The Relevance of Scientific Dissemination during the Vaccine Campaign: The Italian Virologist Communication on Social Media
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2021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
1 The Relevance of Scientific Dissemination during the
2 Vaccine Campaign: The Italian Virologist
3 Communication on Social Media
4
5 The scientist role has progressively gained an essential relevance along the
6 2020 pandemic. The virologists’ exposition turned out, in fact, as
7 fundamental for the public opinion both for the well informed and not aware
8 people about health, transmission, infection and, today, vaccines program.
9 This paper aims to set a first explorative investigation about the social
10 communication practices during the first three months of the vaccine
11 campaign addressed by Italian most established virologists on social media.
12 The arising of digital scenario and the resultant pervasive presence in our
13 daily life of web platforms, such as social media, has revolutionized the
14 nexus between science and society. More scholars argued about the
15 disintermediated current shape of science communication that connect
16 directly scientist and large publics, driving the sociological debate towards
17 the analysis of the current processes of sense-making construction. On this
18 assumption we aim to give answers to the research question referred about
19 how do the Italian scientists communicate and approach large publics on
20 social media. Therefore, the empirical part of this paper consists in a data
21 collection phase conducted on Facebook and Twitter. The collected data
22 have been analyzed by a content analysis oriented to identify the
23 contradictory or uniformity of disintermediated communication features of
24 the observed social media profiles in order to push and follow, during the
25 ongoing vaccine dosing program, a proactive reflection about the key role of
26 scientific dissemination.
27
28 Keywords: Communication of science, Scientists’ visibility, Social media
29 communication, Content Analysis, Topic Modelling
30
31
32 The Communication of Science inside and outside the Digital Environment
33
34 The relationship between science and society has become nowadays
35 increasingly relevant. Following Ancarani (1996) in fact, science, gradually,
36 has been faced with a variety of politically relevant social and economic issues
37 such as health, food, transport, communications, energy, innovation and so on.,
38 meanwhile the public space got transformed focusing citizens as «the
39 depositary of the structures and processes of democracy as the power control,
40 the delegation of people’s will, public discussion and public opinion»
41 (Mazzoleni, 2004: 17).
42 Today, therefore, institutions representing science and the researchers
43 themselves cannot neglect communication in their daily work (Scamuzzi and
44 Tipaldo, 2015).
45 In particular, science’s public communication has an essential role to
46 define the relationship between researcher and citizens (Bucchi and Trench,
47 2014) and now, a scientist is socially appreciated if he manages to reduce the
1
2021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
1 distance between these subjects. In this perspective is pointed the need for a
2 close relationship between science and society, between experts and the public,
3 in a process of involvement that allows us to grasp the urgent needs of
4 humanity» (Pellegrini, 2018: 33).
5 Beyond the different levels of analysis of communicative phenomena and
6 consistent models that have outlined the relationship between science,
7 scientists and the various types of audience (Jasanoff, 1995), scientific
8 communication studies agree about how the mediatic context is «a central
9 variable for the regulation of the processes of constructing meaning, able to
10 orient exchanges between the issuer and the recipient towards outcomes not at
11 all obvious, even with equal content of messages» (Scamuzzi and Tipaldo,
12 2015: 68). In light of this assumptions, nowadays Internet represents certainly
13 the mediatic environment that has succeeded in revolutionizing the
14 communication of science simultaneously to its evolution. Firstly, intended as a
15 canonical medium deputed to the information storage (read-write web), the
16 web changed along last 20 years transforming itself in an integrated
17 participative environment (people-centric web and participative web, Patel,
18 2013).
19 There are many web-based activities that scientists carry out daily, as for
20 example documents transmission, magazines editing, data sharing, articles
21 creation, publishing of conference proceedings and informal exchanges also via
22 i.e. videoconferences. In this way, Pellegrini and Saracino in fact argue about
23 “Science 2.0” as an «increasingly widespread practice among scientists of
24 publishing online experimental results, emerging theories, claims of
25 discoveries and drafts of articles that anyone can read and comment on»
26 (Pellegrini and Saracino, 2019: 76).
27 Furthermore, Science 2.0 cannot disregard a communication also through
28 Social Media sphere, by which is possible to create networks of collaborations
29 (think i.e. of Researchgate designed to allow relationships between researchers
30 related to any type of discipline), to spread news and fight against scientific
31 controversies: today science and society work together in fact also because
32 they allow citizens in taking stand on scientific issues: a not practicable way
33 until recently when was «an exclusive prerogative of the scientific community
34 and political decision-makers» (Bucchi, 2010: 141).
35 Before Internet affirmition, the mainstream media as radio and Tv were
36 the only promoters of communication of science to citizens although «by their
37 nature they point out the evident asymmetry between the scientific community
38 and the general public and the clear directionality of science communication»
39 (Scamuzzi and Tipaldo, 2015: 150). In the past, traditional media acted as an
40 intermediary between universities and the public sphere for example through
41 press releases while, with the advent of digital, information shifted in an open
42 access vocation, accessible to anyone is interested. In this way the online media
43 offer to scientists more communication opportunities in dealing directly with
44 the general public rather than having to rely on journalists as mediators (Peters
45 et all., 2014).
2
2021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
1 The web, furthermore, connotes as an environment in which comes
2 possible a greater participation about scientific knowledge and, at the same
3 time, that can reveals traps related to scientific controversies or misinformation
4 in the way that «the web breaks that sequential order and the tightness of a
5 series of "filters" that previously distinguished the path of scientific results of
6 the researcher to the general public» (Bucchi, 2006: 72).
7 Although its definite limits, «the web can allow a faster and immediate
8 access to scientific information (possibility to access original papers, databases,
9 contacts of researchers) » (Scamuzzi and Tipaldo, 2015: 150) and, in addition,
10 social networks become useful tools to simplify the communication of science
11 and its results as well the understanding of how a research has been led.
12 Following Bucchi and Saracino (2021), it is relevant finally to point out
13 how the science communication concept for scientific argues has been recently
14 rethought also due to the increasing of public demand about science and
15 technology argues. It overcomes in fact the classical processes of mediated
16 communication shifting to direct interaction between sender and public, driving
17 towards a model pointed in 3 specific strategies (Pellegrini and Rubin 2019:
18 71-72):
19
20 1. The vertical one: featured by the direct dissemination of press release
21 and scientists’ statements in order to spread the research outcomes to a
22 general public.
23 2. The dialogic one: featured by discussion events between experts and
24 publics duly shaped on new scientific topics.
25 3. The participative one: the last strategy concern the direct involvement
26 of individuals in the research works in order to enrich the research
27 purposes and shape the right interesting topics of investigation.
28
29 According with this background, this paper aims to shed light on the
30 current relation between scientists and citizens in Italy. Though a first
31 exploration oriented on the scientists’ social media presence, in fact, we will
32 try to comprehend how they set their communication strategies and styles
33 selecting as unit of analysis the cultural products of their posting activities. For
34 this reason, the empirical part of our work starts from a specific research
35 question: referring the topic of current vaccination campaign, how do the
36 scientists communicate and approach publics on social media?
37 We tried to answer this question conducting a first explorative research
38 related to the Digital Ethnography (Murthy, 2008; Coleman, 2010) in line with
39 the Rogers vision of Digital Methods (2009). We in fact extracted the material
40 directly connected with phenomenon observed making further a primary use of
41 secondary web data. Later the data collection we set a content quantitative
42 analysis of social media posts uploaded by selected subjects we observed on
43 two specific social media platforms during the first 3 months of the vaccine
44 dosing campaign in Italy, from December the 27th to March the 27th .
45
46
32021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
1 Crisis Communication in Time of 2020 Pandemic
2
3 Through traditional and digital media, scientific communication has taken
4 on an important role during the Covid19 pandemic. In the specific case of Italy,
5 it increased the exposure of several scientific experts: virologists,
6 immunologists, and so on. who have provided to the large public important
7 scientific information about health, transmission, infection and, today, vaccines
8 program, but also well proper instructions to follow concerning the right
9 behaviour to adopt to face the pervasive contagion (Brondi and Pellegrini,
10 2021). The speeches, often discordant especially in the first phase of the
11 pandemic crisis, occurred on traditional media and social networks, with
12 different styles.
13 The Covid-19 crisis poses in fact significant challenges for how science is
14 conducted and communicated (Lasser et al., 2020). The 2020 agenda setting
15 «was substantially monopolized by the Covid-19 pandemic, the most
16 prominent feature in the news of the year» (de Sola Pueyo, 2021:1) driving
17 towards the infodemic dimension intended, following Hua and Shaw (2020) as
18 «the overabundance of information, sometimes not accurate, that creates
19 difficulties for society to understand which resources to use to access reliable
20 information» (de Sola Pueyo, 2021:1).
21 Following Wajahat Hussain (2020), in fact, through social and mass media
22 is possible to transmit a sense of unity due to large public coverage as well the
23 opposite: «Social media may also provide grounds for misinformation and
24 discrimination. People can utilize the flexibility and pervasiveness of social
25 media technologies to increase the public's adherence to the safety measures
26 suggested by global health organizations to combat the spread of covid-19».
27 Following Bucchi (1996) in certain situations, usually connected to
28 scientific controversies, scientists start to address the public directly by
29 skipping the usual stages of scientific communication in the way that «these
30 situations create a new modality in science communication that is associated
31 with different objectives and tactics compared to the traditional dissemination
32 pathways» (Olesk, 2021: 6).
33 According with this assumption, the best way to address directly the public
34 is through the architecture of digital scenario and the disintermediated
35 communication assets of the web environment as i.e. the social media sphere.
36 Social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook ensure, in fact,
37 support and resilience between communities, «providing direct access to an
38 unprecedented amount of content and amplifying rumours and questionable
39 information» (Cinelli et al. 2020:1).
40 For Wajahat Hussain (2020), furthermore, the specialists are involved, in a
41 time of crisis as the pandemic, to turn their expertise communicating their
42 followers what’s happening and the situation overall in their premises at local,
43 National and International level.
44 Among these, of course, there must necessarily be scientists with strong
45 disclosure skills, called to deal with proper communication on social networks.
46
42021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
1 Research Design
2
3 To better comprehend which scientists involve in our exploration among
4 the several ones who have progressively exposed disseminating their expertise
5 also through social media during 2020, we referred to a recent study of
6 Reputation Science, a research center specialized in crisis management
7 consulting particularly addicted to the scientific context.
8
9 Figure 1. Virologists’ Overall
10
11 Source: Reputation Science
12 This center synthesized a proper overall1 concerning the scientist visibility
13 on mass and social media from February 1st to November 20th, duly defined
14 rightly their public statements analyzed following two specific indexes: The
15 alert index that concerns the most frequent opinion of the scientist related to
16 the control and containment solution for the pandemic, while the coherence
17 index concerns the contradictions of their public statements along last year.
1
Covid-19: The expert communication. Available at: https://www.reputationscience.it/analisi-
dagli-esperti-italiani-sul-covid-19-sovraccarico-di-informazioni-e-indicazioni-incoerenti/
52021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
1 Later to an in-depth inspection of the biographies of all the scientists
2 qualified in this overall we selected 5 of them rightly to their presence on the
3 social media.
4
5 The Selected Scientists
6
7 The first one selected is Roberto Burioni: an Italian scientist with an
8 international profile. He was, in 1988, Visting Scientist to Center for
9 Molecular Genetics to University of California of San Diego, while in 1991 he
10 was Visiting Investigator at the Department of Immunology of the Scripps
11 Research Institute La Jolla, California (USA) where worked in Dr. Dennis R.
12 Burton lab.
13 In 2004, Roberto Burioni worked at the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery
14 of the University Vita-Salute San Raffaele in Milan while today he’s currently
15 Full Professor of Microbiology and Virology, as well the head of an
16 immunological research laboratory. His researcher’ studies concerns the field
17 of development of human monoclonal antibodies against infectious agents.
18 Burioni became famous during the late 2010 years with his media
19 interventions, especially on social media on the issue of vaccines to counter
20 disinformation. His activity of scientific dissemination, always about vaccines,
21 switched also on TV allowing his reputation to gain more visibility. In
22 November 2018 he opened a website: Medicalfacts.it, dedicated to scientific
23 dissemination in the medical field. In 2019 he founded the Association "Pact
24 for Science" whose goal is to enhance the scientific evidence at the basis of the
25 legislative and government choices of all political parties.
26 He published several books of scientific divulgation and for this he wins
27 also several prizes.
28 From the beginning of the pandemic crisis still today, he appears as
29 regularly guest to the TV program “Che Tempo che fa” conducted by Fabio
30 Fazio which airs every Sunday at dinner time on the national broadcasting
31 service Rai3.
32 The second scientist involved in our exploration is Ilaria Capua, a
33 virologist of national and international fame. In 2000 she developed the
34 strategy Differentiating Vaccinated from Infected Animals (DIVA): the first
35 vaccination strategy against avian flu, by which - with a test - is able to detect
36 whether antibodies in a subject were induced by the vaccine or infection.
37 Ilaria Capua is responsible for an atypical action in the scientific field
38 dated2006: she challenged the system - obtaining international resonance -
39 deciding to make public the gene sequence of the avian virus. Then there was
40 talk of the birth of "open-source science”.
41 In 2013 Ilaria Capua decided to run for the Italian Parliament being elected
42 as the leader of her Civic Choice party. From May to July 2015 she was Vice-
43 president of the Chamber of Deputies in the Twelfth Commission (Social
44 Affairs).
45 She was put to criminal proceedings then acquitted (for conspiracy aimed
46 at the commission of crimes of corruption, abuse of office and illicit trafficking
62021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
1 of viruses) which causes considerable inopportuneness in her personal life. In
2 September 2016, in fact, she decided to resign as a deputy and moved to
3 Florida where she got employed as researcher.
4 In the United States she heads a department of the Emerging Pathogens
5 Institute of the University of Florida. She later became director of the
6 University’s One Health Center of Excellence.
7 Furthermore, she is currently a resident guest at Dimartedi, a program of
8 the Italian Tv channel La7.
9 Furthermore, we involved also Fabrizio Pregliasco a researcher of the
10 Department of Biomedical Sciences for Health of the University of Milano
11 Statale. He’s author of expert reports for European registration of a vaccine
12 and flu medication. During his professional life he has collaborated in 12
13 clinical trials of vaccines and antiviral treatments. In 2015 he was selected as
14 Director of Health at the Galeazzi Orthopaedic Institute in Milan. Subsequently
15 he also became a consultant to the National Council of Economy and
16 Labour(CNEL), as well as to the National Council of the Third Sector (social,
17 economic and cultural reality in continuous evolution that includes bodies that
18 are neither public nor commercial). Both these roles are carried out bythe
19 Ministry of Labour.
20 From 2013 he’s president of ANPAS (an association committed to provide
21 public assistance). The efficiency in the activity of scientific dissemination is
22 the primary reason behind the esteem that the community of experts has
23 towards Fabrizio Pregliasco. During 2016 such an appreciation found concrete
24 form in the conferral of National Scientific Medical Union of Information prize.
25 During the coronavirus emergency he is called to take on the role of
26 scientific supervisor. A role assigned to cope with the many deaths that
27 occurred in Milan at the Pio Albergo Trivulzio, an historic place of the city,
28 residence for the elderly, which accommodates over 1000 patients.
29 After the numerous deaths and at the same time the assessment of
30 responsibilities, his role helped Pio Albergo Trivulzio to implement a new
31 organizational structure.
32 He is sporadic guest in Tv programs on La7 and Rai channels.
33 Antonella Viola took place among the scientists observed in our research
34 also. She took a prize assigned in 2014 by the European Research Council a
35 scholarship: two and a half million of Euro in recognition of Steps project
36 considered a revolutionary program with regard to the evidence on immune
37 defenses against cancer. In the same year, she became associate professor in
38 General pathology at the Department of Biomedical Sciences of the University
39 of Padua. Today she is also a member of the scientific committee of the Italian
40 Association for Cancer Research, as well as being an auditor for the European
41 Commission dealt to the evaluation of scientific excellence projects. Thanks to
42 her contribution to molecular biology Antonella Viola becomes part of the
43 European Molecular Biology Organization.
72021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
1 Finally, in parallel to her teaching and laboratory activities, she’s
2 responsible for promoting scientific dissemination, especially in the framework
3 of the European project Eufactor2.
4 The scientist is also particularly appreciated as a speaker: her clear style
5 leads her to travel the world as a speaker at conferences at prestigious
6 institutions. Between the most appreciated speeches are those at TED Talks.
7 She is a sporadic guest for TV programs on La7 Channel and on Radio
8 tune Radioradicale.
9 Finally, the last scientist selected is Alberto Zangrillo, head of the
10 Operative Unit of Anesthesia and General Reanimation and Cardio-Thorax-
11 Vascular, Head of Clinical Areas of the IRCCS San Raffaele Hospital in Milan
12 and collaborates at the La Madonnina Nursing Home.
13 He’s professor pro-rector and Full Professor of Anesthesiology and
14 Rianimation. Following Scopus3sources today he is one of the top ten doctors
15 in the world for the number of publications in the field of "anesthesia" and
16 "intensive care", author of since 800 publications, of which 400 on index
17 international journal that include randomized studies in The New England
18 Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Circulation and British Medical Journal.
19 His media experience is linked with the former Prime Minister Silvio
20 Berlusconi. Zangrillo has always been at his side, especially in the most health
21 difficult moments such as in 13th December 2009 when Silvio Berlusconi (at
22 that time Prime Minister) was hit by a small mermaid; or seven years later,
23 when the leader of the centre-right party was subjected to a decidedly complex
24 cardiac intervention at the San Raffaele.
25 By virtue of its authorial activity he collects numerous awards and honours
26 from the scientific community. Also the institutional offices seem to recognize
27 the merit and confer the merit titles by the Presidents of the Italian Republic,
28 Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and then Giorgio Napolitano.
29 He takes part sporadically to TV programs on Rai, Mediaset and LA7.
30
31
32
2
The project of 2016 is aimed at young people between 16 and 19 years and was created to
raise awareness of the study of science, technology and computer science, directing them
towards training and professional paths that offer more opportunities, but they are often
discarded because they are considered difficult or boring. The campaign also targets
stakeholders and the general public, to draw attention to the importance of science and
technology and to give visibility to the European Union’s commitment in these areas.
3
SCOPUS is currently the largest bibliographic database of abstracts and citations of scientific
literature. Index over 17,700 titles of scientific, medical, technical and humanistic journals,
published by over 4,000 publishers. Among the most important citation functions Scopus
allows to obtain: the H-Index or Hirsch Index (proposed in 2005 by Jorge E. Hirsch of the
University of California at San Diego), is a bibliometric indicator that measures the impact of
authors within the reference scientific community, based on number of publications and
number of citations received; -to carry out the citation analysis of the authors and their relatives
publications (through the Citation Tracker); to carry out the research and analysis of the
authors' profile and membership affiliations.
82021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
1 Methodology
2
3 Social platforms and data collection
4
5 As context unit, we selected two specific social media platforms:
6 Facebook and Twitter.
7 In a recent study, the research center Observa – Science in society (2019)
8 returned, in fact, interesting results relates about how Facebook turn out to be a
9 very suitable social platform by which Italian citizens are reached from
10 scientific-health centered contents and by which their fruition comes more
11 frequent, while on the other hand Twitter turn out to be the opposite.
12
13 Table1. Reading and sharing of contents concerning health and medicine (valid
14 % N=978
I read contents about health and medicine
Never Sometimes Frequently Total
Facebook 25,5 % 52,7 % 21,8 % 100 %
Twitter 67,4 % 24,6 % 8% 100 %
15 Source – Observa science in society
16
17 According to this evidence, more scholars (Schultz, Utz and Goritz, 2011;
18 Eriksson and Olsson, 2016) argued about the perceived usefulness of Facebook
19 and Twitter in crisis communication. In particular, compared to other sources
20 related to the digital scenario, Twitter leads to less negative reactions than
21 blogs and newspaper articles, while Facebook results in a higher reputation and
22 less secondary crisis reactions than crisis communication via an online
23 newspaper (Eriksson and Olsson, 2016: 200).
24 On the base of this assumptions we started the data collection procedure on
25 Twitter availing of scraping procedure via Python syntax while for Facebook
26 we availed of the use of CrowdTangle, an insight tool reserved to the academic
27 hub that only tracks public available posts on Facebook, Instagram and Reddit.
28 The data have been collected following the structure of a proper standard
29 gather grid (Losito, 2003; Amaturo and Punziano 2013) divided in 4 main
30 domains (General information, Cross information, Engagement and
31 audiovisual and text information) and then organized in a Cases per Variable
32 Matrix composed by 1306 observations per 13 variables defined as follows:
33
92021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
1 Table 2. Standard gather grid
General Cross Audiovisual and Text
Engagement
Information Information information
External
Sources
(No external Audiovisual Description
source, Press, (No audiovisual elements,
Account Institution and Data, infographics, Media
(Viola, Burioni, Government, Like promotion, Normative alert,
Capua, Science Journal, (Low, Medium and personal promotion, Press
Zangrillo, Scientific High Likes) screenshots, Scientific
Pregialsco) Network, publication extracts, Social
Scientific Press, media screenshots, visual and
Conference logo, Web events)
Promotion,
Official website)
Repost Account
Source
(original post,
Date
Repost from
(December,
Press Institution
Early January,
and Comments
Endo of
Government, (No Comments, Low- Text
January, Early
Repost from medium comments and (Post corpus)
February, End
Scientific high comments)
of February,
network and
Early March,
Scientific
End of March)
Journals, Repost
from other
profiles)
Tag
(No Tag,
Institution,
Platform Press and other Share Text length
(Twitter, profiles Tag, (Low, medium and (Short, medium and long
Facebook) Scientific high share) length)
network and
Scientific
journals Tag)
Post Type
(Tweet, Retweet,
Tweet Photo
and Video, FB
Status, FB
Status Repost,
Facebook Photo
and video,
Facebook Photo
and video
Repost, FB
Link)
2
102021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
1 The selected scientist proper profiles find place in the account variable
2 while date variable concerns the month when posts have been uploaded. All
3 contents have been classified due to the platform uploading (Twitter and
4 Facebook) and rightly of its classification unit (audiovisual or textual) duly
5 specified in the Post type variable by which furthermore come possible to
6 recognize the original or repost contents.
7 The external sources concern the context from which comes the external
8 links tied to the posts while the variable named Repost Account Source relates
9 the categorization of the account from where come the only reposts. All Tags
10 in posts have duly found place by a right categorization of the other mentioned
11 Social media accounts. For what concern the engagement, Like, comments and
12 share have been classified in tercile intervals that match low-medium and high
13 engagement levels, while pictures and video description have been categorized
14 by the symbolic representation of audiovisual material posted in audiovisual
15 description variable. Finally, we collected the text of every post as well the text
16 length properly classified following short-medium and long criteria cutting
17 tercile intervals.
18 All the information contained in the dataset have been processed following
19 a multi-stage analytical procedures consisting in the application of the topic
20 modelling aimed to point the features of the vaccination program discussion on
21 social media during the timespan we observed and then in the application of
22 the Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) that make possible to detect the
23 latent dimensions by which mark the correspondence between topics and the
24 other context variables (platform, type of post, engagement and external
25 sources). Later, the Lexical Correspondence Analysis (LCA)4 turned out to be
26 the best way to a right synthesis of the collected data: by a compact graphic
27 representation of data relations projected on factors, we could point concepts
28 not previously observable by which find the right key-interpretations based on
29 the correspondence between the selected variables and most characteristics
30 words of post texts.
31
32
33 Analysis and discussion
34
35 The Topic modelling
36
37 The post texts present a considerable amount of information by which is
38 difficult to trace a semantic structure. For this reason, we offered the empirical
39 base to a simple but statistically robust solution: the topic modelling.
40 As first step we imported the database in T-Lab, a specific software
41 environment for the content analysis able to process proper patterns based on
4
The LCA is a factorial technique concerning textual data and useful to: synthesize information
contained in texts; make graphic displays of association networks among words and between
words and texts; show the connections between text and context data. (L. Lebart, A. Salem, L.
Berry, Correspondence Analysis of Lexical Tables, in Exploring Textual Data, in L. Lebart, A.
Salem, L. Berry (eds.), Springer Sciences & Business Media, Dordrecht 1998, pp. 45-79.
112021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
1 textual context. We submitted the text variable, consisting in the corpus
2 extracted by Facebook and Twitter, to T-Lab thematic analysis procedure that
3 is preceded first of all by the proper following automatic processes:
4 Lemmatization, consisting in 1) the standardization of all the verb forms in the
5 same mode 2) the transformation of nouns and adjectives posed in singular
6 number 3) the removing of definite-indefinite articles; Frequency threshold put
7 on 20 occurrences that drove us to exclude in the analysis all the words below
8 this frequency value and reducing finally the database to 650 total words;
9 finally we proceeded with the exclusion of empty segments not significant and
10 relevant for our analysis. Later we setup the modeling aimed to the topic
11 extraction based on the Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) a «generative
12 probabilistic model for text document collections based on a three-level
13 hierarchical Bayesian model, in which each item of a collection is modeled as a
14 finite mixture over an underlying set of topics. Each topic is, in turn, modeled
15 as an infinite mixture over an underlying set of topic probabilities. In the
16 context of text modeling, the topic probabilities provide an explicit
17 representation of a document» (Blei, Ng and Jordan, 2003). Following this
18 procedure, we extract 10 topics properly renamed respecting statistical criteria,
19 such as the consideration of specific words occurrences featuring the topic as
20 well the low-high shared words occurrences among all topics, and by the
21 semantic tagging (Bolasco, 2013: 126) on selected context in order to «detect
22 the right document meaning solving disambiguation and identifying concepts
23 by a set of words».
24 Finally, we classified the 10 topics taking account of its 985 emerging
25 elementary contexts intended as the document analyzed fragments in which the
26 topic itself comes more relevant.
27 Following Habert (2005), in fact, the more significance parts of documents
28 is supposed by the information weight of its fragments featured by its
29 discursive formulas, their position in the document, the specific weight of each
30 word related its scatter in the document etc. In our case, the resume of
31 elementary contexts T-lab returned us followed a hierarchical order based on
32 the informative score of single fragment. which text reduction has been
33 synthesized by 95 % threshold.
34 The emerged topics have been duly defined as shown in table 3:
35
36 Table 3. Topics Description
Most frequent Words
(Specific, Shared with
Topic Name Elementary context examples
high probability, Shared
with low probability)
Variante, Virus, Nostro, - Cos'è la variante sudafricana e perché
Nuovo, Maggiore, ci preoccupa? Si tratta di una variante
Pandemia, Mutazione, che presenta 3 mutazioni preoccupanti
Virus Riuscire, Inglese, sulla proteina Spike la ormai nota
Mutation Governo, Sudafricano, N501Y, comune anche alla variante
Sars, COV, Ultimo, inglese, e le due nuove mutazioni
Bambino, Portare, K417N e E484K Oltre ad aumentare la
Rendere, Alimentare, trasmissibilità del virus.
122021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
Difficile - a far saltare i numeri sono entrate in
scena le nuove varianti virali La
presenza delle varianti del virus nel
nostro Paese desta giustamente
preoccupazione, non solo per la loro
maggiore trasmissibilità ma anche, nel
caso delle varianti brasiliana e
sudafricana
- risposta a una singola dose di vaccini
che devono essere somministrati in due
Infezione, Dose, Paziente, dosi, ma purtroppo suggerisce che per
Prima, Anticorpo, Usare, questi pazienti bisognerà pensare a
Rispondere, Protezione, forme di protezione diverse Aspettiamo
Approvare, Risposta, i risultati della seconda dose.
Effectiveness
Gravi, Domanda, Basare, - La protezione completa si stabilisce 7
of Vaccine
Immunitario, Risultato, giorni dopo la seconda dose, quella
Generare, Immunità, parziale 12 giorni dopo la prima dose
Plasmare, Settimana, La notizia è "focolaio in RSA a Prato
Sistema "Che fossero vaccinati una settimana
prima o non vaccinati è completamente
irrilevante
- L'AIFA ha giustamente deciso di non
consigliare l'utilizzo del vaccino
AstraZeneca per gli over 55 Questo
perché non ci sono dati solidi
sull'efficacia del vaccino in questa
fascia di età e perché è comunque un
Vaccinare, Persone,
vaccino meno efficace rispetto agli
Astrazeneca, Popolazione,
altri, riuscendo a proteggere solo 6
Decidere, Uscire,
persone ogni 10 vaccinati La mia
Somministrazione,
AstraZeneca domanda però è la seguente che
Ricevere, Problemi,
Case facciamo con i 40enni diabetici?
Rispetto, Evento,
- Ricevo richieste da parte di chi è stato
Contagio, Riguardare,
vaccinato con il lotto AZ
Accadere, Fiducia,
temporaneamente bloccato da ISS Il
Evitare, Lotto, Anziano
lotto non è “ difettoso ” come mi
scrivete la sospensione è precauzionale
e se siete stati vaccinati non dovete fare
nulla La febbre è comune con questo
vaccino niente panico
-
- I vaccini funzionano contro le nuove
varianti? Cominciano ad arrivare i
primi dati Uno studio in revisione e i
dati ottenuti da Moderna indicano che
Dati, Efficacia, Rischio,
gli anticorpi generati dai vaccini a
Efficace, Clinico,
mRNA continuano a riconoscere le
Malattia, Studio, Sudi,
varianti ma con minore efficienza
Relevance of Moderno, Dimostrare,
Moderna ha già annunciato di aver
Data Bloccare, Sicuro,
iniziato a generare una versione
Soggetto, Ridurre,
aggiornata del vaccino.
Funzionare, Ottenere,
- Ci eravamo basati sui dati pre clinici
Comunità
per dire che i vaccini a mRNA
facevano ben sperare che anche
l'infezione fosse bloccata e che
saremmo rimasti in attesa di ulteriori
132021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
dati che sono arrivati La vaccinazione
di massa che è avvenuta in Israele e
Regno Unito ci permette di rispondere
a questa domanda basandoci sui grandi
numeri e sui dati ottenuti in questi.
Vaccinazione, Italia,
- Io m'aspettavo un clima tutto diverso
Paese, Noi, Sanitario,
per questa campagna di vaccinazione
Campagna, Scientifico,
Preparation of Una mobilitazione febbrile, centri di
Effetto, Scuola, Giorno,
Vaccine vaccinazione aperti ventiquattr'ore, un
Cittadini, Situazione,
Campaign attivismo generoso Un'atmosfera
Scelta, Trovare, Numero,
potente, commovente, da trincea, da
Alto, Grave, Prendere,
ultima spiaggia
Ricordare, Necessario
- l San Raffaele non ci fermiamo
neanche il giorno della Befana! Ecco il
prof Ottavio Cremona, ordinario di
Anni, Scienza, Mettere, Anatomia Umana Normale, che si
Salute, Donna, Vita, sottopone alla vaccinazione anti
Scientific Corriera, Ilaria, Capua, COVID 19 Università Vita Salute San
Network San, Raffaele, Ospedale, Raffaele IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele
Gravidanza, Laboratorio, Gruppo San Donato.
Marzo, Futuro, Umano - Orgoglioso di questo straordinario
Team Multidisciplinare IRCCS
Ospedale San Raffaele Università Vita
Salute San Raffaele!
- BioNTech, l'azienda che ha messo a
punto uno dei due vaccini a mRNA, in
settembre ha comprato da Novartis una
fabbrica per dedicarla alla produzione
del vaccino Ha impiegato 28 ( ventotto
) giorni per adattarla, 60 per cominciare
a produrre concretamente il vaccino
Nel dettaglio Settembre acquisto
Tempo, Arrivare, Anno, azienda Ottobre novembre
Produzione, Produrre, progettazione Inizio dicembre domanda
Vaccine’s Possibile, Primo, Milioni, per adattamento.
Supply Pensare, Caso, Ritardo, - Si parla con enorme interesse del
Disponibile, Sicurezza, vaccino russo Sputnik, addirittura
Differenza, Unico, Unito immaginando di produrlo noi e prima
ancora di aver ottenuto l'approvazione
da EMA o FDA Lasciando da parte
interessi politici ed economici, non si
comprende perché mai dovrebbe
interessarci proprio questo vaccino e
non quello di Johnson&Johnson
Entrambi i vaccini si basano sullo
stesso vettore adenovirale
Pfizer, Notizia, Dosi, - ''Ottima notizia Dopo milioni di dosi
Giorni, Proteggere, somministrate ( due anche a me )
Europa, EMA, Fase, l'EMA conferma la sicurezza del
Response Sperare, Pubblicare, vaccino Pfizer BioNTech PS dopo la
Capabilities Continuare, EU, seconda dose male al braccio, lieve mal
Problema, Partire, Ottimo, di testa, dolori muscolari ma 15 giorni
Morto, Italiano, Iniziare, fa dopo un'incauta partita a tennis stavo
Insieme, Possibilità molto peggio.
142021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
- Il vaccino Pfizer sembra proteggere
dall'infezione già dopo una singola
dose. Questa è davvero la migliore
notizia degli ultimi tempi! Non
sappiamo però quanto dura la risposta
immunitaria quindi per il momento
avanti con le seconde dosi nei tempi
indicati e avanti coi vaccini!
- Io avrei riportato le fonti, ma
egualmente domani i giornali
avrebbero titolato "rissa tra scienziati'',
"i medici devono mettersi d'accordo tra
loro prima di parlare "o il classico "qui
Burioni, Roberto, Medico,
nessuno ci capisce niente.
Vedere, EricTopol,
- n ogni caso già sono abbastanza
Scientists’ Vaccine, Chiedere,
conosciuto Ho cancellato il tweet e non
reputation Leggere, Tweet,
vado a letto con il timore i leggere
Conoscere, Iene,
domani gli articoli dei soliti giornali
Correggere, Lavoro
che mi infamano e gli sberleffi dei
frustrati di Twitter che mi riversano
addosso il loro odio, entrambe cose non
importanti, ma non piacevoli Per cui ho
cancellato il tweet.
- chetempochefa Stasera ','tornerà a
#CTCF da ','fabfazio Con il professore
Covid, Parlare, Spiegare, parleremo delle ultime notizie sul
Coronavirus, Testo, peggioramento dei casi covid in Italia e
Professore, della situazione dei vaccini Vi
Chetempochefa, Facts, aspettiamo dalle 20 00 su ','RaiTre.
Media
Medical, Emergenza, - Adnkronos #CovidItalia, ','''Varianti
Presence
News, Virologo, Gennaio, vera emergenza "Covid Italia,
FabFazio, Pandemic, Pregliasco "Varianti vera emergenza
Storia, Raccontare, "Secondo il virologo servono azioni
Pericoloso mirate e tamponi nelle scuole "Le
prossime tre o quattro settimane le più
delicate'
1
2 Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA): The factors’ building
3
4 Further the topics, as active variables useful for the factor building were
5 pointed also engagement rates, platforms, type of post and date.
6 Scientists’ reputation and media presence topics characterized in the same
7 way both the two factors, while the topics Virus Mutation, Effectiveness of
8 Vaccine, AstraZeneca Case and Relevance of Data, instead, characterized the
9 first factor, posed on the horizontal axis, which reflects the argumentations
10 related to the vaccine clinical value assessment divided in two characteristic
11 parts. As shown by Fig. 1, on the right side, renamed “Discussion introduction”
12 in fact, we can notice low engagement and no topics emphasized on the factor,
13 while on the left side, renamed “Controversial discussion” we can notice high
14 engagement levels appeared on February turn and corresponding to
15 controversial and delicate topics as the withdrawal of AstraZeneca batches and
16 Vaccine effectiveness. For these argumentations Facebook and its relatively
152021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
1 post types appears as the most used platform by the observed scientists, while
2 for the quieter discussion the elected platform is Twitter.
3 The second factor, posed on the vertical axis, is characterized by topics as
4 Vaccine campaign preparation, scientific network, vaccine supplies and
5 response capabilities. This dimension reflects the vaccination plan features and
6 is divided in two specific phases of our timespan of observation. First two
7 months in fact reflect the run up of the campaign while the last two months
8 refers to the follow-up and rating of the ongoing process of vaccine dosing
9 program.
10 The plan synthesizes how most of the observed subjects are more addicted
11 to Twitter posting practices compared to Facebook which is more preferred
12 only by Antonella Viola. The most of them prefer a social media exposition on
13 Twitter that, following Eriksson and Olsson (2016), connects the microlevel of
14 interpersonal communication, the meso-level of follower–followed networks
15 and the macrolevel of hashtag-based exchanges, while Facebook is usually
16 preferred for horizontal support among users during crisis situation as the
17 pandemic, in this case electing a posting-logic based on original contents
18 (Viola, Burioni and Zangrillo) or on shared post from other social media
19 accounts (Capua and Pregliasco).
20 Antonella Viola looks to be the only scientist open to controversial
21 discussion. Her position on plan, in fact, clears how she benefits of high
22 reactivity by her followers instead of Ilaria Capua and Fabrizio Pregliasco,
23 more oriented to quieter exposition about the vaccine argumentation, which
24 posts are in fact characterized by low likes, comments and shares. Lastly,
25 Roberto Burioni and Alberto Zangrillo communication is characterized by a
26 medium degree of reactivity of his followers. By the way, we must point that
27 the scientist of Istituto San Raffaele in Milan closed the comments options to
28 all his followers, even that for his following accounts or the ones he
29 spontaneously refers by a mention in the posts or in comments.
30
31
162021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
Figure 2. Multi-correspondence Analysis
172021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
The Lexical Correspondence Analysis (LCA)
Later to this first analysis procedure we more synthesized the information
contained in our data providing the further explorative step of Lexical
correspondence analysis (LCA) and show the multiple correspondences
between words and context elements as for example who spread the message
and the platform by which has been uploaded.
Starting from the right side we can see reflected a relevant mass media
exposition of the selected scientists. On both the up-down side are indeed
marked words as: Dimartedi, the TV program that hosts Ilaria Capua as well as
chetempochefa, the TV program that hosts Roberto Burioni every day at dinner
time, duly complemented by the main character of their research network as ,
One Health UF and Elastico, the research centers and association tied to Ilaria
Capua, as Eric Topol and Eran Segal, two co-author scientist of Roberto
Burioni and Anpasnazionale, the association which Fabrizio Pregliasco is
President. These contents, posted along the timespan we observed and crossing
the discussion introduction about the vaccine campaign, reflect how the
positioned scientist in this side follow a kind of hybrid disintermediation made
by a social-mediatization process: they in fact disseminate via social media
their statements originally conceived for mass media, finding on the web a new
resonance chamber where spread the research outcomes to Twitter’s general
public reluctant to react. On the other side, where the controversial discussion
cross the timespan observed, a dialogic strategy is applied by only Antonella
Viola. The high engagement levels in fact remarks an open possible discussion
between the author and her public towards new scientific and mutable topics as
the vaccines and its effectiveness due to the virus mutation as marked by words
as: risk, worry, mutation, production, effectiveness, data, lockout etc. In this
way, not relating with mass media frame, Antonella Viola looks as the only
scientist truly according with a pure disintermediating process featured by
contents thought specifically for the social media and the digital languages that
promote a direct contact between sender and receiver, making outdated the
figures deputed as intermediate in the communication processes.
182021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
Figure 3. Lexical correspondace Analysis
192021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
Main conclusions and further research perspectives
This first exploration has finally shown how the most accredited Italian
scientists set their public exposition related to the new media sphere. The main
hybrid approach, followed by most of the scientists observed, can be related to
several factors on which focus later for further needed deepening that must be
planned also by continuing to follow the vaccination program and its
communication trends held abroad. A further comparison between Italy and
other European Countries could be in fact useful in order to better comprehend
these factors. More European Countries, such as France, Germany and UK, in
fact, frame the communication of science availing of few experts officially
related to Governments and Institutional research agencies. In this way, the
Italian framing turns out to be more liberalized in terms of contribution for the
public scientific debate, suggesting that the distance from a pure
disintermediated digital vocation could not only be related to the idea of Italy
as a laggard Country in terms of adaptation to the innovation in
communication, while as sociopolitical context where arises a particular
relation between science and politics. In this way, for example, we can wonder
if the political sphere influences the scientific communication, scientists’
interests, strategies and exposition styles related to this fundamental step
fighting the pandemic.
Considering what has been shown, a further research perspective can be
for example oriented on the base of the following hypothesis examples:
The social media use of Roberto Burioni seems to be as resonance
chamber of the framing processes he leads in TV, while Ilaria Capua adapt her
twitter account as a promotion space while her Facebook account as a press
office managed by third people. Do they don’t address controversial
argumentation to protect their reputation and avoid troubles with the public
broadcasting service? Does Pregliasco do the same to stay far by any
ideological or political polarization misunderstanding rightly of his government
collaboration? Reading the Science Reputation overall, Zangrillo has been
qualified as the most contradictory scientist. Does he keep a low profile to
avoid any other public embarrassment?
In conclusion, in light of this first exploration, becomes needed a more
required deepening of the scientific communication frame worked during the
pandemic era, maybe starting from the above mentioned example-questions.
Moreover, since we’re talking about a current and an in progress mutable
phenomenon, we’re forced to press further on our investigation following and
observing the related events that feature the vaccination issue due to the
multiple surprises and releases that the vaccinal program can reserve in terms
of scientists exposition in the public debate.
202021-4354-AJSS-SOC – 02 JUL 2021
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