#Storytime: An Analysis of Health Crisis Narratives, Conspiracies & New Digital Media
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Date
2024-08-07
Authors
Lorenzo, Samantha
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
The main objective of this dissertation is to examine health crisis narratives and their relationship to message perception and conspiratorial ideations. Through empirical data and observations, this research investigates the complex interplay among crisis narratives, public trust in institutions, credibility, disinformation, and conspiracism within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, utilizing insights from two distinct yet interconnected studies.
Study 1 delves into the construction, communication, and reception of crisis narratives on TikTok, specifically focusing on videos discussing the purported origins of COVID-19 via the hashtag #covidorigin. Employing a content analysis approach, the study examines patterns in content types and their relationship with public engagement metrics such as views, likes, comments, and shares. Study 1 observed that popular TikTok videos discussing the origin of COVID-19 majorly incorporated at least one of the following: a first-hand narrative (a personal account in which the individual user shares a story in the first-person), a second-hand narrative (an account in which the individual user shares a story they heard from other people rather than from their own experience), and/or an informational report (content such as legislative documents, news reports, and book summaries). Additionally, while U.S. intelligence agencies have yet to reach a consensus on COVID-19’s origin, this research detected a surge in #covidorigin videos following a 2023 interview in which FBI Director Wray stated that COVID-19 likely originated from a laboratory incident in China. Overall, this study suggests the influential role public leaders and media sources have in disseminating COVID-19 information and the importance of coherent crisis narratives in shaping public understanding. It also considers the effects of content types and communication formats in terms of how the public engages with speculative claims online.
Informed by the Narrative Paradigm, Study 2 investigates COVID-19 narrative gaps within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) messages and their impact on public trust and perceptions. Through a four-condition experimental design, this study examined the implications of the CDC’s confusing and contradictory messages regarding COVID-19 testing protocols. Among the various types of participant conditions, three separate group sets were randomly assigned to versions of CDC messages about COVID-19 testing protocols. The study revealed significant differences in participants' perceptions of COVID-19 messages across experimental conditions. Overall, those exposed to the verbatim contradictory CDC messages exhibited lower perceptions of message reliability, effectiveness, and credibility compared to those who received updated or modified messages. These findings accentuate the detrimental effects of narrative gaps and confusing statements on trust and credibility in health communication. By examining the effects of narrative gaps on perceptions of reliability, effectiveness, credibility, and trust, this research informs the development of communication recommendations aimed at building trust and mitigating the spread of conspiratorial ideations during health-related crises, thus contributing to more effective crisis communication practices moving forward.
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Keywords
communication theory, conspiracy theories, media studies, narratives, public decision-making, social media