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Users' Reactions to COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories on Social Media

Christian Fuchs (University of Westminster, UK)

Communicating COVID-19

ISBN: 978-1-80117-723-8, eISBN: 978-1-80117-720-7

Publication date: 6 September 2021

Abstract

This chapter asks: How do Internet users react to COVID-19 conspiracy theories spread on social media? It presents the findings of a content analysis and critical discourse analysis of user comments collected from social media postings that advance COVID-19 conspiracy theories. A total of 2,847 comments made to seven social media postings whose authors support COVID-19 conspiracy theories were collected, coded and analysed.

The analysis shows the contested character of the communication of COVID-19 conspiracy theories and the role of the friend/enemy scheme, verbal attacks, violent threats, satire and humour in such communication processes.

Keywords

Citation

Fuchs, C. (2021), "Users' Reactions to COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories on Social Media", Communicating COVID-19 (Society Now), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 145-189. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80117-720-720211009

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021 Christian Fuchs. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited