Communication

Article published on the ASSET website

How many ways are there to tell a story and who will do it?

In these months we tried to answer those questions by running an analysis of the most relevant tweets and accounts about some key words, chosen by the editorial board, focused on Zika virus and vaccines.

During epidemics, pandemics, natural or environmental disasters, the problem of communication is one of the primary issues to deal with, and scientists and stakeholders know this well. It is a two-sided issue: communicating risk without creating any alarms, and an effective communication between persons who manage emergencies.

India is facing an aggressive outbreak of dengue fever – probably the worst in the last ten years – and risk communication from authorities proved to be very ineffective: the lack of proper strategies for both prevention and reaction to dengue outbreaks resulted in low levels of public awareness and poor coordination between different institutions.

In the last 15 years, European firms and public bodies have been more and more invited to invest in communication activity, in order to prevent conflicts and guarantee access to environmental information for citizens. The sixth European environmental program (1600/2002 EC) considers “the improvement of collaboration and partnership with organizations, a strategic approach for environmental goals achievements” and defines “voluntary-based commitments an essential element”.

It is so obvious, it appears trivial. The City of Science must be immediately rebuilt, back to there it was born. That same place where somebody was able to partially destroy the material structure – as explained by Vittorio Silvestrini – who was on the right track.
The reasons, which may seem trivial, prompting us – imposing on us – to rebuild the City of Science back where it was born, are two in number. They are both completely different.