DIGSUM is happy to present a new issue of The Journal of Digital Social Research, our open access journal. Trust, Media, and Science in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic is a special issue, edited by guest editors Donya Alinejad, Adriano José Habed, and Jaron Harambam, with a special foreword by José van Dijck.
JDSR publishes high-quality articles within all areas of digital social research, including sociology, informatics, pedagogy, education science, gender studies, law, economy, social work and geography. We welcome and encourage cross-disciplinary submissions. Read the full issue [here]. Submit your own work [here].
ABOUT THE ISSUE
The first global pandemic of the information age has revealed how the coordinated spread of accurate information and the communication of relevant expert knowledge rely on functioning media channels, platforms, and institutions. As such, the coronavirus pandemic has exposed, and sometimes even catalyzed, longer-running societal processes through which traditional gatekeepers of scientific truth and expertise have been challenged or side-stepped, as alternative actors and institutions have taken the media stage and influenced policymaking spheres. To what extent has the changing media landscape contributed to (dis)trust in expertise? How do different political contexts shape the dynamics between science, policy, and diverse media publics? And in which ways does the contemporary spread of (mis/dis)information take shape? The articles in this collection address these questions by presenting original empirical analyses from a range of geographic and disciplinary vantage points.
Trust, Media, and Science in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Donya Alinejad, Adriano José Habed & Jaron Harambam with a preface by José van Dijck
One Biologist, One Million Deaths: Expertise Between Science, Social Media, and Politics During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Brazil
Carlos D’Andréa & Verônica Costa
Network Information Pro and Contra Bolsonaro’s Discourse on Coronavirus
Nina Santos
Meme-ifying Data: The Rise of Public Health Influencers on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter During COVID-19
Shana MacDonald & Brianna I. Wiens
Alternative Credibility, Phenomenological Empathy, and the Plandemic: Trust in Conspiracy Theories During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Tarun Kattumana
Distrusting Consensus: How a Uniform Corona Pandemic Narrative Fostered Suspicion and Conspiracy Theories
Jaron Harambam
Light at the End of the Tunnel? The Staging of Expertise During the COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign
Robert Prettner, Hedwig te Molder, Maarten A. Hajer & Rens Vliegenthart