{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,11]],"date-time":"2026-02-11T22:19:20Z","timestamp":1770848360793,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":37,"publisher":"University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)","issue":"2","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Communication &amp; Medicine"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,1]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>One of the main, unsolved controversies that has developed throughout the COVID-19 emergency concerned the safety and multifaceted communication of its vaccine. Therefore, it represents an exemplary starting place for reflections on the linguistic and discursive strategies of medical risk and uncertainty communication enacted by authorities who must reassure and guide nonspecialists and professionals. The present study compares two institutions with differing communicative frameworks, i.e., the US Department of Defense, which follows a militaristic \u201cnatural objectivism\u201d model implemented in the course of an emergency, and the World Health Organization (WHO), which raises ethical questions on the equity and humanitarian aspects of any vaccination delivery by means of a \u201ccultural relativism\u201d framework. The study makes use of two corpora consisting of various texts and documents (guides, press releases, memos, and frequently asked questions [FAQs]) from the two websites to examine their discursive and stylistic practices. The analysis begins with the multimodal risk communication presented in the two institutions\u2019 webpages on COVID-19 vaccines, complemented by a corpus stylistics and corpus-assisted discourse analysis on the aspects of storytelling, transparency, trust building, hedging, probability, and approximation. The study highlights, on the one hand, the DoD's confidence and continuous experience, but also its limited public information and, on the other hand, the WHO's transparency and trust engenderment, but also its emphasis on uncertainty. In conclusion, it argues and reflects on a possible convergence of the two approaches in providing reassuring and trustworthy health care communication in the face of uncertainty.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3138\/commed-2024-0016","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,11]],"date-time":"2026-02-11T21:22:28Z","timestamp":1770844948000},"page":"189-203","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["(Un)certainty and risk communication on COVID-19 vaccines: A comparison between civilian and military discourse"],"prefix":"10.3138","volume":"20","author":[{"given":"Roxanne Barbara","family":"Doerr","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Universit\u00e0 degli Studi di Brescia, Brescia, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1696","reference":[{"key":"r1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"346","DOI":"10.1177\/0075424204269894","volume":"32","author":"Baker Paul","year":"2004","journal-title":"Journal of English Linguistics"},{"key":"r2","first-page":"1","volume":"12","author":"Batteux Eleonore","year":"2022","journal-title":"BMJ Open"},{"key":"r3","volume-title":"Ecological politics in the age of risk","author":"Beck Ulrich","year":"1995"},{"key":"r4","first-page":"179","volume-title":"Risk perception, risk communication, and its application to EMF Exposure: Proceedings of the World Health Organization\/ICNRP international conference (ICNIRP 5\/98)","author":"Covello Vincent T.","year":"1998"},{"key":"r5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"514","DOI":"10.1016\/j.tics.2022.03.002","volume":"26","author":"Dhami Mandeep K.","year":"2022","journal-title":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences"},{"key":"r6","first-page":"227","volume":"23","author":"Doerr Roxanne Barbara","year":"2019","journal-title":"Anglistica AION"},{"key":"r7","first-page":"105","volume":"9","author":"Doerr Roxanne Barbara","year":"2022","journal-title":"Lingue Culture Mediazioni \u2013 Languages Cultures Mediation"},{"key":"r8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.3726\/b19248","volume-title":"Academic style proofreading: an introduction","author":"Doerr Roxanne Barbara","year":"2023"},{"key":"r9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"7500","DOI":"10.1016\/j.vaccine.2022.08.017","volume":"40","author":"Elliott Brian P.","year":"2022","journal-title":"Vaccine"},{"key":"r10","first-page":"1","volume":"18","author":"Gesualdo Francesco","year":"2022","journal-title":"Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics"},{"key":"r11","first-page":"1","volume":"7","author":"Grimshaw Jeremy M.","year":"2012","journal-title":"Implementation Science"},{"key":"r12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"144","DOI":"10.21140\/mcuj.20221301007","volume":"13","author":"Hall John E.","year":"2022","journal-title":"Journal of Advanced Military Studies"},{"key":"r13","first-page":"2","volume":"13","author":"Hanafiah Khayriyyah Mohd","year":"2021","journal-title":"Viruses"},{"key":"r14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"581","DOI":"10.1007\/s11673-020-10057-0","volume":"17","author":"Hooker Claire","year":"2020","journal-title":"Journal of Bioethical Inquiry"},{"key":"r15","unstructured":"Jacob, C\u00e9cile, Pierre Hausemer, Adam Zagoni-Bogsch & Audra Diers-Lawson. 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