![]() ![]() 5) which needs to be filled with stories that can help make sense of it. According to Seeger and Sellnow (2016), as a highly uncertain and deeply disruptive situation, crisis creates “a narrative space, a communication vacuum, or a meaning deficit” ( Seeger and Sellnow, 2016, p. Indeed, when uncertainty and confusion are at their most acute peak, the way a crisis is communicated becomes a central component of the crisis management itself ( Reynolds et al., 2005 Coombs, 2007 Seeger and Sellnow, 2016 Patrona, 2018). ![]() Such major disruption of established paradigms therefore required urgent intervention and the rapid devise of effective strategies, including communicative. The combination of fear and confusion that COVID-19 was bringing represented a global threat to individuals and societies around the world, while to countries and industries, it was painting the terrifying picture of a global economic collapse. Therefore, without any effective diagnosis, therapeutic modalities, enough intensive care facilities, prevention protocols, or vaccine technologies, the most urgent challenge of all was how to contain the spread of a new virus transmitted by respiratory means in the context of the highly globalized world society of the twenty-first century. Although it seemed to have a lower infection fatality rate, the novel coronavirus was spreading much faster. In 2004, SARS had been called “the first pandemic of the 21st century” ( LeDuc and Barry, 2004) as it had spread across 29 countries, infected 8,098 people over the course of 8 months, and killed 774 (WHO) just a month after the first COVID-19 confirmed case, the total global case count had surpassed that of SARS. Although national and international public health officials and practitioners thought that they were confronted with what at first seemed to be a déjà vu scenario, the speed and volume of the coronavirus contagion rate eventually made it clear that COVID-19 was a much more severe infectious disease than SARS. For instance, how to distinguish the diagnosis from a seasonal flu, what the mortality rate and the incubation period were, what the best way to treat patients was, and how medical personnel and the most vulnerable people in society could be best protected ( Fidler, 2004, p. Much of the same questions about the SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) that had puzzled scientists 17 years before reemerged. The COVID-19 virus was not the first time that the causative agent behind SARS-a novel kind of coronavirus-was identified in human populations the SARS epidemic of 2002–2003 had preceded it ( Drosten et al., 2003 Ksiazek et al., 2003). The article also presents a comprehensive “timeline of narratives” which opens avenues for a critical reflection on the impact such narratives may have had on the understanding of the crisis, including the creation of a negative climate of division and inappropriate crisis responses. Attribution of blame and blameworthiness was also found to be a common pattern across countries according to which Italians were framed as wrongdoers but also as deserving blame. The analysis shows that the narratives attached to nation-specific decisions were highly culturalized and connected to country-specific shared experiences, such as a sense of national exceptionalism built in opposition with the denigration of Italy as the Other-identity. Informed by Critical Discourse Analysis theory and using narrative networks as a framework for the critical analysis of narratives, this study analyzes the discourse strategies employed by experts, politicians and other social actors from Spain, France, the Netherlands, and the UK when presenting their domestic measures in relation to Italy's response to coronavirus. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, when in February 2020 Italy was experiencing more cases than any other country, the Italian response to the crisis originated debates over how to best respond to the outbreak. ![]() Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C 2DH), University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, LuxembourgĬrisis narratives shape public understanding and, consequently, the response to the crisis itself. ![]()
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