Critical Thinker
Senior Member.
Throughout Metabunk are references to the importance of having reliable sources of information and that various outlets like Infowars, NaturalNews, RussiaToday, Sputnik and others often make false claims to support a political narrative. Within the US people have responded differently to the Coronavirus pandemic based upon where they get their News from, that often is a reflection of their political alignment.
The local perspectives on the Coronavirus re-openings and the compliance with measures recommended by the scientific community in one of the studies cited in the article below found:
From the WashingtonPost: New research explores how conservative media misinformation may have intensified the severity of the pandemic
Excerpts linking to the studies:
The local perspectives on the Coronavirus re-openings and the compliance with measures recommended by the scientific community in one of the studies cited in the article below found:
The authors used anonymous location data from millions of cellphones to explore how the popularity of Fox News in a given Zip code related to social distancing practices there. By March 15, they found, a 10 percent increase in Fox News viewership within a Zip code reduced its residents’ propensity to stay home, in compliance with public health guidelines, by about 1.3 percentage points.
From the WashingtonPost: New research explores how conservative media misinformation may have intensified the severity of the pandemic
In recent weeks, three studies have focused on conservative media’s role in fostering confusion about the seriousness of the coronavirus. Taken together, they paint a picture of a media ecosystem that amplifies misinformation, entertains conspiracy theories and discourages audiences from taking concrete steps to protect themselves and others.
The end result, according to one of the studies, is that infection and mortality rates are higher in places where one pundit who initially downplayed the severity of the pandemic — Fox News’s Sean Hannity — reaches the largest audiences.
“We are receiving an incredible number of studies and solid data showing that consuming far-right media and social media content was strongly associated with low concern about the virus at the onset of the pandemic,” said Irene Pasquetto, chief editor of the Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, which published one of the studies.
Excerpts linking to the studies:
Misinformation and conspiracy theories
In April, Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and Dolores Albarracin of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign published a peer-reviewed study examining how Americans’ media diets affected their beliefs about the coronavirus.
Beliefs lead to actions
A working paper posted by the National Bureau of Economic Research in May examined whether these incorrect beliefs affected real-world behavior.
How conservative media consumers’ behavior could worsen the pandemic
Another recent working paper, by economists at the University of Chicago and other institutions, similarly finds that Fox News viewers are less likely to comply with public health guidelines than consumers of other media. But their paper takes the analysis two steps further: It finds that Fox viewers aren’t a monolith, with fans of some media personalities acting distinctly from others. It also provides evidence that those behavioral differences are contributing to the spread of the coronavirus and mortality rate of covid-19 the disease it causes, in certain areas.