Abstract
The outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by what the World Health Organization has described as an ‘infodemic’: the rapid and uncontrolled dissemination of misinformation and disinformation relating to the virus across online and offline social networks and media outlets. Focusing particularly on the conspiracy theory that the coronavirus outbreak was somehow linked to the rollout of 5G telephony technology, which circulated since late January 2020 and culminated in arson attacks on mobile phone towers in the United Kingdom and other countries in early April, this chapter traces the trajectory of this conspiracy theory across social, fringe, and mainstream media. Drawing on data from Facebook and the global media database GDELT, we show how early claims of a link between COVID-19 and 5G that originated with far-right and alternative health groups and outlets circulated among fringe networks before receiving substantial amplification as minor and major celebrities, as well as tabloid and entertainment media outlets, began to share such stories. This detailed case study is illustrative of the dissemination dynamics for misinformation and disinformation well beyond the COVID-19/5G case itself; it also points to the key inflection points at which the spread of such misinformation may be reduced.
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Notes
- 1.
We use the terms ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ together in this article as they are distinguished by intentionality (Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017, p. 20): misinformation is false information that is shared in the mistaken belief that the information is accurate, while disinformation deliberately aims to confuse and mislead. For the purposes of our analysis in this chapter, however, this distinction is irrelevant: whether it is shared deliberately or unintentionally, in either case, the end result is that incorrect information is disseminated further.
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Acknowledgements
This research is supported by the Australian Research Council projects DP200101317 Evaluating the Challenge of ‘Fake News’ and Other Malinformation and FT130100703 Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere. Axel Bruns, Stephen Harrington, and Edward Hurcombe acknowledge continued support from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) through the Digital Media Research Centre. Facebook data are provided courtesy of CrowdTangle.
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Bruns, A., Harrington, S., Hurcombe, E. (2021). Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories: Tracing Misinformation Trajectories from the Fringes to the Mainstream. In: Lewis, M., Govender, E., Holland, K. (eds) Communicating COVID-19. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79735-5_12
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