Twenty journalists and communicators tell what unconscious violence is to them. Independent narrative medicine project brings out the need for more training and recalls Agenda 2030 commitments.
Milan-Vicenza, Feb. 26, 2025 – Health: “fight, war, dark evil, ugly evil, fighter, long battle, incurable evil, fight cancer.” Environment: “save the planet, earth has fever, crisis, denier, blame, small actions, water bomb.” Scientific research: ‘for the first time a study shows, now science confirms, unveiled how, it is scientifically proven, new treatment available in Italy, first treatment for, fight big killers coming soon’.
These are just some of the ‘slow violence’ words, broken down into macro-categories, that have arisen from the independent applied narrative medicine project led by Silvia Pogliaghi and Elena Trentin, freelance science journalists. Entitled Science, Media and the Grammar of Slow Violence: reflections on the forms of sensationalism in communication, it was carried out as part of Istud Sanità e Salute’s 15th Master’s in Applied Narrative Medicine.
The inspiration for the project came from a theme brought to light in the environmental field by scholar Rob Nixon. He was the first to speak, in 2011, of slow violence, defining it as “a violence that happens gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that dissipates across time and space, a violence that creates friction and is usually not considered violence at all.”
Slow violence could be translated into Italian as ‘unconscious violence’, but in an age when we talk about nonviolent communication, how many are familiar with it? The project showed that slow violence is an expression unknown to the vast majority of journalists and science communicators, who nevertheless did not shy away from trying to decipher it, guided by a semi-structured outline, bringing it back within the boundaries of their daily work. In doing so, they helped draw a picture of its declinations, its impact on people and prospects for the future. The latter included an almost unanimous request to learn more about unconscious violence through specific training.
“We wanted to devote ourselves to this topic inspired by Maria Giulia Marini’s book, Non-violent Communication and Narrative Medicine for Promoting Sustainable Health, Ed. Springer Nature, 2024, in which slow violence is examined from the perspective of health communication, explains Silvia Pogliaghi. With our project, we thought we would go a step further to understand if and how slow violence can contribute to sensationalism in science-based communication, exploring its perception in a small sample of professionals, without claiming to propose theses or to come to conclusions representative of a certain trend.”
The study was joined by 20 journalists and science communicators who anonymously and voluntarily narrated themselves over the course of a month. The invitation involved responding to 29 narrative stimuli developed according to the methodology of narrative medicine.
A clear preponderance of women responded (only three men) from northern Italy, ranging in age from 31 to 50, with 20 years of experience in the field, mostly freelance and with collaborations in both journalism and communication (publishing, health care companies, communication agencies, etc.). Almost half of the respondents cover health topics (medicine, wellness, healthcare), followed by environmental and science topics more generally.
The narratives would highlight some confusion in trying to describe slow violence. The latter was traced back to: shortcuts, acronyms, Englishisms / inexact, extreme and absolute words implying an apparent impossibility of interpreting them in any other way than the preponderant way / a betrayal to the reader / suspicion, conspiracy, accusation / discredit, denigration / conditions or states of affairs as inexorable and definitive.
Many would argue that they do not resort to slow violence in any way (no never / it never happens to me / I don’t make it happen) or that it is used by colleagues who are inadequately trained, unprofessional, or caught up in haste (it may happen that those who do not concentrate and reread the texts they have written or do not remember the rules of ethics; those who get caught up in the speed of text delivery and do not double-check; those who are inadequately trained; those with a reduced scientific vocabulary and a lack of empathy as well) use them.
Unconscious violence would also be perceived in certain images disseminated by the media, especially when they have to do with health. In this case, the risk of possible spectacularization or instrumentalization is felt. Hence the prevalence, in the first instance of negative valence emotions (distress, apprehension, irritation) reported by journalists and communicators upon viewing four photos.
Half of the respondents would also identify slow violence in work relationships and dynamics, calling into question phenomena such as gender discrimination, especially toward women, economic interests and power games, poor ethics and deontology, hectic work schedules, and restrained writing spaces. However, there is a strong call for more concrete and responsible efforts to make communication more equitable, respectful and sustainable, and to avert those practices and behaviors that would generate slow violence. In this sense, the responses received can be read in light of at least eight of the 17 Sustainability Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda: health and well-being (goal 3), quality education (goal 4), gender equality (goal 5), decent work and economic growth (goal 8), reducing inequality (goal 10), combating climate change (goal 13), peace, justice and strong institutions (goal 16), and partnerships for the goals (goal 17).
Overall, slow violence is perceived as a real problem and, as such, worthy of being brought to light.
“Our project shows how slow violence, despite running under the radar and not known to most, represents a problem that colleagues recognize. The examples given open up various directions as they range from the use of written words to work dynamics. This helps us to better characterize slow violence and the grammar by which it manifests itself. Our next step will be to follow up on the request for training that has come in droves from colleagues, opening this opportunity to stakeholders as well,” Elena Trentin concludes.
Silvia Pogliaghi and Elena Trentin, journalists and science communicators.