Abstract
Early media coverage of COVID-19, between 1 January and 31 March 2020, provided Alternative Media Personalities (AMPs) an opportunity to provide conspiratorial misinformation to their online audiences. Far-right AMPs may reframe sociopolitical aspects of risk to produce ‘fake-news’, amplifying future risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF) to define factors of risk amplification, this study conducted a framing analysis upon 1,895 minutes of streamed video content from a popular, far-right, AMP regarding COVID-19. Significant differences in frame expression suggested that AMPs hold greater value in specific frames when providing infotainment based upon authentic interpretations of risk. A lack of significant change in frame expression over time suggests that AMPs may rely upon media templates when communicating risk to their audience. Qualitative data suggest that different aspects of risk amplification work in concert to provide discursive contexts for far-right AMPs to define risks from their ideological standpoint. The data provided by this study better outline some of the complexities facing scientific communications strategies which seek to directly address misinformation online.
Highlights
Initial media coverage of COVID-19 faced challenges of relaying uncertain facts of a novel disease to an information-seeking audience (Brown, 2020; Dietrich et al, 2020)
Using the Social Amplification of Risk Framework, this study analysed the framing of COVID-19 risk information within over 1800 minutes of alternative media video content
This framing analysis provided empirical evidence to suggest that mechanisms of risk amplification are central to the development of far-right conspiracy theories around health risks
Summary
Initial media coverage of COVID-19 faced challenges of relaying uncertain facts of a novel disease to an information-seeking audience (Brown, 2020; Dietrich et al, 2020). Such media landscapes presented the opportunity for content creators to amplify fakenews and scientific misinformation, possibly influencing the perception of risk within YouTube channel. Mister Metokur is a popular AMP within far-right communities online (Riberio et al, 2020). His content usually offers commentary on pertinent sociopolitical issues by ridiculing, what he perceives as, the social degeneracy of Marxism, Transgenderism, and Globalism. Long-form, and relatively uncontested coverage, Metokur was privileged to present a far-right reframing of COVID-19 that may amplify perceptions of risk within an information-seeking audience
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