Communicating Corrected Risk Assessments and Uncertainty About COVID-19 in the Post-truth Era

Frontiers in Communication

Adalberto Fernandes¹ 

[1] Department of History and Philosophy of Sciences, Centre for Philosophy of Science, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal;Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal;

关键词: COVID-19;    science communication;    risk;    uncertainty;    discourse analysis;    actor-network-theory;    post-truth;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fcomm.2021.646066

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge for science communication in terms of addressing the question of uncertainty and how it translates into risk. This task has been aggravated by the complexity of the pandemic and the current post-truth environment. The article suggests that there is a need to analyze the practices of correcting risk information that is uncertain, but not necessarily false, made by online news media about COVID-19. This is a point of analysis where the uncertainty and risk linked to science, the pandemic, and the post-truth condition meet. The qualitative discursive analysis yielded three important results: (1) uncertainty can be fought by increasing uncertainty; (2) a multiplication of facts or reasons may not be the most prominent strategy in practices of correction; and (3) the use of hyperlinks with additional information can increase uncertainty and risk.

【 授权许可】

CC BY