Abstract

The article presents the results of an analysis relating to the use of the war metaphor in the representation of Sars-Cov-2 focused on the entire archive of verbal contents of the seven generalist prime time newscasts – Tg1, Tg2, Tg3, Tg4, Tg5, Studio Aperto, Tg La 7 – in the year from February 2020 to February 2021. For this purpose, we have conducted a comparative analysis between the recurrence of war images and other metaphors observed from previous research on public thematization of epidemics (such as travel and disaster). The article discusses the specifics of the Italian case, trying to contextualize it in the history of the use of the war metaphor in medicine and in the framework of the scientific literature dedicated to the topic.