Viral Visualizations: How Coronavirus Skeptics Use Orthodox Data Practices to Promote Unorthodox Science Online
This addresses the problem of misinformation and polarization in public health communication for policymakers and social media platforms, but it is incremental as it builds on existing studies of data practices and skepticism.
The paper investigates how coronavirus skeptics on US social media in 2020 used data visualizations to argue that the pandemic response was excessive, showing they employ similar data-driven rhetorics as experts but to advocate for radical policy changes, documenting an epistemological gap between pro- and anti-mask groups.
Controversial understandings of the coronavirus pandemic have turned data visualizations into a battleground. Defying public health officials, coronavirus skeptics on US social media spent much of 2020 creating data visualizations showing that the government's pandemic response was excessive and that the crisis was over. This paper investigates how pandemic visualizations circulated on social media, and shows that people who mistrust the scientific establishment often deploy the same rhetorics of data-driven decision-making used by experts, but to advocate for radical policy changes. Using a quantitative analysis of how visualizations spread on Twitter and an ethnographic approach to analyzing conversations about COVID data on Facebook, we document an epistemological gap that leads pro- and anti-mask groups to draw drastically different inferences from similar data. Ultimately, we argue that the deployment of COVID data visualizations reflect a deeper sociopolitical rift regarding the place of science in public life.