Irene Broer writes about the editorial response of the Science Media Center Germany (SMC) to the outbreak of the pandemic in a special issue of the Journal of Science Communication, which focuses exclusively on communication in connection with COVID-19.
Irene Broer was part of the editorial team of the SMC for an ethnographic research stay of several weeks in January 2020, when at the same time the first cases of corona were reported in China and a little later in Germany. Her paper offers new insights into the journalistic balancing act between scientific uncertainties on the one hand and the urgent need for expert knowledge on the other hand. The article is available free of charge as an open access publication.
You can download the article here (pdf).
Abstract
This paper offers an ethnographic account of the editorial response to the COVID-19 outbreak by the Science Media Center Germany. Ethnographic research data was gathered during a 4-week field stay in January 2020, which coincided with the first weeks of the COVID-19 outbreak. The findings offer insights into how the editorial staff grappled with the scientific non-knowledge and uncertainty that marked the initial phase of the global COVID-19 outbreak, while simultaneously dealing with acute journalistic demands for expertise.
Broer, I. (2020): Rapid Reaction: Ethnographic Insights into the Science Media Center and Its Response to the COVID-19 Outbreak. In: JCOM 19 (05), A08. https://doi.org/10.22323/2.19050208
