The Double Uncertainty: Navigating Healthcare Risks By Scientists and Journalists during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The mediatization of expert knowledge represents one of the cornerstones of navigating uncertainties related to various societal crises and risks. The societal importance of mediated expert knowledge proved particularly important during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Within the context of uncertainty, experts represented one of the key actors addressed by journalists who struggled to come to terms with what could or will come as next. Against this backdrop, this study aimed to explore the media production processes amidst the healthcare crisis. The study draws on semi-structured interviews carried out in Czechia with both mainstream and scientific journalists and with biomedical experts and experts from the social sciences and humanities. The analysis suggests that the navigation of healthcare uncertainties was significantly affected by the media production logic. Moreover, the relations between scientists and journalists were typical of prematurity and underpinned by both sides' bilateral lack of experience, inevitably developed in the highly emotionalized context and the high sense of urgency. In these constellations of a newly evolving communication ecosystem, scientific claims were often mediated by many journalists who, until recently, had not worked with scientific statements. At the same time, the scientific claims were provided by many scientists who, until recently, had not interacted with the mass media. Different communication strategies that contributed to amplifying or mitigating healthcare uncertainties were therefore determined by another layer of uncertainties concerning the roles and positions of the key actors within the communication landscape. The notion of double uncertainty is introduced here to point out the complexity of interactions between journalists and scientists.