.

Whatever the case, we know that Mexico’s urban population expects scientists to be more actively involved in getting across technical issues related to the pandemic to society. In previous PUS surveys, Mexicans highlighted Mexican scientists’ low presence in the media (Conacyt, 2017), which scientists themselves also acknowledge (Sanz-Merino and Tarhuni-Navarro, 2019). In a pandemic, the respondents expect to receive information that can assist in decision-making and, in fact, the urban population has sought out scientific sources of information in particular. From all this, it can be inferred that a more active role by scientists in communicating science to society could generally be an effective way of triggering a potential social interest in science and, in the final instance, of boosting the social appropriation of science in Mexico. That is, through science’s raised social visibility and more social engagement by Mexican science and its scientists, the population could become more attentive to science and more scientifically prepared as members of a post-industrial or knowledge society. Someone who is scientifically cultured acknowledges science’s social relevance and they take advantage of it in a reasonably critical or circumspect way (see, for instance, López-Cerezo and Cámara-Hurtado, 2009).

The need to foster such «public engagement with science» is not new to studies of scientific literacy and the social communication of science or to the authorities of advanced countries (see, for instance, EC, 2008). Salient PUS strategies in this field focus on boosting the population’s scientific literacy and on the dissemination of science, combined with scientists’ improved capacity to contribute directly to this and increased recognition of the importance of multiple perspectives and knowledge in scientific practice, on the part of both scientists and the public (see Sanz-Merino and Tarhuni-Navarro, 2019). The introduction of measures of this kind would help to boost the cultural authority of science among the urban population, depending on their profile, socio-economic characteristics and access to technology.

Nonetheless, rural populations do not benefit from the same circumstances and neither do they start out from the same level of scientific and technological awareness. Transposing the same engagement strategies to rural areas would probably not work. Remember that, in these communities, primary sources of information are those that are available in the immediate area, given the population’s more restricted access (at best) to certain channels and the fact that 40% of the respondents said they felt overwhelmed or fed up of the information that was made public.

The fact that the rural population’s confidence in governmental management of the pandemic in general and in the health system in particular was lower than in urban areas might induce us to believe that the theory of a cognitive deficit (that more classic PUS, according to which less familiarity with science breeds more mistrust and more social rejection) continues to apply in less developed societies (see e.g. in Bauer et al., 2012). This, in turn, might lead us to propose popular enculturation strategies based on even more naive classic models for the social communication of science. However, it should also be noted that, despite the lower availability of information during the pandemic and the lower level of education of this population group in general, rural communities also demonstrated a potential to become an attentive scientific public in these post-normal times. Proof of this is their emphasis on the importance of science in decision-making and the fact that, in practice, they do not seem to have cast any doubt on the national enforcement of international health guidelines. Indeed, despite their socio-economic vulnerability, rural communities have also demonstrated a reasonably good knowledge of the virus. How can this population group be transformed into a public that is at least potentially attentive to science?

Mexico’s socio-educational and economic differences are structural, as is the case of Latin-America as a whole (Polino, 2019). In order to boost people’s scientific culture in general, the most obvious step is to eradicate the distorted «Mathew effect» so typical of Mexico’s most socio-economically vulnerable communities; that is, to reverse the tendency for those who have less to continue to have less. When it comes to science and technology’s possible contribution to this, science’s recent loss of political authority in Mexico will very probably prevent it from assisting with this in the short or mid-term. Neither does this study aspire to contribute something new to what has already been said or is known about ways of boosting the general wellbeing of a country marked by socio-economic disparities.

However, at the same time, Mexico is also culturally diverse, in the most anthropological of senses; a circumstance that might also be regarded as post-normal. Mexico’s multiculturality is a permanent characteristic, making it incompatible with mainstream social policies and customs.

In accordance with general models for interpreting PUS, the importance lent by rural communities to their own potential for self-organization in the fight to combat COVID-19 might be seen as contradicting social confidence in science. Alternatively, this cultural mismatch could be interpreted from the perspective of the Bungee Jump Model, in which case these results of our survey are merely opinions based on different behaviour patterns. Their consideration as such is equally important in reflections on PUS, not because these behaviours should be suppressed in order to boost the population’s scientific enculturation but because these cultural factors should be taken into account in the way in which science is interlinked with different aspects of rural and indigenous communities in order to boost the social appropriation of science.

Logically, in places with a high indigenous population, community coordination in dealing with crises is seen as important. The specific features and relevance of the social customs and organizational systems of these communities in public and individual life have been widely studied and acknowledged (Instituto Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas, 2020). To continue with our post-normal hypothesis on the Mexican multiculturalism, given the peculiarities of this population group, particularly the indigenous population, it is not enough to merely focus on language barriers ¹³ or to simply disseminate science to these communities as a way of boosting the social appropriation, in particular, and the cultural authority, in general, of science. From what we have seen, science can be interlinked with social and political aspects of these communities by taking advantage of their existing communication and authority-related networks. This situated approach has been demonstrated to be more effective in mechanisms aimed at fostering the social appropriation of other public policies, such as policies in the field of medical care and the local economy (Instituto Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas, 2020).

In conclusion, the differences in the respondents’ level of interest in science serve to highlight Mexico’s situation of cultural post-normality (the urban population versus mainly indigenous communities) and the relevance of this factor in strategies to boost the population’s scientific culture and, by extension, to further reinforce the cultural authority that science seems to possess in today’s pandemic scenario. In the case of the urban population, who might be defined as potential consumers of science, we noted a desire for strategies to be fostered aimed at raising the visibility of scientists and at their increased involvement in the dissemination of scientific information. In the case of rural communities, however, we realize that, if science were to engage with society, this population group would not have access to the infrastructure or mechanisms that the urban population possesses. Neither is the sole implementation of communication strategies directed at overcoming the deficits in the population’s scientific literacy advisable.

The new challenge we face in the dissemination and social appropriation of science is to interlink science with society in a way that takes into account the peculiarities of certain cultural groups’ organizational systems and communication networks. This is not something that can be tackled by using standard social enculturation models for typical post-industrial countries, but are challenges not normal in seeking solutions in post-normal situations?

The general aim of this study was to find out the Mexican population’s assessment of science and scientists and their confidence in them during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, PREK indicators (Progress, Reserves, Engagement, Knowledge) based on the Bungee Jump Model, both proposed by Bauer et al. (2018), were used to assess «the cultural authority of science».

Data was gathered from several PUS studies for Mexico conducted prior to the pandemic and from two surveys of our own, given in 2020, on public understanding and perceptions of science in the fight to combat COVID-19. In this way, we could compare the general level of goodwill toward science as an institution or privileged mouthpiece in establishing the truth prior to the pandemic and in the post-normal context of the health crisis in Mexico.

Although, as a general rule, the pre-pandemic results are less positive (e.g. a population with a low level of scientific literacy, growing confidence in pseudo-science, and some critical opinions of certain scientists’ practices), the Mexican population confides quite well in science in situations that pose a high health risk. Indeed, the first conclusion was that, at the most post-normal point in the pandemic, not only was the cultural authority of science apparently not affected, but it even seems to have been reinforced.

Because one of our surveys was targeted at an urban population, while the other was directed at rural, mainly indigenous communities, the assumption could be made that there might be specific differences in the knowledge, attitudes and statements regarding the role of science in the fight to combat COVID-19 as a result of these cultural differences. This hypothesis was corroborated and, at the same time, specific differences came to light that could play an important role in strategies to boost the Mexican population’s scientific culture in general.

Our second conclusion was that, in addition to big socioeconomic and educational differences in the Mexican population, Mexico can also be defined by its cultural post-normality; a factor that must be taken into account in efforts to boost the cultural authority of science, regardless of whether there is a pandemic or not. This is because multiculturality seems to call for different scientific communication and literacy strategies than the ones usually applied in post-industrial societies. As a result, any measures that are taken to boost the social appropriation of science must take into consideration the specific organizational systems and communication networks of different cultures in order to make them more socially effective; a factor that would no doubt also reinforce and foster a greater respect for Mexico’s cultural diversity.