In this paper, I explore anti-science rhetorics in the Italian public sphere vis-à-vis the peculiar, mediated context for expert and science communication that has characterized the Italian communication of Covid-19 during the pandemic.

By reconstructing the events that led to a failed political attempt of muzzling the public communication of expertise in Italy, I argue that the pandemic highlighted a need, for experts engaging in public communication of science, to develop a rhetorical awareness of the contexts, platforms, and constraints of the media in which they are invited to speak to general publics. Developing this enhanced awareness of the rhetorical and argumentative contexts that they enter when they cross over from the technical and into the public sphere will help prevent the scientists’ exploitation or silencing by politics or even worse, being misunderstood by their publics––especially when they enter the public sphere via traditional mass media (like Italian TV or radio) that thrive from spectacularizing their content, or social media with its complicated attention economies. In other words, by reading this failed political attempt to muzzle the scientists, here I re-center the importance of public communication of science on the media in our contemporary democratic context and emerging post-pandemic world.

Furthermore, this increased importance of science communication in the public sphere in times of Covid-19 has also created a pressing exigence for scientists and experts to enhance their rhetorical understanding of the public platforms in which their science communication appears. Learning to avoid the argumentative traps of contemporary media ecologies and knowing how to navigate mediated communication is one way the scientists can work to prevent future proposals that block their access to public media and most importantly it is one solution to improve their public communication of expertise tout court.Sommer2020+++