Tracking the infodemic

Tracking the infodemic: Conspiracy theories in the corona crisis

(Third Party Funds Single)

Project leader: Stephanie Evert, Fabian Schäfer
Project members: Andreas Blombach, Nathan Dykes, Linda Havenstein, Philipp Heinrich, Dr.-Ing. Besim Kabashi
Start date: 2021-04-01
End date: 2022-09-30
Funding source: Volkswagen Stiftung

Abstract:

With insufficient scientific knowledge about the new Coronavirus and public controversies about the effectiveness and diversity of implemented countermeasures, the ongoing pandemic has triggered great insecurity and lack of information, which has prepared fertile soil for the spread of conspiracy theories. In our research, we apply innovative corpus-linguistic methods to analyze the use and distribution of typical linguistic patterns of conspiracy theories and study the discursive strategies they share with right-wing populist and extremist discourses. Besides providing important insights regarding the current situation, our goal is to operationalize and automate our methods so that they can be applied to the spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation in the future.

Publications: