Abstract

FERREIRA, Gil Baptista. Conspiracy Theories in Times of the Covid-19 Pandemic: Populism, Social Media and Misinformation. Comunicação e Sociedade [online]. 2021, vol.40, pp.129-148.  Epub Dec 20, 2021. ISSN 1645-2089.  https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.40(2021).3324.

Social media platforms have for a long time been recognized as great disseminators of misinformation on health. Previous studies found a positive association between the use of social media as the main source of information and the acceptance of forms of misinformation, such as conspiracy theories. The association between populist attitudes and the valuation of information through social media is also described. From a questionnaire applied to 242 respondents after the first state of emergency of the covid-19 pandemic (March 2020) in Portugal, this study aims to identify the background and pre-requisites for the belief in misinformation. The data obtained suggest that individuals with populist feelings have less trust in institutional strategies to fight the pandemic, privileging social media as a source of information and revealing a greater acceptance of the conspiracy theories on the disease. The connection, documented in the literature, between the belief in conspiracy theories and risk behaviours recommends that measures be adopted to combat misinformation factors.

Keywords : media; social media; misinformation; conspiracy theories; covid-19; infodemic.

        · abstract in Portuguese     · text in English | Portuguese     · English ( pdf ) | Portuguese ( pdf )