Covid-19: realtà e rappresentazione: la “democrazia comunicativa” alla prova: tra tutela della salute e diritti di libertà = Covid-19: reality and representation: testing “communicative democracy”: from health protection to freedoms and rights

This special issue of TCRS collects a series of contributions expressly dedicated to the issue of public and institutional communication during the period of the Covid-19 health emergency in Italy, the social regulation that was implemented with various provisions, the epistemological and legal-political profiles entailed. The management of the «pandemic» has shown in a paradigmatic way the close interdependence of all these factors: communicating the emergency has in fact involved the elaboration of official narratives and corresponding languages and strategies; sparked an «infodemic» backlash of counter-narratives on social media; it has even become a primary source of knowledge of the legal rules. The content of which – and this is the most relevant aspect – has touched the raw nerves of the coexistence between state and society, concerning the rule of law, the protection of fundamental rights (above all freedom and health), democratic exercise and the «exception». The justification of the imposed limitations and obligations, then, (vaccination, health passport, e-tracking), allegedly based on the indisputability of the scientific judgments of a «committee of experts», has prompted in these pages a reflection on the role of science (and of the medical one in particular) in political decisions at the highest levels, re-proposing the theme of healthocracy.