The Covid-19 pandemic escalated demand for scientific explanations and guidance, creating opportunities for scientists to become publicly visible. In this study, we compared characteristics of visible scientists during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic (January to December 2020) across 16 countries. We find that the scientists who became visible largely matched socio-cultural criteria that have characterised visible scientists in the past (e.g., age, gender, credibility, public image, involvement in controversies). However, there were limited tendencies that scientists commented outside their areas of expertise. We conclude that the unusual circumstances created by Covid-19 did not change the phenomenon of visible scientists in significant ways.
`Pandem-icons' — exploring the characteristics of highly visible scientists during the Covid-19 pandemic
by
Marina Joubert
,
Lars Guenther
,
Jenni Metcalfe
,
Michelle Riedlinger
,
Anwesha Chakraborty
,
Toss Gascoigne
,
Bernard Schiele
,
Ayelet Baram-Tsabari
,
Dmitry Malkov
,
Eliana Fattorini
,
Gema Revuelta
,
Germana Barata
,
Jan Riise
,
Justin T. Schröder
,
Maja Horst
,
Margaret Kaseje
,
Marnell Kirsten
,
Martin W. Bauer
,
Massimiano Bucchi
,
Natália Flores
,
Orli Wolfson
,
Tingjie Chen