Storytelling and/as Misinformation: Storytelling dynamics and narrative structures for three cases of COVID-19 viral misinformation

McDowell, Kate

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/117174 Copy

Description

Title

Storytelling and/as Misinformation: Storytelling dynamics and narrative structures for three cases of COVID-19 viral misinformation

Author(s)

McDowell, Kate

Issue Date

2024-02-16

Keyword(s)

• Storytelling
• Narrative
• Health misinformation
• Everyday information
• Information behavior
• Community information
• Collective information
• Narrative conflicts

Abstract

Storytelling is everyday information behavior that, when it goes wrong, can propagate misinformation. From accurate data to misinformed stories, what goes wrong with the process? This chapter focuses on the dynamics of storytelling in misinformation as a problematic aspect of the Covid-19 pandemic in three widely circulated problematic stories. Storytelling offers a framework for researching collective experiences of information as a process that is inherently based in communities, with knowledge commons that are instantiated by the telling and retelling of stories, temporarily or permanently. To understand how difficult information is to govern in story form and through storytelling dynamics, this chapter uses storytelling theory to explore three recent cases of Covid-19 misinformation related to medicine misuse, exploiting vaccine hesitancy, and aftermath of medical racism. Understanding what goes wrong with these stories may be key to public health communications that engage effectively with communities’ everyday misinformation challenges.

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Series/Report Name or Number

Cambridge Studies on Governing Knowledge Commons

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Sponsor(s)/Grant Number(s)

• NSF: SES
• Divn Of Social and Economic Sciences
• #2017495

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