COVID-19 misinformation and the 2020 U.S. presidential election

Abstract

Voting is the defining act for a democracy. However, voting is only meaningful if public deliberation is grounded in veritable and equitable information. This essay investigates the politicization of public health practices during the Democratic primaries in the context of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, using a dataset of more than 67 million tweets. We find the public sphere on Twitter is politically heterogeneous and the majority—liberal and conservative alike—advocates for wearing masks and vote-by-mail. However, a small, but dense group of conservative users push anti-mask and voter fraud narratives.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Mar 03, 2021
Source ID
10.37016/mr-2020-57

Entities

People

  • Ashwin P. Rao
  • Emilio Ferrara
  • Emily Chen
  • Geoffrey Cowan
  • Herbert Chang
  • Kristina Lerman

Organizations

  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research
  • Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
  • University of Southern California

Tags

Readers

  • Agent-Based Social Robotics and Mobile-Assisted Learning in Virtual Environments.
  • Government and Public Administration Law.
  • Political Violence and Terrorism Studies.