When scientific experts come to be media stars: An evolutionary model tested by analysing coronavirus media coverage across Italian newspapers

Abstract

The article aims to understand the process through which scientific experts gain and maintain remarkable media visibility. It has been analysed a corpus of 213,875 articles published by the eight most important Italian newspapers across the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. By exploring this process along the different phases of the management of the emergency in Italy, it was observed that some scientific experts achieve high media visibility—and sometimes notwithstanding their low academic reputation–thus becoming a sort of “media star”. Scientific literature about the relationship between experts and media is considerable, nonetheless we found a lack of theoretical models able to analyse under which conditions experts are able to enter and to remain prominent in the media sphere. A Media Experts Evolutionary Model (MEEM) is proposed in order to analyze the main conditions under which experts can acquire visibility and how they can “survive” in media arena. We proceeded by analysing visibility of experts during SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and considering both their individual credentials previously acquired and the media environment processes of selection; MEEM acts hence as a combination of these two levels. Regarding the credentials, we accounted for i) institutional role/position, ii) previous media visibility, and iii) matches between scientific credentials and media competence. In our analysis, we collected evidence that high visibility in newspapers can be seen as evolutionary in the sense that some profiles—i.e. a particular configuration of credentials—are more adapt to specific media environments.

The Age of the Expert—COVID-19, Expertise, and Conflicts of Interest in Austrian Media Reporting

“…The only expert who dissented from the official position and questioned the dominant narrative, Martin Sprenger, soon left the task force, which is perhaps the best evidence to suggest that dissent was not seen as acceptable and that by leaving the task force and dissenting from the mainstream, Sprenger inadvertently lost his expert status. This is in line with a study on scientific experts in the media by Neresini et al (2023), which found that "being a media star is not an irreversible achievement." By drawing on opinions from individuals that echoed and complemented each other's statements, an illusion of consent was created, which made any diverging claim or narrative seem fringe and outrageous.…”