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Part of
Persuasion in Specialized Discourse: A multidisciplinary perspective
Edited by Chiara Degano, Dora Renna and Francesca Santulli
[Argumentation in Context 22] 2024
► pp. 71–91

Chapter 3
Arguments and framing strategies in Italian public discourse about measures to contrast the Covid-19 pandemic

| Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano
| Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano
| Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri, IRCCS, Milano

The Covid-19 pandemic has been described as a creeping crisis, which is a kind of crisis that develops slowly, threatens common values, and is partially or insufficiently addressed by authorities. In order for an event to appear as a “creeping crisis” citizens have to agree that it threatens common and core values. Only when this happens, a response can be organized. This study reports on arguments and framing strategies used by policy makers in Italy to define the virus and thus justify the restrictive measures meant to stop it. Attempts to persuade the population to adopt restrictive measures during the pandemic relied on pragmatic argumentation, in which values such as ‘life’, ‘health’ and ‘essential’ played a significant role.

Keywords: COVID-19, pragmatic argumentation, public policy communication, practical reasoning, values, framing strategies
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Italian context
  • 3.Pragmatic argumentation and value-based arguments
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Description of the corpus
    • 4.2Results of the analysis
      • 4.2.1Argument schemes
      • 4.2.2Framing strategies used to describe the virus
      • 4.2.3Framing strategies used to describe the restrictive measures
  • 5.Values in the arguments supporting adherence to restrictive measures
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
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