Covering Conspiracy: Mainstream and Fringe Reporting of the COVID/5G Conspiracy Theory
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Paper by Edward Hurcombe, Axel Bruns, and Stephen Harrington, presented at the International Communication Association conference, 27-31 May 2021.
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Covering Conspiracy: Mainstream and Fringe Reporting of the COVID/5G Conspiracy Theory
- 1. COVERING CONSPIRACY: MAINSTREAM AND FRINGE REPORTING OF THE COVID/5G CONSPIRACY THEORY Edward Hurcombe, Axel Bruns, & Stephen Harrington @EddyFHurc @snurb_dot_info
- 2. BACKGROUND As COVID went global in early 2020, conspiracy theories about the ‘real’ origins of the pandemic spread online – an “infodemic” paralleling the virus itself (United Nations, 2020) One theory, especially, gained traction during the early months of the pandemic – the (entirely unfounded) claim that 5G mobile telephony worsened or even spread the caused the coronavirus.
- 3. APRIL 2020:
- 4. Fringe actors and outlets played an initial role in disseminating the COVID/5G conspiracy on platforms (Bruns et al, 2020). But we know that mainstream media outlets can amplify conspiracies and conspiracists, too (Donovan & boyd, 2021; Phillips, 2018; Boykoff & Boykoff, 2004):
- 5. Covering conspiracies presents difficult editorial choices for news outlets – as it can make mis- and disinformation accessible to much larger and more diverse audiences. It also remains susceptible to the ‘backfire effect’ (see Nyhan & Reifler, 2010). In this presentation, we illustrate these dilemmas and examine the editorial choices made by diverse mainstream and fringe outlets in the context of the 5G/COVID conspiracy.
- 6. METHODS We drew on online article data from the global news database GDELT (Leetaru & Schrodt, 2013). We focused on articles that referenced the pandemic and 5G together in their headlines or URLs. Timeframe: early Feb-early April. We removed false positives as well as GDELT results from non- news and non-existent URLS, leaving us with a dataset of 1,871 fringe and mainstream news articles. This dataset was then manually coded for a range of criteria including: country of origin; type of news site; central theme of the article; treatment of the conspiracy theory; and primary sources cited.
- 8. PHASE 1: STOKING THE CONSPIRACY (1 JAN – 15 MARCH 2020) First phase of coverage (43 articles in total) dominated by fringe, US- based outlets that promoted the conspiracy theory. Also included were news outlets from Italy, the site of Europe’s most severe early COVID outbreak: while coverage here came largely from mainstream sites, they also tended to include direct quotes from the conspiracy theorists themselves. Lastly, 10 articles – largely from specialist technology and business news sites – sought to fact-check the conspiracists’ claims.
- 9. PHASE 2: CELEBRITY SUPERSPREADERS (16-31 MARCH 2020) Second phase (98 articles) saw a substantial shift in the tone and focus of news coverage. Most are US-based. • Celebrity endorsements of COVID/5G conspiracy (e.g., from singer Keri Hilson). Due to this, significant increase in coverage from entertainment and lifestyle outlets (13%). • 52% of articles in this phase contain direct quotes of conspiracists or of Hilson’s social media posts. • Wide circulation of this coverage on social media, reaching a substantial audience – well beyond the very limited reach of the conspiracist sites themselves (Bruns et al, 2020) • However, this growth in coverage also sees an increase in fact-checking articles (31%). Critical questions about how to report on conspiracist celebrities began to emerge.
- 10. PHASE 3: REPORTING THE ARSON ATTACKS (1-12 APRIL 2020) 1,729 articles during this phase (92% of our dataset), which covers the period of arson attacks against 5G towers in the UK and elsewhere. • 35% of articles cover the attacks on towers and technicians. • 23% cover the spread of COVID/5G conspiracies more generally. • 11% focus on government responses. • The period also sees more celebrity endorsements (Woody Harrelson; Amir Khan), accounting for 11% of total articles in this period.
- 11. PHASE 3: REPORTING THE ARSON ATTACKS (1-12 APRIL 2020) • Also a reduction in direct quoting: 76% of all articles simply report on events without amplifying conspiracists. • Coverage dominated by mainstream news (47%), local news (31%), and specialist news (14%) – could explain the above? • Lastly, regional differences: e.g., more official quoting in UK than US.
- 12. KEY TAKEAWAYS The immediate impact of conspiracist sites is limited Celebrities can become superspreaders ‘Soft’ newsbeats are journalism’s weak spot The right time to respond to mis- and disinformation is… when?
- 13. FURTHER RESEARCH We could only speculate about decisions and decision- making. Further research – perhaps post-pandemic – would be valuable in retracing decision- making processes during early 2020, and ideally would include interviews with journalists, editors, spokespeople, and other decision-makers.
- 14. THANK YOU! Contact: Edward Hurcombe (e.hurcombe@qut.edu.au; @EddyFHurc) Axel Bruns (a.bruns@qut.edu.au; @snurb_dot_info) Stephen Harrington (s.harrington@qut.edu.au; @_StephenH)
- 15. REFERENCES Boykoff, Maxwell T., and Jules M. Boykoff. 2004. “Balance as Bias: Global Warming and the US Prestige Press.” Global Environmental Change 14: 125-136. Bruns, Axel, Stephen Harrington, and Edward Hurcombe. 2020. “‘Corona? 5G? Or Both?’: The Dynamics of COVID-19/5G Conspiracy Theories on Facebook.” Media International Australia 177: 12–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X20946113. Donovan, Joan, and danah boyd. (2021). “Stop the Presses?: Moving from Strategic Silence to Strategic Amplification in a Networked Media Ecosystem.” American Behavioral Scientist 65(2): 333-350. Leetaru, Kalev, and Philip A. Schrodt. (2013). “GDELT: Global Data on Events, Location, and Tone, 1979-2012.” International Studies Association, San Francisco. Nyhan, Brendan, and Jason Reifler. 2010. “When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions.” Political Behaviour 32: 303-330. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-010-9112-2 Phillips, Whitney. 2018. The Oxygen of Amplification: Better Practices for Reporting on Extremists, Antagonists, and Manipulators Online. Data & Society Research Institute. Tuchman, Gaye. (1978). Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. New York: The Free Press. United Nations. 2020a. “UN Tackles ‘Infodemic’ of Misinformation and Cybercrime in COVID-19 Crisis.” 31 March. https://www.un.org/en/un-coronavirus-communications-team/un-tackling-%E2%80%98infodemic%E2%80%99-misinformation- and-cybercrime-covid-19.
Editor's Notes
- Hi everyone, my name is Edward Hurcombe. Today, I’ll be presenting research that me and my colleagues Axel Bruns and Stephen Harrington have done on how news outlets have covered covid-19 conspiracy theories. More specifically: we’ll be examining the coverage of the covid-19/5G conspiracy theory, one of the most significant conspiracies that gained mainstream attention during the early months of the pandemic.
- So first, a bit of background. As covid went global early last year, conspiracy theories about the ‘real’ origins of the pandemic spread online – leading the WHO to declare the spread of such misinformation an “infodemic” that paralleled the virus itself. One theory, especially, gained traction during this time – the entirely unfounded claim that 5G mobile towers were worsening or even causing the spread of the coronavirus.
- This theory gained so much attention that, by April 2020, 5G towers were being set alight in a number of European countries.
- Unsurprisingly, fringe actors and conspiracy outlets played an early role in disseminating the covid-5G conspiracy on platforms. But we know that mainstream media outlets can amplify conspiracies and conspiracists, too – and during early 2020, many outlets took a sensationalistic approach to reporting on the conspiracy, greatly increasing the visibility of the bogus 5G conspiracies beyond fringe spaces.
- Covering conspiracies therefore presents difficult choices for news outlets, as it can mis- and disinformation visible to much larger and diverse audiences. Even when the coverage is negative, it can also harden conspiracist views, by confirming their suspicions of mainstream sources. In the rest of this presentation, I’ll illustrate these dilemmas and examine the editorial choices made by diverse mainstream and fringe outlets during these early months of the covid-5G conspiracy.
- To do this research, me and my colleagues drew on article data from the global news database GDELT. We focused on articles that referenced the pandemic and 5G together in their headlines or URLs. We chose our timeframe as beginning in early February, just as the global pandemic was starting, to early April, soon after the 5G mobile tower attacks. After removing false positives and broken links, we were left with a dataset of almost 1,900 fringe and mainstream news articles. This dataset was then manually coded according to a range of criteria, including: country of origin, type of news suite, central theme of the article, treatment of the conspiracy, and the sources cited.
- And here’s our timeline – this timeline shows the number of articles produced per day that mentioned covid-19 and 5G. As you can see, articles containing those keywords really started to pick up in late March and early April, peaking around the 5G tower attacks. In light of this, we have divided this timeframe into three distinct period, which I will run through now.
- The first phase, from 1 January to 15 March, was dominated largely by fringe, US-based outlets that promoted the conspiracy theory. Otherwise, most articles during this phase were fact-checks from specialist technology and business news sites.
- Phase 2 covers the period from 16-31 March, and it was during this time that we saw a substantiable shift in the tone and focus of news coverage. In particular, there was a significant growth in coverage of the conspiracy from entertainment and lifestyle outlets – music and celebrity news sites, in particular. This was due to a number of high-profile endorsements from celebrities. Most notably here in the US singer Keri Hilson, who endorsed the conspiracy on Twitter. We found that more than half of articles in our dataset that covered Hilson’s social media posts directly quoted Hilson and other conspiracists. We also know from our other research that this coverage of Hilson’s posts had a wide circulation on Facebook, beyond the very limited reach of the conspiracist sites from Phase 1. At the same time, there was also a growth in fact-checking articles. Still, we can already see some critical questions emerging about if and how to report on conspiracist celebrities.
- Lastly, it is in phase 3 – covering the period of early April – that sees the most activity. The vast majority of our dataset lies in this period, nearly all of it coverage of the attacks on 5G towers in the UK and elsewhere. Alongside the coverage of the attacks were a lot of articles covering official responses to those attacks.
- Notably, most of this coverage was from mainstream and local news outlets – and, in contrast to earlier phases, there was a significant reduction in direct quotation of conspiracists.
- Which all leads us to some key takeaways. Firstly, our dataset suggested that the immediate impact of conspiracist sites was limited. Conspiracist sites may have played a role in seeding the 5G conspiracy, but it was not until celebrities began endorsing the conspiracy in mid-March that the conspiracy started getting significant attention from news outlets and on social media. Due to this, our dataset indicates that celebrities can become ‘superspreaders’ of misinformation – and therefore soft news beats, like entertainment lifestyle journalism, can have a major responsibility to not amplify these conspiracist claims. Our dataset indicates that instead of meeting that responsibility, these ‘soft’ newsbeats can be journalism’s weakspot for misinformation. This could because these beats treat what celebrities do as inherently newsworthy – even more so when celebrity behaviour is sensational. Lastly, critical questions emerged about when it was the right time to respond to mis- and disinformation – official responses from governments and fact-checks from journalists became much more frequent in mid-April, but this was already too late to prevent arson attacks. And yet, earlier responses in February and March may have further amplified conspiracists…
- In this paper, we could only speculate about decisions and decision-making. Further research would therefore be valuable in retracing decision-making processes during early 2020, and ideally would include interviews would journalists, editors, and spokespeople.
- Thank you for your time!