The Phenomenon of COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory Narratives through Virtual Ethnography on Instagram

Penulis

  • Fathul Qorib Program Studi Ilmu Komunikasi, Universitas Tribhuwana Tunggadewi
  • Rangga Tirta Ramadan Universitas Tribhuwana Tunggadewi

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21111/ejoc.v9i1.12006

Kata Kunci:

Conspiracy Theories, COVID-19, Instagram, Virtual Ethnography

Abstrak

This study aims to investigate the conspiracy phenomenon of the COVID-19 pandemic as disseminated by the Instagram account @unexplnd. This account boasts 842 thousand followers and stands as one of the largest social media propagating the concept of COVID-19 conspiracy theories in Indonesia. Primary data is derived from posts on this account, and secondary data is obtained through interviews with four followers who actively engage in commenting and harbor beliefs in the existence of conspiracies. The research corpus is subsequently scrutinized employing the conceptual framework delineated by Douglas, Sutton, and Cichocka (2017), which delineates the emergence of conspiracies through epistemic, existential, and social motives. The findings of this investigation reveal that incidents perceived as random chance occurrences, motivated by the desire to preserve comfort and freedom, along with suspicion or resentment towards particular entities, serve as grounds for endorsing COVID-19 pandemic conspiracy theories. Furthermore, exposure to media presenting conspiracy theories, such as the Instagram account @unexplnd, contributes to an augmented belief in such theories among proponents. Conspiracy theorists desire to raise awareness among the general populace regarding conspiracy theories by disseminating information containing conspiracy narratives across various media channels.

Referensi

Adelayanti, N. (2020). UGM Expert Shares Tips to Prevent Psychosomatics during Covid-19 Pandemic | Universitas Gadjah Mada. Ugm.Ac.Id. https://ugm.ac.id/en/news/19938-ugm-expert-shares-tips-to-prevent-psychosomatics-during-covid-19-pandemic

Alsuhibani, A., Shevlin, M., Freeman, D., Sheaves, B., & Bentall, R. P. (2022). Why conspiracy theorists are not always paranoid: Conspiracy theories and paranoia form separate factors with distinct psychological predictors. PLOS ONE, 17(4), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0259053

Bale, J. M. (2007). Political paranoia v. political realism: on distinguishing between bogus conspiracy theories and genuine conspiratorial politics. Http://Dx.Doi.Org/10.1080/00313220601118751, 41(1), 45–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313220601118751

Benkler, Y., Faris, R., & Roberts, H. (2018). Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press.

Bierwiaczonek, K., Gundersen, A. B., & Kunst, J. R. (2022). The role of conspiracy beliefs for COVID-19 health responses: A meta-analysis. Current Opinion in Psychology, 46(2), 101–346. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.COPSYC.2022.101346

Bierwiaczonek, K., Kunst, J. R., & Pich, O. (2020). Belief in COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories Reduces Social Distancing over Time. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/aphw.12223

Bilewicz, M., Winiewski, M., Kofta, M., & Wójcik, A. (2013). Harmful Ideas, The Structure and Consequences of Anti-Semitic Beliefs in Poland. Political Psychology, 34(6), 821–839. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12024

Brotherton, R., & French, C. C. (2014). Belief in Conspiracy Theories and Susceptibility to the Conjunction Fallacy. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 28(2), 238–248. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.2995

Craft, S., Ashley, S., & Maksl, A. (2017). News media literacy and conspiracy theory endorsement. Communication and the Public, 2(4), 388–401. https://doi.org/10.1177/2057047317725539

Dagnall, N., Drinkwater, K., Parker, A., Denovan, A., & Parton, M. (2015). Conspiracy theory and cognitive style: A worldview. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(1), 206–225.

Dhanani, L. Y., & Franz, B. (2020). The Role of News Consumption and Trust in Public Health Leadership in Shaping COVID-19 Knowledge and Prejudice. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 28–32.

Douglas, K. M., Uscinski, J. E., Sutton, R. M., Cichocka, A., Nefes, T., Ang, C. S., & Deravi, F. (2019). Understanding Conspiracy Theories. Political Psychology, 40(1), 3–35. https://doi.org/10.1111/POPS.12568

Georgiou, N., Delfabbro, P., & Balzan, R. (2020). COVID-19-related conspiracy beliefs and their relationship with perceived stress and pre-existing conspiracy beliefs. Personality and Individual Differences, 166, 110201. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110201

Goreis, A., & Voracek, M. (2019). A systematic review and meta-analysis of psychological research on conspiracy beliefs: Field characteristics, measurement instruments, and associations with personality traits. Frontiers in Psychology, 10(1), 205–218.

Gruzd, A., & Mai, P. (2020). Going viral: How a single tweet spawned a COVID-19 conspiracy theory on Twitter. Big Data and Society, 7(2), 1–9.

Guild, E. (2018). Data rights: Claiming privacy rights through international institutions. In Data Politics: Worlds, Subjects, Rights (pp. 267–284).

Hern, A. (2020). Facebook and Instagram ban antisemitic conspiracy theories and blackface | Facebook | The Guardian. Theguardian.Com. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/12/facebook-and-instagram-ban-antisemitic-conspiracy-theories-and-blackface

Hofstadter, R. (1965). The Paranoid Style in American Politics. John Wiley & Son, Inc.

Imhoff, R., & Bruder, M. (2014). Speaking (Un-)truth to power: Conspiracy mentality as a generalised political attitude. European Journal of Personality, 28(1), 25–43. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.1930

Instagram. (2020). Mengurangi Penyebaran Informasi Palsu di Instagram (Pusat Bantuan Instagram) - Reducing the Spread of False Information on Instagram (Instagram Help Center). Instagram.Com. https://help.instagram.com/1735798276553028

Jackson, J. C., Watts, J., List, J. M., Puryear, C., Drabble, R., & Lindquist, K. A. (2022). From Text to Thought: How Analyzing Language Can Advance Psychological Science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17(3), 805–826.

Kim, M., & Cao, X. (2016). The impact of exposure to media messages promoting government conspiracy theories on distrust in the government: Evidence from a two-stage randomized experiment. International Journal of Communication, 10, 3808–3827.

McKenzie-Mcharg, A. (2022). From Status Politics to the Paranoid Style: Richard Hofstadter and the Pitfalls of Psychologizing History. Journal of the History of Ideas, 83(3), 451–475. https://doi.org/10.1353/JHI.2022.0022

Miller, B. L. (2020). Science Denial and COVID Conspiracy Theories: Potential Neurological Mechanisms and Possible Responses. JAMA, 324(22), 2255–2256. https://doi.org/10.1001/JAMA.2020.21332

Miller, T. L., & Wesley, C. L. (2010). Assessing mission and resources for social change: An organizational identity perspective on social venture capitalists’ decision criteria. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, 34(4), 705–733. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2010.00388.x

Muslich, M. (2008). Kekuasaan Media Massa Mengostruksi Realitas. Bahasa Dan Seni, 36(2), 150–159.

Nasrullah, R. (2016). Media Sosial Perspektif Komunikasi, Budaya dan Sosioteknologi. Simbiosa Rekatama Media.

Negura, L., Masse, Y., & Plante, N. (2021). The construction of the Covid-19 pandemic as a social problem: expert discourse and representational naturalization in the mass media during the first wave of the pandemic in Canada (No. 1; 1). Stockholm University Press. https://doi.org/10.31124/ADVANCE.14770296.V1

Prasetia, A. (2020). Menkes: Corona Bukan Barang Menakutkan, Saya Confident Banget Kok. News.Detik.Com. https://news.detik.com/berita/d-4922126/menkes-corona-bukan-barang-menakutkan-saya-confident-banget-kok

Qorib, F., Dewi, S., & Aminulloh, A. (2021). From Mass Panic to Social Recovery A Review on Indonesian Netizens in Dealing with Covid-19. 3rd Jogjakarta Communication Conference, 73–78. http://repository.unitri.ac.id/2557/

Ripp, T., & Röer, J. P. (2022). Systematic review on the association of COVID-19-related conspiracy belief with infection-preventive behavior and vaccination willingness. BMC Psychology, 10(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-022-00771-2

Rowell, J. A., Moss, P. D., & Pope, S. (2006). The Construction of Meaning from Text: possible effects of different reading strategies. Educational Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology, 10(1), 39–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144341900100104

Saripudin, A. (2021). Siti Fadilah Supari Sebut Pemberitaan Soal Covid-19 Lebih Menakutkan dari Virusnya, Savic Ali Bilang Begini - Seputar Tangsel. Seputartangsel.Pikiran-Rakyat.Com. https://seputartangsel.pikiran-rakyat.com/nasional/pr-142191891/siti-fadilah-supari-sebut-pemberitaan-soal-covid-19-lebih-menakutkan-dari-virusnya-savic-ali-bilang-begini

Scopelliti, M., Pacilli, M. G., & Aquino, A. (2021). TV News and COVID-19: Media Influence on Healthy Behavior in Public Spaces. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(4), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3390/IJERPH18041879

Setyowati, D. (2020). Riset: Pengguna Facebook & YouTube Percaya Teori Konspirasi Corona - Katadata.co.id. Katadata.Co.Id. https://katadata.co.id/desysetyowati/digital/5eeb14f5d2b87/riset-pengguna-facebook-youtube-percaya-teori-konspirasi-corona

Sinaga, O. (2010). Konspirasi Transnasional dalam Kajian Korupsi di Indonesia. Unpad.

Törnberg, P. (2018). Echo chambers and viral misinformation: Modeling fake news as complex contagion. PloS One, 13(9), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0203958

UNESCO. (2020). Identifying conspiracy theories | European Commission. Ec.Europa.Eu. https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/coronavirus-response/fighting-disinformation/identifying-conspiracy-theories_en

van Prooijen, J. W., & Douglas, K. M. (2018). Belief in conspiracy theories: Basic principles of an emerging research domain. European Journal of Social Psychology, 48(7), 897–908. https://doi.org/10.1002/EJSP.2530

Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359, 1146–1151. https://doi.org/10.1126/SCIENCE.AAP9559

Widiyarti, Y. (2020). Psikolog Sebut Penyebab Kepanikan Ada Virus Corona di Indonesia - Gaya Tempo.co. Tempo. https://gaya.tempo.co/read/1315221/psikolog-sebut-penyebab-kepanikan-ada-virus-corona-di-indonesia

Zhou, F., Yu, T., Du, R., Fan, G., Liu, Y., Liu, Z., Xiang, J., Wang, Y., Song, B., Gu, X., Guan, L., Wei, Y., Li, H., Wu, X., Xu, J., Tu, S., Zhang, Y., Chen, H., & Cao, B. (2020). Clinical course and risk factors for mortality of adult inpatients with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China: a retrospective cohort study. The Lancet, 395(10229), 1054–1062. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30566-3

Zidkova, R., Malinakova, K., van Dijk, J. P., & Tavel, P. (2021). The coronavirus pandemic and the occurrence of psychosomatic symptoms: Are they related?†. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(7), 11–25. https://doi.org/10.3390/IJERPH18073570/S1

##submission.downloads##

Diterbitkan

2024-06-28

Terbitan

Vol 9 No 1 (2024): ETTISAL : Journal of Communication (In Layout)

Bagian

Articles

Lisensi

Creative Commons License

Artikel ini berlisensiCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

In order to be accepted and published by Ettisal : Journal of Communication, author(s) submitting the article manuscript should complete all the review stages. By submitting the manuscript the author(s) agreed to these following terms:

1.   The copyright of received articles shall be assigned to [Ettisal : Journal of Communication] as the publisher of the journal. The intended copyright includes the right to publish articles in various forms (including reprints). [Ettisal : Journal of Communication] maintain the publishing rights to the published articles.

2.   Authors are permitted to disseminate published article by sharing the link/DOI of the article at [Ettisal : Journal of Communication]. authors are allowed to use their articles for any legal purposes deemed necessary without written permission from [Ettisal : Journal of Communication] with an acknowledgement of initial publication to this journal.

3.   Users/public use of this website will be licensed to CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution & Non-Commercial-ShareAlike)