Covidiots, ninja virus and plandemic - in order to discover what disinformation narratives on Facebook look like, and investigate its content, Gong published a study by professors Marijana Grbeša and Milica Vučković, from the Faculty of Political Sciences in Zagreb, titled "Analysis of COVID-19 related disinformation on Facebook: Topics, sources and discourses".
By combining qualitative and quantitative content analysis, the research aimed to identify prevailing themes, drivers and sources of disinformation narratives, propaganda techniques and discourses in posts taken from pages that are part of the disinformation universe. Also, by analyzing the content, the research attempted to understand the profile and logic of 779 Facebook pages that spread disinformation about COVID-19.
The results indicate that the content related to COVID-19 in the examined universe is reduced to several themes and their variations: conspiracy theories about the creation of a "new world order" and the introduction of "total control", vaccines, criticizing epidemiological measures, topics related to protests and resistance against the measures, and finally, the role of big pharmaceutical companies, Bill Gates and the 5G network. Propaganda strategies of fear and banalization (euphemism) have proven to be the most prominent techniques, with frequent insults directed at the pandemic, political elites, female citizens and groups that represent a "danger" to society. Phrases such as plandemic, pandemic of lies, dictatorship, corona fascism, Gestapo with masks, regime media, covidiot, etc. were often used. At the same time, "specialized" pages for certain topics, as well as private profiles of so-called " "guru" - a person with great authority in the disinformation universe, who are seen as the faces of the resistance, have proven themselves to be important for spreading disinformation.
Read the full report below:
