Ebola in the Public Sphere

This study examines how Ebola is transformed from purely scientific knowledge to public’s thinking through media communication, using Spain as a case study. To do so, this research carried out a lexical analysis in both classic media communication and social network communication (Twitter). The results showed that traditional news used a reified discourse pattern prescribing the discourse of scientists and authorities. Tweets, in contrast, adhered to a consensual pattern of discourse, characterized by heterogeneity of representation and intensive symbolic ideas. The implications of this familiarization of knowledge about science via media communication and the effect of social networks on how we should face future epidemics are considered.