10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17546
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17546
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Simone Tosoni
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Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
public controversies
Rethinking the Nexus between Science, Politics and Society in the Age of the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic
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Crossing Boundaries
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141-187
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Simone Tosoni
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10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17546
141
University La Cattolica of Milan
2038-3460
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187
Rethinking the Nexus between Science, Politics and Society in the Age of the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic
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12
                                                                     Crossing Boundaries

Rethinking the Nexus between Science,
Politics and Society in the Age of the
SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic
      Paolo Bory                           Stefano Crabu             Barbara Morsello
     Politecnico di Milano                    University of Padova        University of Padova

   Marta Tomasi                                                        Simone Tosoni
     University of Trento                                            University La Cattolica of Milan



    Abstract: This crossing boundaries section addresses the substantial aspects
    at stake in reshaping the nexus between science, politics and society triggered
    by the Covid-19 pandemic. In this regard, three main dimensions are explored:
    first, the emerging forms of science-related populism and how political narra-
    tives challenge and dispute prevailing scientific knowledge; second, the plat-
    formization of science communication and the active role of users and com-
    munities in consuming and spreading online misinformation; third, the role of
    lay expertise in contesting the epistemic authority of science during the health
    emergency. The authors explore the related topics by mobilizing different the-
    oretical frameworks from STS studies, media studies and legal science, also
    moving from empirical to theoretical level in order to challenge the “surface”
    of a multilayered phenomenon.

    Keywords: science-related populism; lay expertise; online communities; pan-
    demic; public controversies.

    Submitted: September 19, 2022 – Accepted: December 30, 2022

    Corresponding author: Paolo Bory, Department of Design, Politecnico di
    Milano, Via Durando 10, Milan, Italy. Email: paolo.bory@polimi.it




TECNOSCIENZA
Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
 12 (2) pp. 141-187 - ISSN 2038-3460
www.tecnoscienza.net                                     2021
142                                                           Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)

On Populism, Infodemic and Lay Expertise. Linking the Sur-
face, the Layer and the Substrate in Mistrusting Scientific
Practice

Paolo Bory and Stefano Crabu
     One of the most pervasive claims circulating in the public sphere fol-
lowing the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is that the uncertainty arising
from pandemic governance and related science-based decision-making
dramatically enhanced mistrust and public suspicion towards scientific
communities, experts and public institutions. Despite this claim seeming
to be an indisputable feature of these (post) pandemic times, an historical
perspective allows to easily recognise its conceptual and analytical fallacy.
In this respect, the contestations of the monopoly of science and scientific
institutions, especially those mobilised by the so-called “non-scientific” or
“pseudoscientific” movements and communities, are not a direct or con-
tingent effect boosted by the troubles and anxieties enacted by the SARS-
CoV-2. Rather, these forms of mistrust of science can be located within a
longstanding process involving different agents and technological entities,
such as political and scientific institutions, media and digital platforms, sci-
ence policies and citizenship-making practices collectively engaged in co-
producing the mutual configuration between (scientific) expertise, democ-
racy and society at large.
     A second relevant claim, enacted both in the public and academic de-
bates, is that the pandemic should not be framed just as a “tragic” event,
but also as an opportunity to better understand and “fix” the problems and
shortcomings concerning public health policies, the structure of science
journalism and science communication and, more in general, the delicate
relationship between science, innovation and society. Notably, such an op-
portunity may request novel public responsibilities for social scientists, and
especially STS scholars; but it can also drive them towards renewed forms
of disciplinary fragmentation and solipsism. The main risk, in fact, is to
polarise and oversimplify – for example, by adopting a monodisciplinary
or autoreferential perspective – such a complex and multi-layered field of
enquiry. In this regard, umbrella terms such as “populism”, “infodemic”,
“post-factual society”, “fake news” or “conspiracy theory” may represent
a double-edged sword; they can be adopted to weave a critical debate, but
also to (re)produce and reinforce a deterministic narrative portraying a
mono-casual, unidirectional relationship between those who detain the po-
litical and communicative power and a passive societal landscape which is
supposed to be prone and fully committed to faith in scientific rationalism
(on this point see Pellizzoni 2019; Lynch 2020).
     This Crossing Boundaries section (CB) aims to weave a dialogue be-
tween three scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds – legal sci-
ence (Marta Tomasi), media studies (Simone Tosoni) and STS (Barbara
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                  143
Morsello), respectively – with the aim to address three key issues charac-
terising the reshuffling of the nexus between science, innovation and soci-
ety during the pandemic crisis. In order to provide an introductory com-
pass for diving into the magma of this CB without the risk of being lique-
fied, we mobilise three analogies borrowed from geology: the surface, the
layer and the substrate. In geology, a comprehensive understanding of the
surface (e.g., the growth and the flourishing of a specific plant) cannot be
separated from what is happening in the layers and the substrates beneath
it. At the same time, the surface (e.g., a natural phenomenon or an artificial
intervention on the terrain) can penetrate deeply into the substrate, con-
tributing to the creation of a specific, yet hidden, underground eco-system.
Similarly, the three contributions in this section relate to three intercon-
nected phenomena that influence each other: i) the spread of science-re-
lated populism; ii) the circulation on social media platforms of counter-
knowledge and facts rooted outside the prevailing scientific paradigms,
and; iii) the emergence of new forms of lay expertise.
     The first contribution, authored by Marta Tomasi, deals with a quite
visible and debated phenomenon – the surface – influencing public dis-
course on science: the emergence of the so-called science-related populism
(see Crabu and Magaudda 2020; Mede and Schäfer 2020). By putting po-
litical populism and science-related populism side by side, Tomasi shows
how the mutual relationship of these two phenomena impact the public’s
trust in scientific institutions. At the same time, Tomasi argues, the spread
of populism and mistrust in science during the pandemic is also due to the
false steps of public and political actors: hesitancies and frictions between
governments, political leaders and regulatory agencies on how – and by
which means – to stop the virus have also fuelled generalised scepticism
and mistrust in science. Furthermore, one of the most interesting insights
provided by Tomasi lies in the underestimated relationship between tech-
nocratic and populist solutions. As Tomasi puts it, populism and technoc-
racy share an anti-democratic strain, since they both promote a form of
unilateral solutionism: the will of the people, on the one hand, and the “one
correct one-size-fits-all policy” solution on the other.
     The second article by Simone Tosoni focuses on the key role that digital
media, the layer, play in the practices contesting the monopoly of science.
As is well known, social media can be used to spread “misinformation”,
also profiting from the cracks dug by populist leaders in the castle walls of
science. According to Tosoni, this media layer – which clearly connects the
surface (populist narratives) with the substrate (the publics) – is currently
explored from a deterministic angle, bringing back an outdated paradigm
in media and communication research. In this regard, Tosoni argues, the
current return of a “strong media effect paradigm” goes hand in hand with
a sort of emulation by media studies scholarships of the very same methods,
research objects and theoretical stances coming from quantitative epidemi-
ological studies: in particular, the theoretical overlap of the pandemic with
the infodemic risks to homogenise and banalise the “audience”. Such
144                                                         Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)
oversimplification disregards the ways in which different communities and
individuals can appropriate, deploy and integrate social media sources and
content related to the allegedly biased institutional science during the pan-
demic crisis. Tosoni’s research on the No-5G Italian scene is a clear exam-
ple of how mistrust in science can be reliant on different sources, narra-
tives, and, last but not least, practices.
     The last phenomenon under scrutiny brings us to the final contribution
of this section by Barbara Morsello, who addresses a less visible and hard
to grasp phenomenon which underpins the legitimacy crisis of science: i.e.,
the way in which the “substrate”, the lay people, may contextualise and
activate different knowledge, objects, repertoires and practices juxtaposing
the validity of personal experience with stabilised scientific research and
methods. In addressing the creation and sharing of knowledge and exper-
imental practices by lay people to contrast vaccination, Morsello sheds light
on a missing link for a comprehensive understanding of the current mis-
trust in science: the way in which mistrust can grow from below, especially
in combination with social media platforms. In this context, the complexity
lying behind the forms of resistance to scientific “regime of truth” – like in
the vaccine case portrayed by Morsello – can only be disentangled through
a deeper analysis of the symbolic, relational and technological means
adopted to build up and legitimise the so-called “lay expertise”.
     Although exploring only a small part of a vast area, this CB is a prom-
ising venue for opening and soliciting an inter-disciplinary approach to
studying the science-society nexus, and to reconsider the very socio-tech-
nical process and arrangement through which science produces knowledge
and can shape institutions, cultural beliefs and collective imaginaries on
which its epistemic, cultural and moral authority, also in relation to the
politics, is grounded. This analytical sensitivity is urgent for capturing the
current cultural and socio-technical processes at stake in redefining the
meaning and practices of scientific and technical expertise and authority,
with particular attention on how the pluralisation and democratisation of
digital communication tools enable people to shape, share and trust alter-
native forms of knowledge and expertise for organising everyday life. Thus,
this CB solicits the opening of analytical strategies that avoid the applica-
tion of the same demarcation criteria of institutional scientific rationality
to distinguish different forms of knowledge and expertise. Indeed, such a
position may reproduce mainstream accusations of irrationality without
elucidating the existing social links between science and other competing
forms of knowledge and expertise, also neglecting the cultural and material
(i.e., technological) conditions behind the emergence of an antagonistic re-
lationship between science and other concerned groups of people ques-
tioning its legitimacy.
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                          145
References

Crabu, S. and Magaudda, P. (2020) Cosa possiamo imparare dal science-related po-
    pulism per rilanciare la sfida al populismo culturale, in “Studi Culturali”, 8(3),
    pp. 391-398.
Lynch, M. (2020) We Have Never Been Anti-Science: Reflections on Science Wars
    and Post-Truth, in “Engaging Science, Technology, and Society”, 6, pp. 49-57.
Mede NG., Schäfer MS. (2020) Science-related populism: Conceptualizing populist
    demands toward science, in “Public Understanding of Science”, 29(5), pp. 473-
    491.
Pellizzoni, L. (2019) Innocent, Guilty or Reluctant Midwife? On the Reciprocal Rel-
    evance of STS and Post-truth, in “Tecnoscienza: Italian Journal of Science &
    Technology Studies”, 10(1), pp. 115-130.

                                           ***

Populism, Politics, and Science in the Midst of the Pan-
demic

Marta Tomasi


Introduction: Trust and the Pandemic

    The CoViD-19 pandemic played a central role in bringing forgotten is-
sues to light and raising the collective awareness of others. First, the spread
of the virus has brought back into the spotlight public health issues that, at
least in a certain part of the world, have been only marginally addressed by
the political agendas. Consequently, the attention that has been paid in the
last decades to affirming the value of individual self-determination in
health has been supplemented with the awareness of the extent to which
personal choices made in this area can affect common living. Second, the
containment strategies implemented have highlighted how policy decisions
increasingly need to be based on a sound scientific foundation. The events
of the last months (since January 2020) – which are now turning into years
– have demonstrated the importance of both society and regulatory insti-
tutions being in tune with science. As both these relationships are based on
trust, it is interesting to reflect on how the rhetoric of populism – which
makes the very idea of ‘trust’ one if its favourite targets – impacts on them.
    Moving from a legal perspective, thus, this paper investigates the con-
cept of science-related populism, relating it to political populism. The two
phenomena not only share some basic foundations, such as distrust and
conflict around sovereignty, but are dynamics that thrive on mutual con-
nections. The recent pandemic, which called for a rediscovery of the value
146                                                          Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)
of relationships in the field of health, the centrality of public policies, and
the importance of their close connection with scientific reality, serves as a
case study to explore the dynamics of this relationship. The overall aim is
to affirm the profoundly democratic root that must govern the ‘political
power-science-citizenship’ circuits.


Trust and Sovereignty as Constitutive Elements of Popu-
lism

     It can be said that the ability to control epidemics strongly relies on
public compliance with government decisions and scientific advice and
that the chance to modify citizens’ behaviours, even before coercion, de-
pends upon trust. The clearest and most up-to-date example of this order
of precedence is to be found in policies that – before imposing an obliga-
tion to vaccinate – proceed with information, education and persuasion of
the population, only to move on to more coercive strategies when immun-
ization rates are low.1 The willingness of individuals to act to promote out-
comes that benefit the greater societal good is intuitively strongly deter-
mined by their attitude towards (and level of confidence in) institutions
and the res publica.
     From this perspective, the populist discourse – which describes society
as a fundamental struggle between an allegedly virtuous people (a popular
majority having a common will)2 and elites (conceived as a social minority
having decisional power),3 who are portrayed negatively (Rooduijn 2019)
– can clearly play a crucial role in the current situation. This statement re-
quires some clarification.
     Populism is difficult to capture in a single, uniform definition. None-
theless, trust is commonly considered one of the critical targets of this phe-
nomenon, and its opposite, distrust, is surely one of the elements common
to all tendencies that can be framed under a general notion of populism.4
More precisely, a focus on the social practices to weaken and dismantle
trust, as well as the notion of distrust, certainly characterise the best-known
conception of populism – that of political populism – but also some of its
more specific and less conceptualised declinations, such as science-related
populism (often referred to also as scientific populism). While the former
is a tendence that has spread widely, especially in the last decades, so much
so that some authors have conceptualised an ‘age of populism’ (Smith
2018), the latter is a trend that has emerged more recently and consolidated
its features during the pandemic.
     Looking at these phenomena from the point of view of trust, it can be
observed that political populism often aims at weakening trust in political
institutions and tends to undermine citizens’ confidence that their govern-
ments are competent and reliable. Generally indispensable to state legiti-
macy, trust is critical in promoting respect for the rule of law.
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                     147
     Likewise, the erosion of trust also belongs to scientific or science-re-
lated populism, which often opposes the people and scientific experts, seen
as representative of the societal establishment (Mede and Schäfer 2020),
and addresses people’s confidence in science and in scientific research pro-
cesses, findings and evaluation mechanisms. Science, based on a method
aimed at departing from the common sense, is the perfect target for all the
theories that mythicise precisely the value of common experience.
     The symmetries between the two phenomena are not limited to trust
and the clash between the people and the elite. They also encompass the
closely related notion of sovereignty,5 generally conceived as supreme au-
thority in politics and collective decision-making (Philpott 2003).
     According to political populism, politics should be an unmediated ex-
pression of the popular will, as the mechanism of democratic representa-
tion is an illegitimate claim to sovereignty (Mede and Schäfer 2020, 477).
     Science-related populism sees scientific elites as illegitimately detaining
sovereignty with regard to ‘decisions about what is being, or should be,
researched when, how, and by whom’6 and the definition of ‘what consti-
tutes “true” knowledge’.7 The criticism takes different forms: in some
cases, it does not address science itself, but the dominant scientific author-
ity, which is seen as corrupt, working ‘behind closed doors’ and therefore
deserving of replacement with alternative authorities and counter-
knowledge. In other cases, condemnation is directed at the scientific
method, which is contrary to the ‘participatory turn’, defined as ‘a general
shift of preference from representative democracy to more direct forms of
participation’ in the context of science (Blühdorn 2014, 407). In more rad-
ical scenarios, critics strike at scientific epistemology as such, asserting that
it should be replaced with people’s common sense, personal experiences
and emotional sentiments. The difference between sovereignty claims in
political and scientific populism is that the former are related to making
political decisions, while the latter deal with the epistemic authority of
knowledge generation. In light of recent events, the pressing question be-
comes: What happens when the two realms merge and scientific consider-
ations come to represent the primary basis for political decision-making
and regulations? An intersection between the two phenomena looms on
the horizon.


Scientific and Political Populism Interrelated

    Scientific populism and political populism not only share some basic
foundations (such as distrust and conflict around sovereignty) but are dy-
namics that thrive on mutual relations.
    Some earlier findings have already indicated that positions against in-
stitutional science can be associated with political populism. For example,
in one study, a strong relationship was discovered between populist
148                                                         Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)
sentiment and mistrust towards intellectuals and experts, a tendency of
populist party supporters to have lower trust in universities was observed,
and the fact that many voters of populist US candidates would rather ‘trust
in the wisdom of ordinary people than the opinions of experts and intel-
lectuals’ was highlighted (Mede and Schäfer 2020, 474).
    One of the fields in which this interrelationship has become particularly
evident is vaccinations, which are often at the crossroads of science, indi-
vidual choice, and political decisions. The phenomenon of vaccination op-
position or hesitancy is as old as vaccines themselves and has manifested
itself throughout history, with greater or lesser evidence depending on the
time and circumstances.8 More recent analyses, however, show that it is
possible to identify a link between this manifestation of distrust toward
science and political preferences. In particular, according to a study pub-
lished in the European Journal of Public Health (Kennedy 2019), there is a
substantial correlation between the increase in European populism and lev-
els of mistrust in science and vaccine resistance. A highly significant posi-
tive association was found between the percentage of people who voted for
a populist party and the percentage who believed that vaccines were not
important or effective. Although the author of the study argues that further
empirical investigations are needed, ‘it seems likely that scientific populism
is driven by similar feelings to political populism, for example, a profound
distrust of elites and experts by disenfranchised and marginalised parts of
the population’ (see Kennedy 2019, 513).
    Under this perspective, the current pandemic may serve as a case study
for exploring the dynamics of this relationship. Since the protection of
public health in a pandemic relies on citizens’ trust in government deci-
sions and on political leaders’ trust in the findings of the scientific commu-
nity, the consolidation of the logic of populism can produce significant
consequences. This point is all the more salient because, at the juncture we
are experiencing, this erosion of trust – and where and when it occurs –
can immediately put many lives at risk.


The Pandemic Between Political and Scientific Populism

    The CoViD-19 health emergency and the need to develop effective
strategies to contain it have consolidated a very close link between science
and politics. Scientific data and the consideration of the epidemiological
situation, which changes every day, have been positioned as the basis for
the limitation of people’s rights (Crabu et al. 2021). Similarly, scientific
evaluations represented the guiding light in the development and distribu-
tion of vaccines against CoViD-19.
    In reality, the regulatory approaches varied substantially, and while
some countries strongly relied on science and scientific expertise as integral
components of their decision-making processes, others leant towards more
politicized models (Heims and Slobodan 2021). In this regard, some
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                    149
crucial questions read: What was the impact of the health emergency on
populist trends? Did it reinforce trust in the scientific realm, or did distrust
take over? What was the role of politics?
     The pandemic, in its first phase (since its onset and until the approval
of the first vaccines in December 2020), dealt some significant blows to
populist logics and some of their underlying principles. First, discourses
and approaches aimed at disparaging scientific recommendations and sup-
porting forms of pseudoscience have proved to be unsuccessful. Recent
memory recalls Donald Trump’s propaganda regarding controversial treat-
ments against CoViD-19, such as hydroxychloroquine; Boris Johnson’s in-
itial recourse to herd immunity mechanisms in March 2020; Andrés Ma-
nuel López Obrador’s refusal to wear a mask in the name of freedom; and
Jair Bolsonaro’s scepticism in calling CoViD-19 a ‘small flu’ and his dismis-
sal of the whole pandemic as ‘hysteria’ (Eisenhammer and Spring 2020).
The virus often served as a reality check; in fact, according to a report by
the Associated Press, the countries that top the rankings of CoViD-19
deaths globally are not necessarily the poorest, the richest or even the most
densely populated, but those lead by populist leaders (Daniszewski 2020).
     Second, the need for shared public emergency management has also
challenged nationalist approaches – typical of populism – and rehabilitated
multilateralism and global cooperation (Apuzzo and Kirkpatrick 2020), re-
inforcing a vision of health as a global public good.
     On both fronts, however, the months following the first approval of
Covid vaccines showed a significant change of course. After joint efforts to
develop the first doses, the saga of their procurement and distribution saw,
on the one hand, the re-emergence of nationalist-oriented visions and, on
the other hand, the surfacing of a science with little cohesion or consensus.
     The initial shortage of vaccines led to the resurgence of vaccine nation-
alism,9 aimed at capturing the largest number of doses available through
the instruments of advance negotiation and purchase agreements and the
blocking of exports to favour domestic demand, in the view that each coun-
try should be solely responsible for its own population (Katz et al. 2021).
Examples include the deals struck by wealthy countries to buy more than
two billion doses of coronavirus vaccines as early as the summer of 202010
or the numerous attempts – successful or failed – at bilateral negotiations
between member states and non-European pharmaceutical companies or
exporters11 outside the common EU negotiation and purchasing mecha-
nism. Nationalist attitudes were fuelled by the fact that the European Un-
ion’s effort at joint procurement and distribution of the vaccines proved to
be, particularly in its first months, ‘a very European disaster’ (Krugman
2021) or ‘a breathtakingly reckless gamble that didn’t come off’ (Bickerton
2021) – an excessively slow action, tainted by technocracy. The EU’s mis-
handling of vaccine procurement and rollouts risked undermining the ap-
petite for further political integration, opening the way for new pockets of
populism.12
     These developments have affected not only national states but also the
150                                                           Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)
European Union institutions, which, while committed to solidarity in the
COVAX project, have intervened with significant restrictions on vaccine
exports13, somehow manifesting the kind of economic nationalism that the
European project is meant to curb.
    In the vaccine distribution phase, an uncertain and incohesive approach
– also due to the urgency of the situation – affected the image of science
(fuelling doubts over the incidence of the market logics that permeate the
field of health) and, consequently, the level of trust placed in it.
    In this sense, there has been little mutual recognition of and support
for vaccine approvals by regulators. For instance, EU lawmakers warned
against the ‘hasty’ approval of the Covid vaccines after the UK authorised
the Pfizer vaccine for general use; yet, after only 3 weeks, the European
Medicines Agency (EMA) came to the exact same conclusion. The events
surrounding the AstraZeneca vaccine, however, are even more significant.
The vaccine, which was approved for use in adults by the EMA in January
2021, subsequently became subject to a number of restrictions in member
states, which varied significantly over time.14 These variations symbolize
the possible short-circuits between politics and science, being only partly
explainable on the basis of two arguments: first, in the moment of con-
structing scientific certainty, recourse to a precautionary principle plays a
crucial role; second, it is necessary to recognise how the risk-benefit assess-
ment of a single vaccine can vary as certain external factors change, such as
the availability of other vaccines and the concrete current epidemiological
situation.
    Beyond this, in the present case, decisions seem to have been sometimes
made on the basis of weak and unverified elements (which were quickly
refuted) or relying on mainly ‘political’ motives. In this sense, it is signifi-
cant to consider the position of the director general of the Italian Medicine
Agency (AIFA) who explicitly declared that the vaccine was deemed ‘safe’,
but in need of further data collection, and that the suspension implemented
in March had a ‘political’ nature and was determined by the attitude of
other states (Germany and France in primis). In this case, with the aim of
maintaining a ‘common European front’ (even at the cost of misalignment
with the indications provided by the EU central regulatory authority as well
as the WHO), national regulatory authorities took responsibility for seek-
ing further advice from the scientific community, thus reserving for them-
selves - in the final instance - the decision-making agency in the field of
public health. Although it is clear that every decision, even in these areas,
has an intrinsic political dimension, in a time of vaccine scepticism, fric-
tions and hesitancies in the relationship between political leaders and su-
pranational and international regulatory agencies inevitably risk undermin-
ing trust in science.
    The complex and sometimes controversial intertwining of science and
politics, at times spectacularised in the public media arena, has generated
a climate of general mistrust, fuelled populist impulses and anti-vaccination
positions. The agency YouGov said it had already found in late February
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                    151
that Europeans were more hesitant about the AstraZeneca vaccine than
they were about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and that the clot con-
cerns had further damaged public perceptions.15 More in general, accord-
ing to a report released by Eurofound on 13 May 2021, over a quarter
(27%) of adults in the European Union were unlikely to get vaccinated
against CoViD-19.16
    The literature has demonstrated that trust in science serves as a key psy-
chological factor underpinning vaccine acceptance (Larson et al. 2018), but
less attention has been paid to societal-level scientific trust, which, in turn,
can be positively associated with vaccination uptake. Moving from the as-
sumption that trust is facilitated in trusting environments, some studies
have demonstrated how individuals acquire informal impressions of how
science is valued or contested through cultural and political debate and
media representation (Sturgis et al. 2021). Institutional behaviour is there-
fore a crucial element in shaping individual assessments of the trustworthi-
ness of science.
    These last examples may in part be caused by mixed messages from
scientists, which are more frequent in crisis periods when the pressure to
produce results quickly is particularly intense; they do not concern govern-
ments that can be directly qualified as populist (at least for the most part).
At the same time, public scientific controversies over vaccines can solicit
mechanisms of distrust towards science that risk producing fertile ground
for the affirmation of logics that can be traced back to the rhetoric typical
of the populist phenomenon.
    This can happen because, above all, populism is built as much on im-
patience with the rules and norms of common life – and similarly, with the
rigorous times and methods of science17 – as on the need for authoritarian
approaches supposed to dominate chaos and overcome moments of uncer-
tainty.18


Conclusions: A Democratic Toolkit to Counter Populist
Drifts

     By bringing science and politics closer together, the pandemic has
shown some of the distortions that emerge from the spread of distrust pro-
moted by populist rhetoric.
     On the one hand, populist-oriented governments can disparage scien-
tific recommendations, and on the other hand, segments of the public may
believe that the advice of scientific experts is being manipulated to advance
political gains. Perhaps more surprisingly, there is also a third response that
is relevant in this context. It can be observed that, far from being at odds
with one another, populism and technocracy may be considered two sides
of the same coin. The two phenomena, in fact, share a deeply anti-demo-
cratic strain. As political scientist Jan-Werner Müller has pointed out,
152                                                          Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)
‘populism holds that there is only one authentic will of the people’, whereas
‘technocracy holds that there is only one correct policy solution’ (Müller
2016); both represent a form of critique of party democracy itself (Bicker-
ton and Invernizzi-Accetti 2015). Brought to its logical conclusion, tech-
nocracy breeds with populist logics, giving birth to what has been referred
to as techno-populism (Bickerton and Invernizzi-Accetti 2021). Some of
the shortcomings that occurred during the pandemic and that have been
described above exemplify a crisis in decision-making that is both techno-
cratic and populist.
    Thus, looking closer, populism – both in its political and scientific
forms – does not necessarily disregard science itself, but populist dis-
courses often end up eroding the methods of its production and the roots
of its legitimation and authority. Bridging the gap between governments,
scientists and citizens and rebuilding trust – one of the hardest values to be
generated – require a method that not only ensures and relies on independ-
ency and accuracy, but also promotes transparency, open communication
and debate. Politicians and experts should work together to identify
sources of bias and set them to rest, stimulate trustworthy information
flows and establish effective accountability mechanisms. Needless to say,
the fulfilment of these objectives is highly dependent on responsible sup-
port and cooperation by the media and journalism (not only scientific).
Furthermore, not all critiques of science can be qualified as scientific pop-
ulism, and some degree of scepticism is healthy because it encourages de-
bate and contributes to change and improvements. Science – which is de-
picted as monistic, unitary and absolute in the populist narrative more than
anywhere else – does not equal scientism or the idolatry of science, and its
methods are actually diverse and multiple. As Naomi Oreskes puts it, ‘in
diversity there is epistemic strength’, and ‘objectivity is likely to be maxim-
ized when there are recognized and robust avenues for criticism, such as
peer review, when the community is open, non-defensive, and responsive
to criticism, and when the community is sufficiently diverse that a broad
range of views can be developed, heard, appropriately considered’
(Oreskes 2019, 53).
    To act as an antidote to the ever-present risk of radicalization of the
contrasts and oppositions promoted by the populist rhetoric (Collins and
Evans 2019), politics and science, rather than providing superior truths,
should both draw on the toolbox of democratic values, preserving and cel-
ebrating freedom, equality, pluralism and solidarity – all of which entail
respect for the other (Collins 2019).
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                         153
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                                          ***
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                  155
Misinformation, Social Media and the Pandemic Crisis:
Challenging the Return to a Powerful Media Effects Para-
digm

Simone Tosoni


Introduction

    In 2018, The American Journal of Bioethics published a comment by
Emilio Mordini (2018) from the Haifa University Health and Risk Com-
munication Center, discussing the proposal of Dr Edwards et al. that was
advanced in that same issue (Edwards et al. 2018) to deal with the Ebola
virus, aiming at reaching ‘interspecies herd immunity’ through animal and
human vaccination. Pondering the practical and ethical implications of this
strategy, one of Mordini’s main concerns was the risk that ‘testing a new
vaccine on apes in the wild’ could generate ‘an epidemic even worse than
Ebola: an epidemic of mistrust and fake news’ (Mordini 2018, p. 56). The
medical communities dealing with the virus were, in fact, seriously worried
by the possible interferences with their work caused by the irrational be-
haviour promoted by a ‘myriad of conspiracy theories about Western gov-
ernments, “Big Pharma” secret plans, mysterious and clandestine experi-
ments on apes, top-secret labs in Africa, escaped engineered viruses, bio-
weapons, and so on’ (Mordini 2018, 56). Since the very beginning of the
Ebola outbreak, medical and public health journals devoted systematic at-
tention to the role of social media platforms in spreading misinformation
(Pathak et al. 2015; Fung et al. 2016) – in the present paper used ‘as an
umbrella term to include all forms of false information related to health’
(Wang et al. 2019) – as a precondition for mitigating its undesirable effects.
    This ‘epidemic’ approach to social media communication is typical of
the way in which the relationship between social media platforms, scientific
(mis-)information and consequences of people’s behaviour for public
health policies has been framed in medical and public health journals, es-
pecially regarding epidemic outbreaks (Wang et al. 2019) and resistance to
vaccination (Evrony and Caplan 2017; Ortiz et al. 2019). Actually, it par-
ticipates in a broader revival of the behaviouralist ‘powerful media effects’
paradigm (Anderson 2021), adapted for a networked environment that has
gained momentum in the wider field of media studies with the debate on
post-truth (Waisbord 2018) and fake news (Tandoc 2019) – especially after
the moral panic following the Cambridge Analytica scandal (Carlson 2020;
Bratich 2020). Chris Anderson (2021) observes how this now dominant
paradigm adopts elements derived from two incompatible approaches in
the tradition of the studies of ‘media effects’ (for an overview, see Nabi and
Oliver 2009). From the so-called ‘strong effects’ theory,19 it derives a con-
ceptualisation of media effects that disregards ‘what stands between media
156                                                          Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)
and the individual decision act’ (51) and conceives messages as unidirec-
tional vectors of persuasion that transform people’s behaviour in a direct
and somehow mechanistic way, creating ‘widespread, irrational social ef-
fects’ (52). At the same time, it derives from Katz and Lazarsfeld’s ‘limited
effects’ theory attention to the mediating role of social relationships, un-
derstanding social media ‘as a web of nodal social linkages whose media
messages effect individual behaviour through a cascade of networked ties’
(52). For Anderson, this hybridisation between incompatible paradigms
has been fostered by its close resonance with the algorithmic epistemology
underlying current data science, informing the logics of functioning of so-
cial media platforms, the data sets that can be derived from them, the meth-
odologies to analyse them and ultimately (and un-self-reflexively), media
studies theory, itself. Meanwhile, it would be promoted to a dominant role
by the structural determinants represented by the strategies of key funding
agencies (like the European Research Council), aiming at funding research
efforts immediately spendable to contain the unwanted effects of fake news
and misinformation.
    As expected by Anderson, the current COVID-19 pandemic crisis and
the warnings by the World Health Organization about the risks of an on-
going infodemic (an information overload making medical information and
misinformation hard to distinguish) have promoted a further upsurge of
research conducted within this paradigm, making it the dominant one in
the field of science communication studies. It is, therefore, urgent to ex-
plore its internal articulations to investigate its eventual blind spots in ad-
dressing the topic of misinformation in the current phase of platformisa-
tion of science communication. In what follows, I will proceed in two steps:
I will first draw on systematic and scoping reviews of pre- and post-
COVID-19 medical, public health and science communication empirical
research or on exemplary studies published in leading journals of the same
fields to sketch a map of the paradigm and of its continuities before and
after the present pandemic crisis. I will then draw on different approaches
within the media studies tradition – mainly, audience studies – to highlight
what seem to be the main limitations of the currently dominant epidemic
paradigm.


The ‘Epidemic’ Paradigm: Virology, Immunology, Epidemi-
ology of Social Media Misinformation (and its Remedies)

    Significantly, Anderson titles his insightful discussion of the current
trends in media studies ‘Fake News Is Not a Virus’ and mentions the ‘epi-
demiological notions of media transmission’ that inform Facebook’s logics.
Actually, the epidemic metaphor can be pushed further. In the current lit-
erature feeding into the powerful media effects paradigm, in fact, it is pos-
sible to recognise three main branches of research – virologic, immunologic
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                    157
and epidemiologic – that approach social media misinformation, all of
them ultimately aiming at the containment of its circulation and the miti-
gation of its effects.

Virology of Social Media Misinformation

     Virology as a scientific discipline focuses on the structure of viruses,
their classification, and the mechanisms they employ to infect host cells. A
first branch of studies on social media misinformation assumes a virological
perspective and draws on (mainly quantitative) textual analysis to classify
the textual units circulating in social media spreading misinformation and
to identify their recurring structural features: their contents, the rhetorical
strategies adopted, the language used, their formats and visual formatting,
and the use of images and other multimedia resources. This branch of re-
search also aims to shed light on the capacity of these structural features to
generate the effects of persuasion. Kapantai and colleagues (2021) have,
for example, recently drawn on a systematic review to propose a complete
(while potentially open) taxonomy of online misinformation, including 11
typologies (from hoaxes to clickbait): Medical and public health misinfor-
mation could possibly fall under several categories, but it would be mainly
ascribable to pseudoscience (‘information that misrepresents real scientific
studies with dubious or false claims’) (Kapantai et al. 2021). In this way,
the authors intend to support multidisciplinary research, tackling the spec-
ificities of each category to design ‘actions and tools to fight disinformation’
(1326). Other approaches focus deeper on messages delivering misinfor-
mation on a specific topic. Wawrzuta et al. (2021), for example, address
antivaccine messages, warning that ‘reading antivaccination webpages for
even approximately 5–10 minutes negatively affects the perception of the
risk related to vaccination’ (2), which emerged from a large-scale experi-
mental study by Betsch et al. (2010). To ‘help suppress vaccine hesitancy’
(10), they propose a systematic review of empirical studies published be-
tween 2015 and 2019: In line with ‘previous research examining antivac-
cine website content’ (9), they ascertain that antivaccine social media mes-
sages not only ‘contain false information about vaccines’ (8), but they also
feature images, celebrities and a plain and emotional style that makes them
more popular than pro-vaccine messages. In light of these recurring char-
acteristics, the authors recommend further research to create ‘effective
tools to automatically detect fake news’ (10). Specific aspects of the textual
units have also been scrutinised to ascertain their effects on perceptions of
the message, users’ engagement, or the message’s efficacy to correct misin-
formation. It is the case, for example, of the use of humour (Vraga et al.
2019; Yeo et al. 2020), aggression (Chu et al. 2021) or fear-arousing sensa-
tionalism (Ali et al. 2019).
     Finally, other authors have moved their attention from messages to us-
ers’ comments to experimentally test their effects on the perceived credi-
bility of the commented-upon scientific claim (Flemming et al. 2017; Petit
158                                                           Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)
et al. 2021; Gierth and Bromme 2021). Gierth and Bromme (2021) have,
for example demonstrated relevant effects on the perceived credibility of
scientific claims and users’ agreement, in particular of comments ‘using
thematic complexity as an anti-science argument’ (242) or – for topics like
vaccines and homeopathy – moving accusations of partisanship.
    The main purpose of a virology of social media communication of this
sort is to develop automatic detection systems of misinformation to moni-
tor the ongoing communicative trends on platforms (see Lugea 2021; on
vaccines, see Karafillakis et al. 2021), to flag – or delete – suspicious con-
tent, as in the containment strategies adopted by Facebook (Iosifidis and
Nicoli 2020) or to prepare ad hoc strategies of debunking.


Immunology of Social Media Misinformation

    In biology, immunology studies organisms’ immune systems and the
factors that make them vulnerable or resistant to pathogens. A second
branch of studies of social media misinformation assumes an immunologi-
cal perspective and draws mainly on psychology and social psychology to
identify the individual factors that make people more vulnerable – or more
resistant – to believing and to reposting unreliable pieces of information.
    At the beginning of the pandemic outbreak, for example the Royal So-
ciety Open Science published a multi-country comparative survey
(Roozenbeek et al. 2020) investigating the main factors fostering a belief in
misinformation about COVID-19: making ‘getting information from social
media’ resulted one of the key predictors. Drawing on previous literature,
they also aimed at probing the role of age, gender, education, numeracy
skills, political orientation, self-identification as a member of a minority
and trust in scientists and the government. A systematic review by Pian,
Chi and Ma (2021) added to these individual factors the lack of health and
eHealth literacy and psychological states (like anxiety, fear and depres-
sion). In a sort of vicious circle, these last factors are affected by misinfor-
mation consumption, and at the same time, they affect the intensity of re-
posting ‘rumours’. Other studies (Wang et al. 2019) investigate the role of
information processing skills and information verification strategies, cog-
nitive processes (including the lack of reasoning: See Bronstein 2019; Pen-
nycook and Rand 2019), epistemic beliefs, previous beliefs, information lit-
eracy, critical thinking and reliance on emotions, finding for each of them
positive or negative correlations with misinformation acceptance and re-
posting.
    Motivations for sharing misinformation are investigated in a similar
way. Apuke and Bahiyah (2021), for example adopt a uses and gratification
approach20 to demonstrate through a survey that altruistic motivation is the
main predictor for sharing fake news related to COVID-19, together with
information sharing, information seeking, socialisation and passing time
(some of the main motivations investigated in the tradition of the
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                 159
approach). Experimental approaches are also commonly adopted: Wil-
liams Kirkpatrick (2021), for example demonstrates the role played by psy-
chological proximity and perceived threat on sharing misinformation, as
well as the mitigating role of personal knowledge about the specific scien-
tific issue at stake.
     The main purpose of this immunologic branch of research on social
media misinformation is to strengthen the factors of people’s resistance to
the effects of exposure, in particular through ad-hoc literacy programmes
that could fill their ‘deficit’ (Sturgis and Allum 2004; Bucchi 2008) in sci-
entific knowledge, media literacy and epistemic competences, to help them
to better benefit from scientific or medical information in social media,
without the risk of engaging in irrational and harmful behaviour due to
exposure to misinformation.

Epidemiology of Social Media Misinformation

    Epidemiology studies the patterns of the distribution and circulation of
a disease in a population and the factors determining them. The third
branch of studies of social media misinformation moves its focus from in-
dividual factors and behaviours to the network effects emerging from the
interplay between users’ behaviour, social network structures and plat-
forms’ algorithms. Basically, it draws on social network analysis and data
science to identify the logics and patterns of the diffusion of misinfor-
mation among interconnected users. At its simplest level, this implies the
quantitative assessment of the typologies of misinformation circulating on
social media platforms. A recent systematic review by Suarez-Lledo and
Alvarez-Galvez (2021) of articles published in English before the COVID-
19 pandemic outbreak has, for example classified the main health-related
topics affected by misinformation for different typologies of social media
platforms (social networking, microblogging and media sharing platforms),
finding out that ‘health misinformation on social media is generally linked
to the following six topical domains: vaccines, diets and eating disorders,
drugs and new tobacco products, pandemics and communicable diseases,
noncommunicable diseases and medical treatments and health interven-
tions’ (10). The authors highlight how ‘health misinformation prevalence
for each topic [varies] depending on platform characteristics’ (10), with
‘the prevalence of health misinformation (…) on Twitter and on issues re-
lated to smoking products and drugs’ (11).
    Several studies aim at mapping the infodemic in a more fine-grained
way, for example though sentiment analysis (as systematically reviewed in
Alamoodi 2021) or by addressing its spatio−temporal dynamics using stig-
matised and official terms in search engines (in particular, using Google
Trends). Hu et al. (2020), for example monitored the use of stigmatised
monikers against China in 60 ‘countries and territories’ from December 30,
2019, until July 15, 2020. Rovetta and Bhagavathula (2020) applied a simi-
lar ‘Infodemiological’ study to Italy, finding out that ‘misinformation was
160                                                         Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)
widely circulated in the Campania region and racism-related information
in Umbria and Basilicata’ (6). Cinelli et al. (2020) adopted a properly epi-
demiological approach to calculate the R0 for ‘mainstream social media’
(Twitter, Instagram, YouTube) and less regulated platforms (Reddit and
Gab), with R0 >1 revealing the risk of an infodemic. They find out that
‘despite the differences among platforms, (…) they all display a rather sim-
ilar distribution of the users’ activity characterised by a long tail’ (2) and
that ‘information deriving from sources marked either as reliable or ques-
tionable do not present significant differences in their spreading patterns
[that would rather depend] by the interaction paradigm imposed by the
specific social media or/and by the specific interaction patterns of groups
of users engaged with the topic’ (6). Finally, the authors admit some rele-
vant differences between the analysed data and the progress of real-world
epidemics (like, for example R0 values out of scale and abrupt jumps in the
number of ‘infected’ subjects) that would suggest caution in the application
of epidemic models to ‘social contagion phenomena’.
    These results are in contrast with other studies reporting differences in
spreading patterns between information and misinformation: For Pulido
et al. (2020), for example during the pandemic crisis, ‘false information’ on
Twitter would have been tweeted more but re-retweeted less than science-
based information. Similarly, Vicario et al. (2016) have compared the ‘anat-
omy of cascade’ (number of reposts during the overall lifetime of propaga-
tion) for ‘scientific’ and ‘cospirationist’ content on Facebook, finding that
‘viral patterns related to contents belonging to different narratives differ’
(558). In fact, both types of content have ‘a first peak at ∼1–2 h and a sec-
ond at ∼20 h, indicating that the temporal sharing patterns are similar’
(556). Conversely, they present specific cascade signatures, suggesting that
“science news (…) reach[es] a higher level of diffusion quickly, and a
longer lifetime does not correspond to a higher level of interest. Con-
versely, conspiracy rumours are assimilated more slowly and show a posi-
tive relation between lifetime and size’ (p. 558).
    In any case, the authors demonstrate that the ‘homogeneity [of net-
works of friends] is the primary driver of content diffusion’ (558), with
both kinds of content spreading within homogenous, secluded and polar-
ised clusters of users: It is the phenomenon of so-called ‘echo chambers‘,
the object of another large – and still not completely conclusive – number
of studies (systematically reviewed in Terren et al. 2021). This last line of
enquiry, which investigates the networks of misinformation propagation at
a structural level, is complemented by studies on ‘vital nodes’ (Zhao 2020)
and ‘superspreaders’ (Yang 2021). Regarding this last topic, a growing
number of studies are focusing on the role played by non-human agents,
like bots and scripts, in the propagation of misinformation (Broniatowski
et al. 2018), and on automatic procedures for their individuation and con-
tainment (systematically reviewed in Orabi 2020). The declared main pur-
pose of this epidemiological approach to misinformation in social media
communication is once again practical, consisting of the attempt to better
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                     161
monitor the progress of misinformation spreading and to better focus on
intervention (and moderation) strategies.
    To conclude this overview, the practical aims of all three lines of re-
search just reviewed are supported and sustained by other lines of research
that intend to ascertain the real-world effects of exposure to misinfor-
mation – for COVID-19-related misinformation, public psychological is-
sues, trust loss, inappropriate protective measures and panic buying behav-
iour − as emerging from the systematic review by Pian et al. (2020). Re-
search also seeks to measure the actual effectiveness of different remedies,
like for example, social rating (Kim et al. 2019), social media interventions
for the ex-post correction of misinformation (Walther et al. 2020), ‘psycho-
logical inoculation (or prebunking) as an efficient vehicle for conferring
large-scale psychological resistance against fake news’ (van der Linden et
al. 2020, 1) or the use of deep learning and machine learning tools for the
automatic detection of misinformation (Varma et al. 2021).


Beyond the Strong Effect Paradigm, Once Again

     The key methodological choices of research within the epidemic para-
digm have not gone without criticism. The most relevant ones regard the
construction of the research object, the delimitation of the research field
and the individuation of causal links. Regarding the construction of the
research object, several authors have indicated how the fundamental dis-
tinction between ‘true’ and ‘fake’ news − or ‘information’ and ‘misinfor-
mation’ − that represents the methodological linchpin of each of the three
strands of research just reviewed is hardly tenable (Venturini 2019; Krämer
2021). The problem here is clarifying on what kind of epistemic authority
the researchers ground this preliminary operation and pondering in a self-
reflexive way its political implications: questions rarely addressed in actual
empirical studies. Clearly, the problem of ‘telling the true from false’ is par-
ticularly evident in the case of public scientific controversies (Friedman et
al. 1999) and with infodemic outbursts, when conflicting opinions from the
scientific community are overexposed, when the statute of truth for a claim
can change over time and when, by definition, information and misinfor-
mation are hard to distinguish even for experts.
     Regarding the delimitation of the research field, most of these studies
focus on a single platform, or at best assume a comparative perspective.
Some attempts at trans-media epidemiologies of misinformation have been
undertaken (see, for example Gunaratne et al. 2019, and Kearney et al.
2020, on the relationship between social media disinformation and the re-
lease of controversial documentaries like Vaxxed and Plandemic, respec-
tively). Nonetheless, research on the epidemic paradigm seems quite far
from addressing the present interconnected information ecosystem.
     Finally, regarding the third criticality − the individuation of causal links
− the authors of the already-mentioned multi-country survey on COVID
162                                                          Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)
misinformation published by Royal Society Open Science (Roozenbeek et
al. 2020) admit in a footnote how they could not disentangle the causal
direction of effects in this study. Both options are plausible, i.e., belief in
COVID-19 misinformation could reduce willingness to get vaccinated, and
prior vaccine hesitancy could increase belief in misinformation. (…) A sup-
plementary linear regression with misinformation as the dependent varia-
ble and with the question “Would you get vaccinated against COVID-19”
as an independent variable (…) shows that being willing to get vaccinated
against the virus is a significant predictor of lower susceptibility to misin-
formation in three out of four countries (Spain being the exception)”
(Roozenbeek et al. 2020, 12).
    Actually, this does not seem to be the case of this study only, even if the
directionality of the identified casual links is very rarely questioned.
Yet, the problem with the epidemic paradigm is not as much about its in-
ternal flaws and therefore its ability to provide answers. Indeed, with any
paradigm, it is more about the formulation of the questions it allows – or
does not allow. In these final remarks, then, it is not my intention to retrace
the critics moved since the early seventies to the behavioural/epidemic par-
adigm in a debate that is now part of media studies canon. Rather, I will
point out what I believe are key overlooked questions to interrogate the
topic of ‘misinformation’ in the current platformisation phase of the media
system (Van Dick et al. 2018). In particular, I will discuss those inspired by
another paradigm: the one represented by the long thread of research orig-
inating from Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model of communication
(1973), proceeding with reception studies and then with the ethnographic
tradition of audience research (see Moores 1993), with Roger Silverstone’s
domestication theory (Silverstone et al. 1992) and its adaptations to the
new media system (Bakardjieva 2005), up to the ‘practice turn’ in media
studies (Couldry 2004) and the related invitation to decentre media studies
(Morley 2009). This different paradigm, in fact, elects as its main research
interest exactly what stands between ‘media and the individual decision
act’ (Anderson 2021, 51) and it is therefore neglected by the epidemic par-
adigm: Basically, social actors’ interpretation of media messages as a situ-
ated practice of meaning making (Anderson 2020) and the broader social
practices in which media-related activities participate (Tosoni and Turrini
2018). This does not mean that, in this paradigm, possible ‘effects’ deriving
from ‘exposure’ to misinformation are denied entirely. Rather, it means ac-
knowledging an active role for social actors in their relationship with media
and media content. This active role must be properly investigated to un-
derstand the phenomenon of production, circulation and acceptance of
misinformation (like any other kind of media content). To keep the discus-
sion less abstract, I will draw on an ongoing research on the circulation of
knowledge refused by the scientific community regarding the harmful ef-
fects of 5G technology to propose illustrative examples of the main re-
search questions originating from this approach.
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                   163
Questioning Engagement with 5G Refused Knowledge on Social Media from
an Interpretive and Practice-centred Perspective

    The object of the research from which we are deriving our example is
people’s engagement with knowledge refused by the scientific community
(from now on, RK: refused knowledge) regarding 5G technology. Actually,
RK and misinformation − the umbrella term we adopted in this paper to
refer to all forms of false information – cannot be regarded as synonyms.
On the one hand, in fact, the second term is somewhat narrower than the
first, referring specifically to claims that fall under the epistemic authority
of one (or more than one) specialised scientific community and that have
been discarded or disregarded by that same community: for example,
claims about the existence of the non-thermal harmful effects of 5G elec-
tromagnetic waves. On the other hand, as anticipated, the term misinfor-
mation implies an attribution of truth from the researcher that the term RK
does not require. In a way that is more compatible with the principle of
symmetry of the sociology of scientific knowledge (Bloor 1976), the re-
searcher simply highlights the refusal of the scientific community to accept
a claim as true – or even as worth falsification. While this distinction is
methodologically very relevant for research on 5G, it is hardly pertinent in
the discussion that follows. This discussion, in fact, intends simply to high-
light the different sets of questions that arise when people’s engagement
with controversial information on social media is interrogated from an in-
terpretive and practice-centred perspective. These questions can be
grouped into at least five distinct yet interrelated areas of investigation.
    First, people engaged with 5G-related content do not access it by just
logging into their favourite social network account and finding it in their
feeds, as selected by algorithms. They may actively look for it, subscribe to
the pages and channels of the influencers they acknowledge as alternative
knowledge authorities, join groups discussing the specific topics of their
interest or focus on a plurality of controversial issues. Similarly, they can
regularly access ‘hostile’ spaces to protest, defend their opinions or simply
be informed of ‘mainstream’ positions. Moreover, they do not necessarily
access RK on a single social media platform. When engaging with RK, they
can also be pointed to a network of debating spaces on other platforms and
instant chat applications, like groups on WhatsApp and – especially after
the recent intensification of content moderation activities by the main-
stream platforms – Telegram. In these spaces, they can receive hints about
resources outside the web, like in the case of documentaries or TV pro-
grammes, or in real life, such as meetings, conferences and other pubic en-
counters. In summary, people engaged with RK carve out and assemble
from the mediascape a ‘media territory’ (Tosoni and Tarantino 2013; To-
soni and Ciancia 2017) and eventually integrate it with offline participation
to remain engaged with the RK topic(s) of their interest. Such a space is by
far more complex and dynamic than the one defined by the circulation of
a single piece of misinformation, as traced by the epidemiology of
164                                                           Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)
misinformation. This suggests questions about how media territories are
articulated, how they are actively and collectively assembled by social ac-
tors, how and why they evolve in time and how people individually navigate
within them. Defining the borders of the observation field, questions about
RK-related media territories are of pivotal relevance for any other enquiry
about social media engagement with RK.
    Second, media territories are of key relevance to tackle the actual inter-
pretation of specific RK-related pieces of information (Scheufele and
Krause 2019), which is by far more elaborate than their mere ‘acceptance’
or ‘refusal’. Online spaces, in fact, participate in a relevant way in the soci-
ocultural context of the situated practice of meaning making. Within media
territories, these messages are selected, circulated and discussed collec-
tively in a confrontational or collaborative way. The most active and per-
sistent groups may work for all intents as gatekeepers and ‘interpretative
communities’ (Fish 1980), not only accepting and refusing single pieces of
information, but also negotiating their meaning and assembling them into
broader narratives, adopting specific epistemologies. For example, in line
with what has been observed by Gagliardone et al. (2021), for conspiracy
theories, the narratives regarding the harmful effects of 5G morphed in
time depending on sociopolitical contingencies in broader context. Before
the pandemic crisis, groups discussing 5G-related RK strictly focused on
5G technology (thanks also to moderators of WhatsApp chats and Face-
book groups) and grounded their claims on studies published in regular
scientific journals (and yet received with scepticism by the larger part of
the scientific community). After the pandemic crisis, these same groups
adopted a scientific−populist rhetoric (Mede and Schafer 2020) and a pop-
ulist epistemology (Saurette and Gunster 2011) to collectively produce
more syncretic – and sometimes conspirationist – narratives, holding to-
gether 5G technology, vaccines and the pandemic crisis as parts of a global
transhumanist plan. Similarly relevant are the actual production and as-
semblage of these narratives and broader worldviews. In other research on
techno-paganism online (Tosoni 2011), I observed how some online sub-
cultures assemble their belief system through cooperative practices lacking
any form of central authority and closely mirroring the typical production
procedures of Linux and other open-source software, including calls for
comments and episodes of forking. This invites researchers to formulate
questions on the interpretation and negotiation of meaning of RK-related
media messages, their encapsulation in broader narratives and their rela-
tionship with the socio-political context, their underlying epistemology and
actual practices of production.
    Third, people’s engagement with 5G−RK-related media content is not
limited to their interpretation or to their use as resources to produce
broader narratives and worldviews. Actually, it may also include a wide
range of media-related activities that cannot be simply reduced to reposting
or commenting. They may, for example include translating content from
other languages, digitally subbing videos, resuming information from many
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                   165
sources in a new text, printing and distributing it offline or rewriting text
using periphrasis and typographical camouflage (i.e. typing ‘c0v1D’ instead
of ‘COVID’) to elude systems of automatic content recognition commonly
used by social media platforms for content moderation (and by researchers
adopting the epidemic paradigm for data mining). These practices of cir-
cumvention of gatekeeping by social media platforms includes, among
other things, archiving contents that risk being deleted by platforms in
online repositories and cloud accounts. Notably, these archives helped
form a sort of ‘canon’ of 5G−related RK- resources crucial to producing
broader narratives. Some groups have also used these archives to quickly
socialise new members or as resources to quote in case of conflictual de-
bates (online or offline) with 5G enthusiasts. Moreover, for many users,
and activists in particular, these activities are seen as part of broader prac-
tices of engagement that cross the boundaries between online and offline.
These may include leafleting, collecting signatures, public speeches, legal
assistance and other activities of lobbying and pressure on local administra-
tions or central governments. This invites researchers to formulate ques-
tions about the plurality of users’ activities related to RK contents and mes-
sages, as well as about the inclusion of these activities into broader social
practices, online or offline.
     Fourth, the reference to activists draws our attention to the limitation
of conceiving users simply as differently interconnected nodes in a net-
work. Within 5G−RK-related media territories, it is possible to recognise
a constellation of social groups interacting only online − using one or more
platforms − or both online and offline. These groups have their specific
social structures, which include formally defined social roles – like the ones
of admins and moderators – and less formalised status systems.
    A high status can be, for example achieved through knowledge and ti-
tles, organisational skills, commitment or simply showing charisma in dis-
cussions. Other users may, in turn, simply ‘lurk’ in the conversations in a
group, or the posts of a Facebook page, remaining nearly anonymous to
other users. These systems of statuses and roles define an uneven distribu-
tion of power that is relevant to the already-discussed practices of meaning
making and other ongoing activities. For example, after some attempts at
resisting it, admins played a key role in opening their 5G-related RK groups
and pages to the syncretic and populist turn, radicalising it with their own
posts and comments. This implies that it is not fully possible to compre-
hend the practices of interpretation and meaning making of RK without
conceiving users properly as social actors and questioning the role of the
social structures in which they participate and of their forms of unequal
distribution of power in shaping meaning-making practices and other RK-
related activities.
    Finally, the relationship between beliefs and behaviour also needs to be
investigated beyond the individuation of causal links. Rather than being
simply an ‘effect’ directly stemming from a belief in RK, behaviour depends
on decisions taken by active social actors within specific contexts in which,
166                                                          Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)
as already clarified, media territories participate. Like interpretations, in
fact, behaviours can be apprehended, discussed and negotiated online. For
the 5G−RK case, they can, for example consist of attempts to reduce the
level of electromagnetic pollution, switching to cable connections, turning
off cell phones during the night or installing electromagnetic shielding.
More notably, online resources are also of key relevance to learn how to
evaluate the efficacy of the adopted conduct: This can happen, for example
by following the advice of other users and purchasing specific technologi-
cal devices to measure the intensity of the electromagnetic field in one’s
own environment or learning how to read in one’s own’s body the worsen-
ing or the amelioration of the symptoms of the effects of those same fields
(like headaches, deficits in attention or sleep disorders).


Conclusion
    In this paper, I have shown how research on the circulation of health-
related misinformation (see Anderson 2021, on misinformation in general)
responds to a behaviouralist epidemic paradigm that in recent years has
become dominant and that has gained further momentum with the ongoing
pandemic crisis. The main purpose of this dominant paradigm consists of
delivering information to better tune up the (algorithmic) strategies of
online misinformation containment currently adopted by social media plat-
forms (Colombo et al. 2017).
    From this point of view, controversial media content is conceived as a
sort of viral pathogen affecting people’s behaviour, to be contained
through (algorithmic) eradication and through strengthening people’s re-
sistance to the risk of contagion related to exposition. Furthermore, the
epidemiological study of the diffusion patterns of this information through
reposts should contribute not only to the automatic detection of ‘conta-
gion’ phenomena, but also to the optimisation of intervention strategies,
for example identifying super spreaders to be targeted with ad-hoc
measures. In this sense, the epidemic metaphor informs both the under-
standing of online ‘misinformation’ and the actual strategies to contain it.
The recourse to mainly quantitative methodologies, based on data mining
and automatic and semi-automatic procedures of content analysis, contrib-
utes to further simplifying the modelling of the ongoing processes in favour
of the individuation of macro phenomena and tendencies.
    Consequently, the dominant paradigm ends up deploying, often in a
non-self-reflexive way, an impoverished theoretical framework that hardly
contributes to shedding light on people’s engagement with controversial
resources on social media. For this undertaking, instead, it is of pivotal rel-
evance to adopt an active model of social actors.
    As suggested by the interpretative and practice-centred paradigm
within audience studies, this means conceiving social actors as negotiating
their beliefs and behaviours inside specific sociocultural contexts,
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                          167
including online ones. As I have tried to show, adopting this perspective
brings the researcher to focus on research questions that are neglected in
the dominant paradigm and that are, however, unavoidable for a better
understanding of the ongoing processes of platformisation of science com-
munication.
    Admittedly, the knowledge generated by this different set of questions
cannot be immediately employed to develop practical strategies for ‘misin-
formation’ containment; yet it is of pivotal relevance to improve our under-
standing of all the key issues of the current debate on the relationship be-
tween science and society.


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                                          ***


“Stop Saying you Did your Research: You are the Re-
search!”. Rethinking Lay Expertise in Online Communities

Barbara Morsello


Introduction

    During my ethnographic fieldwork about vaccine (vax for short) free-
dom online communities, I came across the statement “You are the re-
search!” several times. In contexts where lay expertise and knowledge-
making processes are mobilized to discredit prevailing scientific regimes of
truth, as in the case of vax-free communities, users show a growing need to
perform their agency over health issues, overcoming institutional media-
tion or delegation to experts. Drawing on ethnographic research in vaccine
freedom online communities, this contribution aims to offer reflections re-
garding the role played by lay expertise in online communities during the
COVID-19 pandemic. This work is conceptually framed within the fields
of science and technology studies (STS) and media studies. It aims to shape
a dialogue among three research streams about 1) the emergence of alter-
native forms of epistemologies and experience-based knowledge-making
processes, 2) online platforms and the “platformization” of health literacy
and 3) the current conspiracy theories. These three research streams are
considered to gain a better understanding of some aspects related to the
emergence of alternative truth regimes during the SARS-CoV-2 health
emergency.
    Lay expertise and alternative knowledge have long been studied in STS.
The role of lay expertise in knowledge-production processes is now well
known, particularly in studies involving biomedicine, patienthood and
health-related activism. The many ways in which lay knowledge is pro-
duced, co-constructed and disseminated, including genetic condition
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                   173
(Conrad and Gabe 1999; Kerr et al. 1998, 2007; Panofsky 2011; Tutton
2007), self-tracking or Quantified Self (Heyen 2020) and daily learning
about one’s illness or condition (Pickersgill et al., 2015; Pols 2014), pro-
duce new forms of experiential knowledge that can become moments of
claiming one’s role in knowledge-production processes or recognizing in-
dividual rights (Rabeharisoa et al. 2014).
     Trust in technoscience has gradually declined in most Western coun-
tries (Beck 1992; Inglehart 1997). The epistemic authority that science
holds today is often contested. Other forms of knowledge and expertise are
on the rise, such as alternative and complementary medicine, alternative
nutritional regimes and New Age philosophies of life (Campbell 2007;
Hammer 2001; Heelas 1996). However, the question is not so simple be-
cause the decline in trust does not concern technoscience as a whole but
its specific areas. In addition, trust in science is a multidimensional concept
because: people evaluate scientific institutions differently than they evalu-
ate scientific principles and methods (Huber et al. 2019). Some people
trust the principles and methods but not the institutions.
     Although these signs of public disbelief occur with some regularity and
intensity (Van Zoonen 2012), plenty of statistics about trust in science are
relatively stable and high across time (Critchley 2008).
     The Eurobarometer 468 survey (2017) shows that despite a significant
decline in trust in public institutions, particularly governments and justice,
trust in democracy and the European Union remains constant. In this re-
gard, Coleman (2012) clarifies the distinction between primary and sec-
ondary trust by revealing the paradox of trust in the main institutions of
knowledge but distrust in what they claim as true. A particularly relevant
aspect for this present paper’s topic concerns the complicated connection
between the concepts of trust and political efficacy. Coleman (2012, 40)
argues that “to experience a sense of political efficacy is to believe that a
communicative relationship exists between oneself and the institutions that
govern society”. When low levels of trust are combined with high levels of
perceived efficacy, the potential for unconventional action is a probable
outcome (Gamson 1968).
     People who do not trust institutions but trust themselves adopt forms
of action that circumvent official pathways. Coleman et al. (2011) points
out that some Internet users experience high internal effectiveness (indi-
viduals’ belief in their own ability to influence the political world) using
online communication as a means of influencing public opinion, but at the
same time, users experience low external effectiveness (individuals’ belief
in political institutions’ responsiveness to public pressures) in influencing
their elected representatives. Under these circumstances, citizens feel that
they can influence the world around them but at the same time, experience
a deep sense of frustration in their inadequate ability to make a difference
within the political system. Therefore, if in online spaces, users can experi-
ence their ability to make a difference by influencing public opinion, it be-
comes crucial to observe the online communities where users can activate
174                                                         Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)
forms of citizenship and knowledge construction “from below”.
    Social media is a particular kind of platform, where users can meet a
plurality of voices, often expressions of personal knowledge based on user
experiences and opinions, which Van Zoonen (2012) calls “I-pistemology”.
However, online platforms expand the role and form of lay expertise,
which interconnect with others, giving rise to forms of syncretism, new the-
ories and communities that are increasingly capable of challenging the ep-
istemic authority of science by proposing new regimes of truth.
    Since the 2020 health emergency, this process has become increasingly
evident, with a proliferation of online communities advocating alternative
truths about the pandemic.
    SARS-CoV-2 as a biological entity, not fully stabilized in scientific
knowledge, has activated multiple narratives, forms of activism and re-
sistance, and strong hostilities towards institutions that have tried to man-
age uncertainty.


Experience-based Knowledge

     The SARS-CoV-2 virus has struck globally, forcing a structural revision
of societies, as well as economic, health and political priorities, and intro-
ducing new practices to cope with the spread of the virus. Therefore, sci-
entific knowledge has become part of everyday life. Today, everyone speaks
easily and without claiming specific expertise about viruses, RNA, molec-
ular swabs, epidemiological data and constitutional laws and freedoms.
The use of scientific knowledge to give meaning to everyday life is trans-
lated in various practices – with the use of the mask and molecular and
antigenic swabs as appropriate, the control of temperature and symptoms,
and the assessment of risks related to exposure to viruses in everyday con-
texts. In fact, being informed daily about epidemiological trends has trans-
formed people’s routine in terms of its limits and possibilities, returning to
the subject of an unprecedented responsibility, both for individuals and
public health. The integration of these new practices and knowledge has
required considerable effort, even on the part of laypeople, to understand
what is happening from health and social perspectives and what has actu-
ally produced such a huge fracture in the structures of meaning that char-
acterize the infrastructure of people’s daily lives. At the same time, scien-
tific disagreement and the proliferation of conflicting information have re-
quired people to become more involved in matters of public interest, where
institutions are not always able to provide clear answers in a short time,
since the timing of science almost never coincides with society’s need for
answers (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1993).
     In this context of high epistemological uncertainty, of not knowing
what is true or who can be trusted, people have found someone or some-
thing to blame and then have turned to themselves as alternative sources
of knowing and understanding (Van Zoonen 2012). In this situation of
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                  175
unstable trust in knowledge institutions, personal experience has become
a resource of meaning in order to face the present. Experience-based
knowledge again brings the subject to the centre, with the belief that inter-
subjective experiences are adequate substitutes for technical knowledge
(Grundmann 2017). Observing the communities that arise around specific
forms of refused knowledge,21 as in the case of the vaccine, a technology
well established in mainstream biomedicine but strongly opposed by spe-
cific communities, it might be said that from their perspective, personal
experiences of the subjects can be perceived as affordable substitutes for
technical knowledge (Harambam 2020). Societies are increasingly
knowledge dependent, and people are increasingly accustomed to the idea
of having to manage knowledge, with the aim of making decisions in a land-
scape of individualized risk. In online groups, one of the prevailing discur-
sive strategies for the free choice of vaccine is the use of the experience of
vaccine damage, whether personal or that of friends and/or acquaintances,
which assumes greater legitimacy than the epidemiological data. The expe-
rience of pain exceeds the aseptic nature of cold scientific data.
    Anti-COVID vaccines fuel a lot of counter-narratives based on the au-
thority of personal experience. An example is the proliferation of videos
where users demonstrate, by letting a coin adhere to the point of inocula-
tion, that vaccines contain dangerous metals and that through them, a mi-
crochip is installed in the human body, with the aim of controlling citizens.
The videos are available everywhere on the web and aspire to be consid-
ered evidence by most of those who support the thesis that vaccines are
harmful to the population. The so-called “vaccine magnet challenge” has
become viral and has travelled via transmedia, ranging from TikTok to Fa-
cebook, to end up in private user groups on telegram and WhatsApp. As
of May 14, 2021, a video of the magnet challenge (Fig. 1) had been shared
over 22,800 times on Facebook and had more than 20,000 views after only
25 seconds from its publication on Instagram (Reuters 2021).
176                                                        Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)




         Fig. 1. 20/05/21 Instagram video on magnet challenge posted
      by Twoangrychefsnews and reported by Reuters Fact-Check (2021)


     It is becoming increasingly difficult to follow the trajectory of such
kinds of media objects, such as videos, posts, photos and so on, especially
in light of the multiplication of their configurations. The first video that
launched the challenge was actually born on the Instagram profile of
“Keep_canada_free”, where a woman first showed the strange phenome-
non that would prove the theory behind post-vaccination magnetism. Sev-
eral authoritative press channels, such as BBC, Forbes (2021), and so on,
have committed to “disassembling” this theory. Several scientists have also
committed to disseminating information materials online, through press
releases, as well as videos on YouTube, with the aim of stopping the pro-
liferation of the magnet challenge. Most of them have been deleted and are
now impossible to find. However, the phenomenon whereby users provide
“proof” of the microchip by chasing vaccinated people while holding a
coin does not seem to have ceased.
     In the realm of contested knowledge, the knowledge of laypeople com-
petes with that of scientists for epistemic authority. They resist regimes of
truth through which science has legitimate power to define, describe, ex-
plain and delimit domains of reality (Harambam et al. 2014). As Collins et
al. (2020) argue, the laity possess “ubiquitous meta-expertise” that enables
them to choose domains when seeking expert opinions, such as whether a
vaccine is safe. However, this process of selecting domains of expertise is
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                    177
not as linear as it may seem, which the COVID-19 pandemic has demon-
strated.
    On one hand, citizens claim greater unity of experts and sources who
are considered reliable in order to delegate vaccine choice; on the other
hand, they mobilize heterogeneous expertise to address the problem of
choice. The vaccine is a peculiar example of biopolitics because it embod-
ies political visions, ideas of society, the body and health and could be re-
lated to what Rose (2007, p. 3) calls the politics of “life itself”; “it is con-
cerned with our growing capacities to control, manage, engineer, reshape,
and modulate the very vital capacities of human beings as living creatures”.


Online Communities and Social Media Platforms as Multi-
pliers of Truths

    During the most intense phases of the SARS-CoV-2 spread, citizens
have been susceptible to contracting the disease and have had to adopt
strategies to cope with the risk in everyday life. Sanitizing hands and envi-
ronments, maintaining social distancing, wearing a mask and learning to
recognize symptoms are just some of the practices adopted as part of a
generalized risk category. Undoubtedly, in the generalized risk situation,
as in the case of the pandemic, citizens have experienced different levels of
perceived risk and have therefore individually employed knowledge, be-
haviours and practices that they considered useful for their condition and
coherent with their values. An online survey conducted in Finland (Soveri
et al. 2021) has shown that although individuals with less trust in official
information sources have a tendency to ignore official recommendations
during the COVID-19 pandemic, these same individuals use complemen-
tary and alternative medicine (CAM) to manage their level of perceived
risk. Those who do not adhere to the official recommendations spread by
the media, as in the case of the vax-free community, often mobilize other
information resources, including alternative experts, online information,
blogs and personal experiences. At the same time, users who refuse to wear
a mask and be vaccinated are very careful about their health by taking mas-
sive doses of vitamin C and supplements to boost their immune system,
drinking alkaline water and following specific dietary regimens
    In the case of the pandemic online platforms, social media has been a
resource for providing information and sometimes challenging the author-
ity of experts by reaching a vast number of hesitant people who have turned
to the web. During the COVID-19 pandemic, online users have practised
bio-digital citizenship (Petryna 2002, 2004; Rose and Novas 2004) where
collectivities, such as the case of vax free communities, organized against
specific biomedical classifications, mobilized themselves to build citizen-
ship through communities linked electronically by email lists and websites
(Petersen et al. 2019). Many of these activists fiercely oppose the power
178                                                         Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)
and claims of medical expertise that classify them as at risk of contracting
the SARS-CoV-2 virus, as well as civically irresponsible for refusing vac-
cination. The Internet and the information society are characterized by
their extensive distribution of knowledge (Jensen et al. 2012, 2), and social
media platforms are privileged venues for the circulation of experience-
based knowledge assembled by laypeople. People in online communities
can virtually face one another, share knowledge and information, as well as
create alternative truths and fight for them.
    For example, the theories on the vaccine issue that circulate online arise
from a more complex set of alternative forms of knowledge, which are con-
stituted as sociotechnical assemblages in which worldviews and technical
aspects related to the contested objects are connected. The anti-COVID
vaccine stance has been embraced by communities contesting this type of
assemblage as a metaphor for “health dictatorship” or an emblem of a
health system corrupted by pharmaceutical lobbies. At the same time, im-
munity is an ambivalent concept for anti-vaccinists. On one hand, it evokes
the natural functioning of the biological organism; on the other hand, it is
associated with the biomedical manipulation of the body enabled by vac-
cines. These communities are engaged online to produce and disseminate
as much information as possible to support their thesis that immunity is a
natural process that cannot be reproduced technically, if not with negative
consequences for their physiological body. Currently, the issue that should
be analyzed in the production of knowledge from below is that social media
platforms are never neutral spaces; they are spaces of permanent relation-
ships over time and repositories of ready-made knowledge. Moreover, re-
searchers cannot ignore the fact that online spaces belong to specific plat-
forms that arbitrarily decide the ways of value production in them.
    In fact, platforms comprise different actors, human and non-human,
who condition, foster and influence, more or less consciously, the flow of
information. As Van Dijck et al. (2018) suggest, platforms are programma-
ble architectures designed to organize relationships between and among
users. Platforms are composed of algorithms and interfaces, which are for-
malized by ownership relationships driven by specific business models and
governed through user agreements.
    The ways in which value is created in society have always been a subject
of interest in order to understand how society shapes individual behaviour
and vice versa. Regarding online platforms, their business models refer to
the ways in which economic value is created and captured (Van Dijck et al.
2018, 10). In online platforms, value is measured in various types of cur-
rency: money, attention, data and user valuation. These economic ele-
ments, together with the technological ones, steer users’ interactions and
shape social norms.
    This ecosystem of heterogeneous elements either encourages or dis-
courages certain types of connections and behaviours within the platform.
Perverse effects, such as echo chambers, filter bubbles or the polarization
of certain content, help resonate with certain content by consolidating
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                    179
worldviews among members of different communities. It is also true that
during the pandemic, YouTube (among others) has altered its content
moderation policies to bring to the surface more “authoritative infor-
mation” while removing videos that contain “medically unsubstantiated
claims” (Humbrecht 2020).
    Sociotechnical mediation of information by platforms is a key element.
During the pandemic, a content analysis of videos posted on YouTube,
which is a major source of information about science, technology and
health, especially for young people (Anderson and Jiang 2018), shows that
although the most viewed videos related to COVID-19 use mostly verified
sources, only a fraction of users turns to institutional channels to find useful
information. In fact, the majority are videos produced by different users.
In some cases, they try to advance counter-narratives of the pandemic phe-
nomenon; in others, they disseminate truthful and verifiable information
without the mediation of experts or specific expertise. However, in the
cases of videos where highly politicized health news and information are
minimal, their contents receive far more engagement in the form of com-
ments than any other type of video (Marchal and Au 2020).


Conspiracy Theories as Radical Modernity

    Conspiracy theories are not new phenomena, but society is in a partic-
ular moment where they manage to penetrate more environments and so-
cial circles. Postmodernity (Lyotard 1979) is characterized by particular
emotions, feelings, intuitions, personal experiences, customs, metaphysics,
traditions, myths, religious sentiments and trustworthy knowledge. Find-
ing alternative explanations of reality is a quite common phenomenon in
postmodern society and is part of the broader field of contested
knowledge. This knowledge primarily challenges the dominant truth re-
gime (Foucault 1977), introducing another version of reality that often crit-
icizes hidden economic interests and programmed global inequalities. In
the public sphere, particularly online and social media platforms, conspir-
acy theorists strive for public recognition of their ideas by sharing infor-
mation widely and contesting the information provided by those who have
power, such as journalists, scientists and politicians (Harambam 2020).
The dissemination of conspiracy theories and the growing online commu-
nities that support an alternative regime of truth show how the construc-
tion and management of truth is not a linear process and has become prob-
lematic at some point. The epistemological solution for studying this phe-
nomenon without adopting the dominant perspective and judging such
communities as just irrational, lies in “dividing the ‘truthers’ and the ‘post-
truthers’ (…) in terms of whether one plays by the rules of the current
knowledge game, or one tries to change the rules of the game to one’s ad-
vantage” (Fuller 2018, 53). In a sense, conspiracy represents radicalized
modernity, where individuals, through their experiences and expertise, can
180                                                           Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)
compete in the construction of the prevailing regimes of truth against in-
stitutions. The monopoly of truth – scientific, political, economic and ed-
ucational – is no longer the prerogative of institutions but of individuals
who can compete and spread or share their messages and build new inter-
pretations.
    In an age of epistemic instability, a historical context where the truth
can no longer be fully guaranteed by one epistemic authority, institution or
tradition, the spread of relativism and ambiguity of knowledge and trust is
quite an expectable consequence.
    The epistemic authority of experience and the conspiracy milieu have a
shared imperative to actively “connect the dots” (Aupers and Houtman
2006; Heelas 1996; Van Zoonen 2012) that through online platforms be-
comes a collective process. The growing number of Internet platforms,
where citizens offer advice (based on their own knowledge and experi-
ences) on matters ranging from finance to cultural entertainment, is not
quantifiable. They are asked to share their knowledge and perspectives on
social reality and advise others on what to do. “In this way knowledge be-
comes a capacity to act” (Grundmann 2017, 27) and to manage uncer-
tainty. The COVID-19 pandemic has made communities of actors chal-
lenge current regimes of truth more prominently in the public sphere as
the vast space of institutional, political and especially scientific uncertainty
has somehow made more attractive a perspective based on a “theory of
everything”, where it is possible for anyone to make sense of what is really
happening, independently of one’s expertise.


Conclusion

    Citizenship in the contemporary era of biomedicine manifests itself in
a series of struggles over individual identities, forms of collectivization, de-
mands for recognition, access to knowledge and claims to expertise.
    Users do so by creating new spaces of public dispute over bodily expe-
riences and their ethical implications and generating new objects of con-
testation and new forums for political debate, novel questions for democ-
racy, and original styles of activism. The growing consumption of health
news online shows that (1) users are able to choose when and where to
consume news, (2) news offers are increasingly personalized, and (3) the
consumption mode switches from a passive to an active one (Purcell et al.,
2010). The users who support alternative knowledge on vaccines belong to
a particular category because they fight for a common goal, that is, the free
choice of vaccines. Therefore, they try to build online spaces to carry out
their claims, weld alliances and claim expertise, activating a progressive
disintermediation of the official expert in knowledge management. The ex-
pert is not necessary to access knowledge, so it is possible to examine these
phenomena as forms of digital biological citizenship “from below”, outside
the prevailing biomedical paradigm.
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                  181
    Social media has changed not only individuals’ access to health infor-
mation but also their ability to create, adapt and use information. Digital
media technologies, especially social networking sites (SNSs), have greatly
accelerated the proliferation of different types of knowledge by encourag-
ing laypeople to share their personal and experiential knowledge that com-
plements and sometimes challenges the knowledge of accredited experts
(Epstein 1996; Hardey 2002; Koay and Sharp 2013; Labonté 2013).
    Undoubtedly, from Web 2.0 onwards, users are more active and par-
ticipatory in the creation of content. It is no coincidence that researcher
speak of “user-generated content” (UGC; see Han et al., 2018) and
prosumers (Ritzer and Jurgenson 2010) to refer to the new digital users
who are simultaneously producers and consumers. The UGC of social me-
dia allows citizens to produce knowledge, including knowledge about their
own experiences, and to advocate changes in health-related policies and
practices, particularly those affecting treatment (Lupton 2013, 2014).
    Despite the fact that platforms, such as Facebook, WhatsApp and
WeChat, claim to have millions of active users, recent research has con-
firmed a paradox of participation, given that although the Web is free to
use, it generates economic or social value for platform owners. Although
there are positive examples, today private companies, such as Facebook,
Twitter and other SNSs, actually make profits from user-generated content
(written posts, videos, photos, etc.) without any expense on their part
(Balbi and Magaudda 2018). Contemporary society can be interpreted as a
pluralistic knowledge society where competing types of knowledge coexist.
To make a brief classification, four types could be recognized, namely eve-
ryday knowledge, special knowledge based on practical experience, tradi-
tional knowledge and scientific knowledge (Harambam and Auspers
2014). Different types of knowledge compete with one another to achieve
epistemic authority (from time to time) for solving specific and especially
situated problems. The situational approach (Haraway 1988, 1989; Such-
man 2002) can help researchers to understand the interchangeability of dif-
ferent types of knowledge. In everyday life, which is the primary locus
where the subject employs one’s knowledge to solve practical problems,
scientific knowledge is configured as a resource that is sometimes difficult
to use. At the same time, in an individualized society characterized by gen-
eralized uncertainty and the multiplication of forms of public participation
through online platforms, it is easy to witness an election of knowledge
based on personal experience as evidence to describe reality and establish
new regimes of truth. Laypeople play a fundamental role in producing and
disseminating knowledge in society, capable of challenging the epistemic
authority of science through experiential, situated and shared knowledge.
This is not yet a generalized phenomenon, but it is evident enough to re-
quire careful reflection, especially in places where it is more difficult to
follow knowledge production. Today, in fact, the methodological tools
used to follow online controversies are still limited, also because of the ob-
jective limits set by the platforms (Veltri 2020).
182                                                                  Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)
    The uncertainty caused by the health emergency has put a strain on the
production of ready-made knowledge, being a phase of science in action
(Latour 1988). However, it has long been the case that laypeople have re-
lied on their ability to construct ready-made knowledge under conditions
of uncertainty. This is particularly evident in managing the relationship
with one’s body and health, where a layperson manages information
through the use of online platforms as support for experiential expertise.
Google and other online search engines and social media platforms have
flexible authority in common (among other things), precisely because they
leave more space for personal experiences. Much remains to be done to
understand the role of platforms in building the expertise of laypeople,
which is becoming more urgent than ever in the face of a radicalization of
uncertainty related to adverse events. After all, in the face of the enormous
climate, health, political and social crises, the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak will
not be the last stressful event in which laypeople and society itself will be
called on to mobilize reliable knowledge in order to overcome the chal-
lenges ahead.


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Acknowledgements

     Part of this Crossing Boundaries (i.e. the contribution by Simone Tosoni titled
“Misinformation, Social Media and the Pandemic Crisis: Challenging the Return to
a Powerful Media Effects Paradigm”; and the contribution by Barbara Morsello
titled “Stop saying you did your research: You are the research!” Rethinking lay
expertise in online communities”) has been conducted within the project “Social
factors and processes affecting the acceptance of fake scientific knowledge”
granted by MIUR - PRIN 2017 program, Grant Number 2017B434E8. The overall
research project is carried out by a consortium headed by Federico Neresini (Uni-
versità di Padova), together with the Politecnico di Milano, Università Cattolica del
Sacro Cuore (Milano) and Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (Napoli).
186                                                                      Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)


1
  For a summary of positions on possible alternatives, with specific reference to the pan-
demic context: Pennings and Symons (2021) in response to Savulescu (2020).
2
  The term ‘the people’ does not usually denote a concrete physical group of individuals,
but rather functions as an ‘empty signifier’ to refer to a group having a purported moral
superiority, depicted as homogeneous and thus able to express the volonté générale. This
will is considered to be the legitimate foundation for political and societal decisions
(Mudde 2004).
3
  ‘The elite’ is seen as the villainous antagonist of ‘the people’and includes political, eco-
nomic, legal, cultural and intellectual groups (Mudde 2017).
4
   According to Jan-Werner Müller, these tendencies have a ‘set of distinct claims and
(…) an inner logic’ (Müller 2016, 10).
5
  Described as one of populism’s ‘core principles’ (Mede and Schäfer 2020, 476).
6
  Defined as ‘decision-making sovereignty’, ‘the right to formulate science-related power
claims.’ (Mede and Schäfer 2020, 482).
7
  Defined as ‘Truth-speaking sovereignty’, ‘the right to determine valid information about
the world’ (Mede and Schäfer 2020, 483).
8
   Europe, for instance – even before the pandemic crisis – was affected by a relatively
widespread anti-vaccine sentiment. According to a 2018 study, 59% of Western Euro-
peans – and just 40% of Eastern Europeans – thought vaccines were safe, compared
with the global average of 79% (Bickerton 2021).
9
  Similar attitudes already created problems during the H1N1 pandemic (Fidler 2010).
10
   Callaway, E. (2020), The unequal scramble for coronavirus vaccines — by the numbers,
in “Nature”, 24 August 2020.
11
   For example, Hungary licensed Russia’s Sputnik-V coronavirus vaccine, ignoring calls
to stick to a common European vaccine policy. About the risks of developing a “gray
market” see Stevis-Gridneff (2021).
12
   Le Pen took the chance to say that ‘The European Union has failed totally’, and that
‘They still tell us that as 27 countries we are stronger, but that is false — the solution
must come at the national level, for this issue as in many others’. Meanwhile Orban,
Salvini and Morawiecki discussed the possibility of creating a new populist alliance for
the EU Parliament based on the values of ‘Atlanticism, freedom, family, Christianity,
sovereignty and opposing anti-Semitism’ (Hopkins et al 2021).
13
   See the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/442 and 521, both of 11,
March 2021, making the exportation of certain products subject to the production of an
export authorisation, introducing the criteria of proportionality and reciprocity.
14
   The AstraZeneca (lately named Vaxzevria) vaccine’s efficacy was questioned by some
countries in people over 65, on the basis of unclear and unofficial information; its ad-
ministration was later suspended (temporarily or definitively) over fears that it could
cause blood-clotting problems in isolated cases and was finally recommended in some
countries (Italy is an example) only for people over the age of 60.
15
      See the report at: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/international/articles-re-
ports/2021/03/07/extent-damage-astrazeneca-vaccines-perceived-safet.
16
   Eurofound, Living, working and COVID-19 (Update April 2021): Mental health and
trust decline across EU as pandemic enters another year, see the report at:
https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/report/2021/living-working-and-
covid-19-update-april-2021-mental-health-and-trust-decline-across-eu-as-pandemic.
17
   In this respect, a relevant example is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ call to not trust
the elites (DeSantis 2021).
Bory, Crabu, Morsello, Tomasi and Tosoni                                            187

18
   Here, the most suitable example is Viktor Orban’s use of the virus to increase his
political manoeuvring room (Rohac 2020). On the different faces of populism during
the pandemic, see: Ganesh (2021), and, on the different responses to the COVID-19
crisis given by different populist parties, see Bobba and Hubé (2021).
19
   This label was attributed by Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955) to a plurality of actually di-
verse (and often non-academic) hypotheses on the capacity of media to generate strong
effects ‘to overturn [them]’ (Anderson 2021, 45).
20
   Launched by scholars like Jay G. Blumler, Michael Gurevitch, Elihu Katz and others,
the uses and gratification approach is a long-lasting tradition of research within media
studies: It draws on social psychology to shed light on the motivations bringing people
to engage with media or to performs specific tasks with media (see, for example Blumler
and Katz 1974; Katz et al. 1973). In recent years, the approach has been adapted to
social media, instant messaging services and other new communication platforms (see,
for example Wang et al. 2012).
21
   The term “refused knowledge” refers to knowledge that is supported by a community
or a group but rejected by prevailing scientific institutions.
