Desinformação sobre o Covid-19 no WhatsApp: a pandemia enquadrada como debate político

Felipe Bonow Soares; Raquel Recuero; Taiane Volcan; Giane Fagundes; Giéle Sodré

doi:10.1590/SciELOPreprints.1334

Preprint has been published in a journal as an article
DOI of the published article https://doi.org/10.28998/cirev.2021v8n1e

Preprint / Version 1

Disinformation about Covid-19 on WhatsApp: the pandemic framed as political debate

##article.authors##

Felipe Bonow Soares UFRGS (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul) https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4850-9255
Raquel Recuero Universidade Federal de Pelotas/Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7417-9782
Taiane Volcan Midiars https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3678-2329
Giane Fagundes Universidade Federal de Pelotas https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5577-9603
Giéle Sodré Universidade Federal de Pelotas https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6325-6095

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1590/SciELOPreprints.1334

Keywords:

Content analysis, Covid-19, Disinformation, Political Discourse, WhatsApp

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss how the disinformation about Covid-19 is framed on WhatsApp in Brazil. Our aims are: (1) analyze political discourse influence in these processes and (2) identify the disinformation about Covid-19 characteristics on WhatsApp. We used content analysis to analyze 802 messages collected using the WhatsApp Monitor during March and April, 2020. Our main findings are: (1) the pandemic was framed as political debate and the disinformation was used to strengthen a pro-Bolsonaro narrative at a time of government crisis; and (2) WhatsApp affordances affected the content and the discursive strategies in the messages, which appropriate the most private space to propagate conspiracy theories based on opinion and use strategies such as call to action to increase the spread of misinformation.

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Posted

10/15/2020

How to Cite

Soares, F. B., Recuero, R., Volcan, T., Fagundes, G., & Sodré, G. (2020). Disinformation about Covid-19 on WhatsApp: the pandemic framed as political debate. In SciELO Preprints. https://doi.org/10.1590/SciELOPreprints.1334