Analyzing the Discourse on COVID-19 in White Nationalist Online Spaces

• In Event: Misinformation, Political Polarization and Health Behaviors

Abstract

The COVID-19 epidemic resurfaced decades-old concerns about the association between vaccine hesitancy (Offit, 2010) and endorsement of misinformation and conspiracy theories (Ophir & Jamieson, 2018). The prevalence of vaccine misinformation increased dramatically since the debate moved online, particularly in social media (Kata, 2010). While resistance to vaccines exists across the political spectrum, it was found to be substantially higher among the contemporary American right (Walter et al., 2020), a trend exacerbated by the growing politicization of COVID-19 (Motta et al., 2020).
A study (Authors, 2022) found anti-vaccine sentiment was extremely high, and trending up among users of the White-Nationalist platform Stormfront, that lacks traditional gatekeeping of other social media (Matsakis, 2019). The authors (2022) found four themes discussed on Stormfront around vaccines: conspiracies, science, race and white innovation. While most anti-vaccine posts relied on common anti-vaccine tropes (Kata, 2010), pro-vaccina posts often relied on racist arguments (e.g., the claim that vaccines protect white people from diseases spread by non-whites) and anti-immigration arguments (Bowman-Grieve, 2009). The extreme prevalence of vaccine misinformation, conspiracies and anti-vaccine sentiment on Stormfront is of particular concern in light of studies showing the potential of fringe conspiracies to influence and inform more mainstream conservative media (Benkler et al., 2018).
The previous study (authors, 2022) revealed the breadth and nature of anti-vaccine misinformation on Stormfront, its timeframe was limited to posts between 2001 and 2017. While broad in scope, this timespan did not address the highly-politicized COVID-19 pandemic, that took place at a time when the far-right's footprint in mainstream politics and the Republican party was in historical highs. Moreover, discussion of vaccines during COVID-19 has influenced opinions regarding non-COVID vaccines such as the influenza vaccine (Fridman et al., 2021). In addition, while the previous study looked only at discourse around vaccines, this proposed study will examine all discussions about the epidemic at large.
Therefore, the goal of this study is to examine the themes and topics discussed on Stormfront in regard to COVID-19 (RQ1), to estimate the share of anti-vaccine content (RQ2), to examine the arguments made for and against COVID-19 vaccine (RQ3), and to compare these findings to Stormfront’s discourse around vaccines between 2001 and 2017 (RQ4). Data included 9,618 posts posted between 18/1/2020 and 9/12/2020. Analysis combines a computational method, the analysis of topic model network approach (ANTMN, Walter & Ophir, 2019), combining unsupervised machine learning and network analysis, as well as manual coding of 500 posts. The results from the manual content analysis will be scaled to the full corpus using supervised machine learning. Finally, findings will be compared with those found in discourse before COVID-19 on Stormfront (authors, 2022).
Results of this study will contribute to the understanding of the relationship between political polarization and health-related decision-making among extremist groups in the United States, and inform public health and misinformation curtailing policy.
 
References
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Authors

• Dror Walter, Georgia State University

• Yotam Ophir, University at Buffalo

• hui ye, Georgia State University