Once upon a Time in Science: Storytelling and the Narrative Spectrum

Effective science communication is a science itself. Following the so-called ABT Model (Olson, 2015), a corpus of scientifically reliable written texts adopted by science communicators during the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic is analysed in order to highlight the ways in which scientific communication fits into the folds of non-scientific disclosure through texts. The authenticity, correctness and appropriateness of any disclosed scientific information are not called into question: instead, a multi-layered reflection, leading to a reappraisal of both the fundamental responsibility of the science communicator and the important role of storytelling as a tool for explaining and simplifying scientific content, are underlined. The issue at stake in the discussions about health narratives that is currently being held is huge: the outbreak of the pandemic has had a devastating impact on our lives, and we are still wondering whether this worldwide catastrophe could have been contained or even prevented. The contribution will focus on the most effective ways to produce a scientifically motivated impact on any public audience of non-expert users.