A cafeteria of questions to interrogate controversies with (from Venturini, Adler, and Van Doren)

This post contains a list of questions for you to answer in your controversy analysis.  There are many, and you are not required to answer ALL of them, but use this first table as a standard requirement of which questions you will need to answer in order to successfully complete the report.

What’s going on in this controversy?  What’s it about?  ...
Differences in Points of View:	What are the various disagreements 1) between different sides of the debate, 2) within the same side of the debate? [Include primary, secondary, tertiary, etc. controversies.]
Similarities in Points of View between Dissenting Voices:	What are the various agreements between different sides of the debate?
Naming the Happenings:	What do the controverts say is (or isn’t) going on?
Theories of Action:	What do (or don’t) the controverts see as the problem?  What entities do the controverts say make (or don’t make) other entities do things?  What do the controverts blame or name as the causes (or key or minor players, or things involved)?  As effects?  Or as non-causes or non-effects?
Evidence and Examples:	What evidence and examples do (or don’t) the controverts provide?
Historical References:	What historical references do the controverts invoke or refer to? (E.g., people, events, periods, etc.)
Prescriptions for Action:	What do the controverts think should (or shouldn’t) be done?

Diving in Magma	Building on Faults	Designing Controversies and their Publics (article)	Designing Controversies and their Publics (slideshow)
(1) What other statements or topics does this statement concern? What are the sides of the debate?  (1) What alliances and oppositions are forming and transforming?	What are the various disagreements?  Make a disagreement tree. What are the media and public opinions?  What does the scientific literature say?	What is this controversy about? Which endorsements and oppositions are being made?  Make a disagreement tree.	WHAT:   organize statements into debates (with a tree of disagreement) What do controverts endorse and oppose?
(1) Does the presence or absence of this entity make a difference in the debate? What is the difference that this entity’s presence or absence makes?  (1b) Is this difference perceived by other actors?  [If yes to both, then this entity is an actor.]	[Make a table of cosmoses?]	Who is fighting this controversy?  Who is talking and making arguments? Who shares which argument with whom?	WHO:  actors (with actors-arguments table) Who spoke this (dis)agreement?
Which actors are the alliances and oppositions between? (1) Which worknets (or collective actions) compose or produce this actor (as product)? Who or what makes this actor act? Which other actors call or spur this actor into action?  (2) Which worknets are partially composed or produced by this actor (as component-producer)?  Who or what does this actor make act? Which other actors does this call or spur into action?	What constellation of agents has solidified into a unique source of action?	How do the controverts join or oppose their forces? Which actors are connected to which other actors?	HOW: networks (the actor-network diagram) How are speakers related?  E.g, by sharing an argument, by citations, by hyperlinks, by funding, etc.
(1) What sort of stability or world does this actor aspire to bring about?  What kind of world does this actor long for?  What is this actor’s picture of the society that they want to establish?  What is this actor’s end game or goal?  What is this actor’s vision of the world as it should be?  What orderly and harmonious world does this actor work toward?  What meaning does this actor attribute to their actions, worknet relations, and statements?	Where do cosmoses diverge and overlap? How is this controversy ordered according to its degree of generality-specificity? [Table of cosmoses?]	Where is this controversy in the ‘scale of disputes’ to which it belongs?	WHERE: cosmoses (with the scale of disputes diagram)
…	What is the chronology of the dispute?  What is the position of this actor at a given moment in time?  How does this position change with time?  How has the shift of actor positions affected the definition of the controversy itself?	How do all of these elements evolve through time?	WHEN: cosmopolitics ( with controversy dynamics chart; or timeline)
…	Create an inquiry log.	…	…
…	Make a glossary of non-controversial elements.	…	…

What is this controversy about? ...
Range & Diversity	(1) What topics and entities are brought into play (or are being talked about)?  (2) Who is discussing them?  (3) What hybrids are being formed between topics or entities?  (4/2b) Who is forming (i.e., discussing) them?
De-simplification/ Problematizations of Simplifications	(1) What are people saying “it’s not so simple” about?  Which simplifications are being rejected or called into question? Which questions (and question terms) are people problematizing (i.e., calling into question)? (2) Which new simplifications are being proposed, accepted, or imposed?
De-Grantification & Apparitions of the Unexpected	(1) What unexpected or taken-for-granted ideas and things are being questioned and discussed?
Stakeholders & Structures at Stake	(1) Which worlds will be affected by this or that controversial outcome? IOW, what is at stake?  Which worlds, ways of life, activities, etc. are at stake/does this controversy concern?  (2) How will they be affected?  (3) Which social orders-arrangements or inequalities will be conserved or reversed or rearranged? How will power be redistributed as a result of this controversy?