The decline of trust towards scientists after Covid-19 : A pilot study in the Italian context

The COVID-19 pandemic has once again highlighted the long-standing issue of trust in science and scientists. Many approaches, however, tend to either analyse science as a fully autonomous entity – attributing the decline in trust to external factors – or treat trust as a binary concept, considering it either present or absent. Instead of assuming a straight- forward causal relationship from external influences to science itself, this article adopts perspectives that explore how science interacts with other social subsystems. The goal is to offer a more nuanced approach that moves beyond binary distinctions, such as those between internal scientific processes and external societal factors – distinctions often implied in terms like “infodemic,” “disinformation,” or “pseudoscience.” To achieve this, two research directions were pursued. First, the study examined two expert conflicts that shaped public debate in Italy during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, requiring scientists to engage with different social subsystem logics. Second, a pilot study was conducted on a sample of online readers from two Italian newspapers to move beyond a binary under- standing of trust and explore attitudes toward science and scientists. The findings reveal a more complex perspective on trust in scientists, identifying five distinct attitudes influenced by both how scientists communicate and the underlying philosophy of science they convey in media interactions.