The discourse of the pandemic in science blogs: «Scientific American» on-line

Abstract

The discourse of the pandemic in science blogs: «Scientific American» on-line. With the spread of new media, public debate on science has moved to the internet. Research has shown that new online media represent the primary sources of science information for the general public: people search the internet to look up the meaning of a scientific term, to learn more about a scientific theory or discovery they are curious about, and sometimes to replace specialized medical consultations with Wikipedia. Science blogs occupy a significant part of the digital space where this scientific debate occurs, with some platforms becoming leading tools of science communication to a broad audience. The aim of this paper is to analyze the discourse of the pandemic in the coronavirus blog of «Scientific American» (SA), the well-known popular science magazine where the likes of Albert Einstein, Francis Crick and many other Nobel laureates have written. The perspective adopted is that of linguistics and rhetoric of science. In particular, moving from the analysis of science genres as in the American New Rhetoric, the present chapter explores the loci of argumentation on the pandemic and the linguistic shape they take in SA communication to the mixed audience of those who read about science on the web.