Soziologie und Kriminologie – Offener Zugang
Offener Zugang

Abstrakt

Alternative Media Framing of COVID-19 Risks

Martin Kelvin

Early media coverage of COVID-19, between 1 January and 31 March 2020, provided Alternative Media Personalities(AMPs) a chance to supply conspiratorial misinformation to their online audiences. Far-right AMPs may reframe sociopolitical aspects of risk to supply 'fake-news', amplifying future risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF) to define factors of risk amplification, this study conducted a framing analysis upon 1,895 minutes of streamed video content from a well liked, far-right, AMP regarding COVID-19. Significant differences in frame expression suggested that AMPs hold greater value in specific frames when providing infotainment based upon authentic interpretations of risk. A scarcity of serious change in frame expression over time suggests that AMPs may depend on media templates when communicating risk to their audience. Qualitative data suggest that different aspects of risk amplification add concert to supply discursive contexts for far-right AMPs to define risks from their ideological standpoint. The info provided by this study better outlines a number of the complexities facing scientific communications strategies which seek to directly address misinformation online.