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Crises Narratives Defining the COVID-19 Pandemic: Expert Uncertainties and Conspiratorial Sensemaking
Abstract
Experts, news media, and social media commentators struggled to make sense of SARS-CoV-2 January–May 2020 as disease caused by this virus, COVID-19, circulated the globe. This paper represents a longitudinal analysis of the primary narratives produced across expert, media, and social media sources to describe the virus, its phylogenetic origins, and biological effects. High expert uncertainty coupled with amplifying representations of risk across time drove collective sensemaking and conspiratorial narratives.
... The critical attitude of the public together with risk consultations results in the emergence of a variety of risk frameworks, which represent different public experiences and concerns (Gephart, 1993;Janoske et al., 2013;Maguire & Hardy, 2013). However, formal expert frameworks are still dominant (Beck, 1992;Furey et al., 2021;Hardy & Maguire, 2016;Luhmann, 1993;Nadesan, 2022;Slager, 2017) and even public groups utilize the service of formal experts to support their local meanings in risk consultations (Hardy & Maguire, 2016;Mueller et al., 2023;Slovic, 1999). Yet, this is not much successful when the arguments of business stakeholders are based almost exclusively on the service and frameworks of the same experts. ...
... Together with risk, risk measures, and management become an area of expertise. Risk management is now a professional discipline performed by organizational experts (Bednarek et al., 2021;Hardy & Maguire, 2016;Nadesan, 2022;Power, 2007;Slager, 2017). With their formal formulation and normalization of risks, the experts monopolize the domain of risk management (Boin et al., 2005;Clarke & Perrow, 1996). ...
... Lastly, public stakeholders can use informal communicative platforms such as the media not much restricted by formal frameworks (Mueller et al., 2023;Nadesan, 2022;Xu, 2018). Such platforms provide a larger space for alternative risk meanings based on individual and community concerns. ...
This study examines a public hearing, in which a company normalizes a high-risk project while a group of residents and landowners problematize it through three types of relational risk work including the construction of concerns versus measures, consultations on concerns and measures, and company approach in addressing concerns with measures. They construct risk meanings in a relational context where they respond to the normalizing and problematizing attempts of one another. Accordingly, this study has two main contributions. First, it identifies three types of risk work used by public and business stakeholders to relationally construct and normalize/problematize risk and risk management and thus analyzes the tension between normalizing and problematizing as an issue of interdependence. Second, it brings forward the opposition between concerns and measures as an important topic for risk research and emphasizes the critical role of risk consultations with cooperative approaches in addressing this opposition.
... In fact, this social cyber geography shows how bots are actively using strategic communications: bots that claim to be from China disseminate narratives blaming China for the coronavirus. At the same time, the Chinese state-sponsored media was actively denying that the virus came from China, and that it was actually coming from the US 21 . This is a form of social cyber attack that aims to influence the Chinese public about the source of the virus. ...
Social Cyber Geography is the space in the digital cyber realm that is produced through social relations. Communication in the social media ecosystem happens not only because of human interactions, but is also fueled by algorithmically controlled bot agents. Most studies have not looked at the social cyber geography of bots because they focus on bot activity within a single country. Since creating a bot uses universal programming technology, bots, how prevalent are these bots throughout the world? To quantify bot activity worldwide, we perform a multilingual and geospatial analysis on a large dataset of social data collected from X during the Coronavirus pandemic in 2021. This pandemic affected most of the world, and thus is a common topic of discussion. Our dataset consists of ~100 mil posts generated by ~31mil users. Most bot studies focus only on English-speaking countries, because most bot detection algorithms are built for the English language. However, only 47\% of the bots write in the English language. To accommodate multiple languages in our bot detection algorithm, we built Multilingual BotBuster, a multi-language bot detection algorithm to identify the bots in this diverse dataset. We also create a Geographical Location Identifier to swiftly identify the countries a user affiliates with in his description. Our results show that bots can appear to move from one country to another, but the language they write in remains relatively constant. Bots distribute narratives on distinct topics related to their self-declared country affiliation. Finally, despite the diverse distribution of bot locations around the world, the proportion of bots per country is about 20%. Our work stresses the importance of a united analysis of the cyber and physical realms, where we combine both spheres to inventorize the language and location of social media bots and understand communication strategies.
... Table 3 categorizes the topics and sub-topics found from both NSV and misinformation data in the Finnish context. Many of the themes we identified are also identified in previous studies, like the rush in vaccine development, a conspiracy of vaccine-profiting pharmaceutical companies and global elites, and similar claims of side effects and safety issues of the vaccine (Bruns et al., 2022;Lindelöf et al., 2022;Nadesan, 2022;Zhao et al., 2023). Furthermore, we identified some unique topics and examples, including Sputnik and Putin's vaccine, the conspiracy of Israel and Pfizer's CEO, and the sentiment against vaccination passports. ...
This study analyzed 1,683,700 vaccine-related tweets in Finnish using FinBERT language model, Botometer, and BERTopic, from December 2019 to October 2022. A strong correlation was identified between Negative Stance towards Vaccines (NSV) and misinformation, with an upward trend over time and a significant role of malicious bot accounts. Topic modeling revealed persistent themes of vaccine skepticism and diverse misinformation themes adapting to debunking efforts. Approximately a third of tweets contained misinformation, irrespective of source reliability, leading to increased NSV. The study observed a gap in active countering of misinformation by authorities, suggesting proactive involvement by public authorities, public education for effective misinformation management and social media literacy.
... During the COVID-19 pandemic, considerable conspiracies and rumors regarding bioweapon and biohazard leakage have hindered the control of pandemic spread (Romer and Jamieson, 2020;Zhang et al., 2021) and shattered people's confidence over biotechnologies and institutions. This negative attitude toward biotechnologies aggravated as conspiracies about COVID-19 (accounted as bioweapon) entered collective sense-making (Nadesan, 2022), and a substantial portion of people even endorse contradictory conspiracy theories (Petrović and Žeželj, 2022) However, in these unexpected emerging situations, SynBio can benefit the treatment of infectious diseases and the development of vaccines. SynBio and its methodologies, such as RNA delivery using lipid nanoparticles, have already functioned in the production of COVID-19 RNA vaccines and medicines (Liu et al., 2020) and become one of the fundamental methods for the rapid development of fully synthetic RNA vaccines (Rappuoli et al., 2021) in the post-COVID-19 era. ...
As a revolutionary biological science and technology, synthetic biology has already spread its influence from natural sciences to humanities and social sciences by introducing biosafety, biosecurity, and ethical issues to society. The current study aims to elaborate the intellectual bases and research front of the synthetic biology field in the sphere of philosophy, ethics, and social sciences, with knowledge mapping and bibliometric methods. The literature records from the Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index in the Web of Science Core Collection from 1982 to 2021 were collected and analyzed to illustrate the intellectual structure of philosophical, ethical, and social research of synthetic biology. This study profiled the hotspots of research focus on its governance, philosophical and ethical concerns, and relevant technologies. This study offers clues and enlightenment for the stakeholders and researchers to follow the progress of this emerging discipline and technology and to understand the cutting-edge ideas and future form of this field, which takes on greater significance in the post-COVID-19 era.
... But there is a next phase that follows the process of conspiracy theory formation, when conspiracy theories "become historical narratives that can spread through cultural transmission", forming "the basis of how people subsequently remember and mentally represent a historical event" (van Prooijen and Douglas, 2017, p. 323). This is how, for example, in the context of the COVID-19 crisis, attempts have been made to construct a narrative without evidence or proof, only speculative -what populists and post-truth fabricators call "alternative facts" -about the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, for example, placing it in a leak from a laboratory, a conspiracy theory for some, scientific hypothesis for others, which to date has not been proven, but which has been taken as true by many citizens thanks to the impulse that has been given to conspiracy narratives (Nadesan, 2022), and which is opposed to the theory that seems to have had greater scientific consensus, that of the zoonotic origin through the "spillover" model (Borsetti et al. 2021;Ruiz-Medina et al, 2021;Frutos et al., 2022aFrutos et al., , 2022b. ...
En esta revisión sobre la desinformación durante la crisis de la covid-19 se hace un análisis teórico, conceptual y exploratorio de la infodemia y desinfodemia en tiempos de crisis de salud pública. En el artículo se intenta precisar qué son la infodemia y la desinfodemia, en el marco del bioinformacionalismo, se reflexiona si hemos llegado tarde para atajarla, se exponen los peligros para la salud pública, las democracias y la vedad histórica por el auge de teorías conspirativas virales, de noticias falsas y de campañas de desprestigio contra las autoridades científico-sanitarias y se analiza el papel comunicativo de científicos y periodistas en la resolución de esta crisis sanitaria.
This review of disinformation during the COVID-19 crisis provides a theoretical, conceptual, and exploratory analysis of infodemic and disinfodemic in times of public health crisis. The article attempts to clarify what infodemic and disinfodemic are, within the framework of bioinformationalism, reflects on whether we are too late to tackle them, exposes the dangers for public health, democracies, and historical truth due to the rise of viral conspiracy theories, fake news, and smear campaigns against scientific and health authorities, and analyses the communicative role of scientists and journalists in resolving this health crisis.
An explosion at the Port of Beirut resulted in over 200 fatalities and displaced many more. Hundreds recorded and thousands shared the event, sparking discourse across social media. We provide a mixed‐methods analysis of 26 TikTok videos about the port explosion. Our study involved a semiotic analysis of the videos and a content analysis of the related 21,150 comments. The discourse surrounding the explosion extends a growing body of literature on the role of TikTok in disseminating crisis‐related information. We use a collective sensemaking framework to investigate how TikTok contributes to the understanding of an event. The authors find that Middle Eastern content creators contributed more to collective sensemaking about the event than non‐Middle Eastern creators. We additionally examine the current state of collective sensemaking on TikTok and provide platform implications.
Abstract: SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it produces, COVID-19, have not only produced a “public health crisis,” but also triggered a “crisis in public confidence,” exacerbating the extant “polarization crisis” seen as dividing the American public. In this charged context, knowledge has become highly politicized, with many counter-narratives circulating regarding the nature and heritage of viral risk and the intentions and effects of official responses. Fraught meanings prevent consensus on the nature of the COVID-19 crisis and the appropriateness of responses even while semantic undecidability is rendered moot as the crisis is legally officiated in “lockdowns” and mask mandates. This project explores the idea of crisis through the lens of history, philosophy, science and medicine to understand the complex genealogy of the term in western culture and the relevance of this genealogy for contemporary crisis deployments, such as the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
The devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS–coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has raised important questions about its origins and the mechanism of its transfer to humans. A further question was whether companion or commercial animals could act as SARS-CoV-2 vectors, with early data suggesting susceptibility is species specific. To better understand SARS-CoV-2 species susceptibility, we undertook an in silico structural homology modelling, protein–protein docking, and molecular dynamics simulation study of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein’s ability to bind angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) from relevant species. Spike protein exhibited the highest binding to human (h)ACE2 of all the species tested, forming the highest number of hydrogen bonds with hACE2. Interestingly, pangolin ACE2 showed the next highest binding affinity despite having a relatively low sequence homology, whereas the affinity of monkey ACE2 was much lower despite its high sequence similarity to hACE2. These differences highlight the power of a structural versus a sequence-based approach to cross-species analyses. ACE2 species in the upper half of the predicted affinity range (monkey, hamster, dog, ferret, cat) have been shown to be permissive to SARS-CoV-2 infection, supporting a correlation between binding affinity and infection susceptibility. These findings show that the earliest known SARS-CoV-2 isolates were surprisingly well adapted to bind strongly to human ACE2, helping explain its efficient human to human respiratory transmission. This study highlights how in silico structural modelling methods can be used to rapidly generate information on novel viruses to help predict their behaviour and aid in countermeasure development.
An ongoing apocalyptic outbreak of a new virus causing pneumonia-like clusters in Wuhan city, China, has gleamed the world. The outbreak, confirmed on the New Year's Eve 2020, has known no boundaries since then. The number has surpassed that of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and is uninterruptedly escalating. Being an RNA virus, it has a propensity to mutate due to the low proofreading capacity of RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. Step-wise mutations have led to the gradual spillover of virus and after crossing the inter-species interface, the virus has adapted itself for a stable human-to-human transmission. The disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (CoV)-2 (SARS-CoV-2) can prove deadlier if the so-called 'super-spreading events' emerge with time. Recent research has shown the maximum homology of 99% of SARS-CoV-2 to pangolins associated coronavirus, owing to which these can serve as potential intermediate host. India is responding swiftly to the emergency situation, and the whole of the country is under lockdown since 25 March 2020, to ensure social distancing. All the international flights are padlocked and the travellers are being screened at airports and seaports via thermal sensors, and quarantine for a period of 14 days is recommended. Three hundred and forty-five patients across the country tested positive with six fatalities as of 22 March 2020. No specific anti-CoV drugs are currently available. Patients are being treated with protease drugs are inhibitors, remdesivir, chloroquine, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 inhibitors, ivermectin, sarilumab and tocilizumab, though none of these is Food and Drug Administration approved and are undergoing trials. Preventive measures such as social distancing, quarantine, cough etiquettes, proper hand washing, cleaning and decontaminating the surfaces are the mainstay for curbing the transmission of this virus. The present review highlights the update of novel SARS-CoV-2 in context to the Indian scenario.
The outbreak of a novel corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the city of Wuhan, China has resulted in more than 1.7 million laboratory confirmed cases all over the world. Recent studies showed that SARS-CoV-2 was likely originated from bats, but its intermediate hosts are still largely unknown. In this study, we assembled the complete genome of a coronavirus identified in 3 sick Malayan pangolins. The molecular and phylogenetic analyses showed that this pangolin coronavirus (pangolin-CoV-2020) is genetically related to the SARS-CoV-2 as well as a group of bat coronaviruses but do not support the SARS-CoV-2 emerged directly from the pangolin-CoV-2020. Our study suggests that pangolins are natural hosts of Betacoronaviruses. Large surveillance of coronaviruses in pangolins could improve our understanding of the spectrum of coronaviruses in pangolins. In addition to conservation of wildlife, minimizing the exposures of humans to wildlife will be important to reduce the spillover risks of coronaviruses from wild animals to humans.
In 2019, a new coronavirus (2019-nCoV) infecting Humans has emerged in Wuhan, China. Its genome has been sequenced and the genomic information promptly released. Despite a high similarity with the genome sequence of SARS-CoV and SARS-like CoVs, we identified a peculiar furin-like cleavage site in the Spike protein of the 2019-nCoV, lacking in the other SARS-like CoVs. In this article, we discuss the possible functional consequences of this cleavage site in the viral cycle, pathogenicity and its potential implication in the development of antivirals.
Since the SARS outbreak 18 years ago, a large number of severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronaviruses (SARSr-CoV) have been discovered in their natural reservoir host, bats1–4. Previous studies indicated that some of those bat SARSr-CoVs have the potential to infect humans5–7. Here we report the identification and characterization of a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) which caused an epidemic of acute respiratory syndrome in humans in Wuhan, China. The epidemic, which started from 12 December 2019, has caused 2,050 laboratory-confirmed infections with 56 fatal cases by 26 January 2020. Full-length genome sequences were obtained from five patients at the early stage of the outbreak. They are almost identical to each other and share 79.5% sequence identify to SARS-CoV. Furthermore, it was found that 2019-nCoV is 96% identical at the whole-genome level to a bat coronavirus. The pairwise protein sequence analysis of seven conserved non-structural proteins show that this virus belongs to the species of SARSr-CoV. The 2019-nCoV virus was then isolated from the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of a critically ill patient, which can be neutralized by sera from several patients. Importantly, we have confirmed that this novel CoV uses the same cell entry receptor, ACE2, as SARS-CoV.
Emerging infectious diseases, such as SARS and Zika, present a major threat to public health1–3. Despite intense research efforts, how, when and where new diseases appear are still the source of considerable uncertainly. A severe respiratory disease was recently reported in the city Wuhan, Hubei province, China. Up to 25th of January 2020, at least 1,975 cases have been reported since the first patient was hospitalized on the 12th of December 2019. Epidemiological investigation suggested that the outbreak was associated with a seafood market in Wuhan. We studied one patient who was a worker at the market, and who was admitted to Wuhan Central Hospital on 26th of December 2019 experiencing a severe respiratory syndrome including fever, dizziness and cough. Metagenomic RNA sequencing4 of a bronchoalveolar lavage fluid sample identified a novel RNA virus from the family Coronaviridae, designed here as WH-Human-1 coronavirus. Phylogenetic analysis of the complete viral genome (29,903 nucleotides) revealed that the virus was most closely related (89.1% nucleotide similarity) to a group of SARS-like coronaviruses (genus Betacoronavirus, subgenus Sarbecovirus) previously sampled from bats in China. This outbreak highlights the ongoing capacity of viral spill-over from animals to cause severe disease in humans.
We are currently witnessing a major epidemic caused by the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019- nCoV). The evolution of 2019-nCoV remains elusive. We found 4 insertions in the spike glycoprotein (S) which are unique to the 2019-nCoV and are not present in other coronaviruses. Importantly, amino acid residues in all the 4 inserts have identity or similarity to those in the HIV-1 gp120 or HIV-1 Gag. Interestingly, despite the inserts being discontinuous on the primary amino acid sequence, 3D-modelling of the 2019-nCoV suggests that they converge to constitute the receptor binding site. The finding of 4 unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV, all of which have identity /similarity to amino acid residues in key structural proteins of HIV-1 is unlikely to be fortuitous in nature. This work provides yet unknown insights on 2019-nCoV and sheds light on the evolution and pathogenicity of this virus with important implications for diagnosis of this virus.
In December 2019, a cluster of patients with pneumonia of unknown cause was linked to a seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, China. A previously unknown betacoronavirus was discovered through the use of unbiased sequencing in samples from patients with pneumonia. Human airway epithelial cells were used to isolate a novel coronavirus, named 2019-nCoV, which formed another clade within the subgenus sarbecovirus, Orthocoronavirinae subfamily. Different from both MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV, 2019-nCoV is the seventh member of the family of coronaviruses that infect humans. Enhanced surveillance and further investigation are ongoing. (Funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China and the National Major Project for Control and Prevention of Infectious Disease in China.).
Background:
A recent cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China, was caused by a novel betacoronavirus, the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). We report the epidemiological, clinical, laboratory, and radiological characteristics and treatment and clinical outcomes of these patients.
Methods:
All patients with suspected 2019-nCoV were admitted to a designated hospital in Wuhan. We prospectively collected and analysed data on patients with laboratory-confirmed 2019-nCoV infection by real-time RT-PCR and next-generation sequencing. Data were obtained with standardised data collection forms shared by the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium from electronic medical records. Researchers also directly communicated with patients or their families to ascertain epidemiological and symptom data. Outcomes were also compared between patients who had been admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) and those who had not.
Findings:
By Jan 2, 2020, 41 admitted hospital patients had been identified as having laboratory-confirmed 2019-nCoV infection. Most of the infected patients were men (30 [73%] of 41); less than half had underlying diseases (13 [32%]), including diabetes (eight [20%]), hypertension (six [15%]), and cardiovascular disease (six [15%]). Median age was 49·0 years (IQR 41·0-58·0). 27 (66%) of 41 patients had been exposed to Huanan seafood market. One family cluster was found. Common symptoms at onset of illness were fever (40 [98%] of 41 patients), cough (31 [76%]), and myalgia or fatigue (18 [44%]); less common symptoms were sputum production (11 [28%] of 39), headache (three [8%] of 38), haemoptysis (two [5%] of 39), and diarrhoea (one [3%] of 38). Dyspnoea developed in 22 (55%) of 40 patients (median time from illness onset to dyspnoea 8·0 days [IQR 5·0-13·0]). 26 (63%) of 41 patients had lymphopenia. All 41 patients had pneumonia with abnormal findings on chest CT. Complications included acute respiratory distress syndrome (12 [29%]), RNAaemia (six [15%]), acute cardiac injury (five [12%]) and secondary infection (four [10%]). 13 (32%) patients were admitted to an ICU and six (15%) died. Compared with non-ICU patients, ICU patients had higher plasma levels of IL2, IL7, IL10, GSCF, IP10, MCP1, MIP1A, and TNFα.
Interpretation:
The 2019-nCoV infection caused clusters of severe respiratory illness similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus and was associated with ICU admission and high mortality. Major gaps in our knowledge of the origin, epidemiology, duration of human transmission, and clinical spectrum of disease need fulfilment by future studies.
Funding:
Ministry of Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China, and Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission.
Conspiracy theories have gained much academic and media attention recently, due to their large impact on public events. Crisis informatics researchers have examined conspiracy theories as a type of rumor. However, little is known about how conspiracy theories are produced and developed on social media. We present a qualitative study of conspiracy theorizing on Reddit during a public health crisis--the Zika virus outbreak. Using a mixed-methods approach including content analysis and discourse analysis, we identified types of conspiracy theories that appeared on Reddit in response to the Zika crisis, the conditions under which Zika conspiracy theories emerge, and the particular discursive strategies through which Zika conspiracy theories developed in online forums. Our analysis shows that conspiracy talk emerged as people attempted to make sense of a public health crisis, reflecting their emergent information needs and their pervasive distrust in formal sources of Zika information. Practical implications for social computing researchers, health practitioners, and policymakers are discussed.
The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-CoV underscores the threat of cross-species transmission events leading to outbreaks in humans. Here we examine the disease potential of a SARS-like virus, SHC014-CoV, which is currently circulating in Chinese horseshoe bat populations. Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone. The results indicate that group 2b viruses encoding the SHC014 spike in a wild-type backbone can efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS receptor human angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV. Additionally, in vivo experiments demonstrate replication of the chimeric virus in mouse lung with notable pathogenesis. Evaluation of available SARS-based immune-therapeutic and prophylactic modalities revealed poor efficacy; both monoclonal antibody and vaccine approaches failed to neutralize and protect from infection with CoVs using the novel spike protein. On the basis of these findings, we synthetically re-derived an infectious full-length SHC014 recombinant virus and demonstrate robust viral replication both in vitro and in vivo. Our work suggests a potential risk of SARS-CoV re-emergence from viruses currently circulating in bat populations.
Three studies were conducted with the goal to articulate and test models for integrating the concept of motivation to reduce uncertainty into the axiomatic structure of uncertainty reduction theory. Multiple models were considered, each model defining motivation to reduce uncertainty in a different way. Motivation to reduce uncertainty was defined as a scope condition (Model 2), as tolerance for uncertainty (Model 3), as a weighted function of uncertainty by its importance (Model 4), and as the difference between one's uncertainty level and one's tolerance for uncertainty (Models 5a and 5b). Each of these models was compared to the baseline model (Model 1) derived from the original presentation of the theory where level of uncertainty, by itself, serves as a determinant of various communication behaviors. Tests of these models in terms of their ability to predict information seeking and attraction reveal that none of the models provides a consistent integration of motivation to reduce uncertainty into uncertainty reduction theory. Rather, tolerance for uncertainty (Model 3) is one of three determinants of information seeking, while level of uncertainty (Model 1) is one of three determinants of attraction. This inability to integrate motivation to reduce uncertainty into uncertainty reduction theory can be attributed to the consistent failure to find support for deviance and incentive value as determinants of tolerance for uncertainty, the rejection of Axiom 3 in uncertainty reduction theory (which specifies a positive relationship between uncertainty and information seeking), and the rejection of Theorem 17 (which specifies a negative relationship between information seeking and liking).
Rumor discourse has been conceptualized as an attempt to reduce anxiety and uncertainty via a process of social sensemaking. Fourteen rumors transmitted on various Internet discussion groups were observed and content analyzed over the life of each rumor With this (previously unavailable) more ecologically robust methodology, the intertwined threads of sensemaking and the gaining of interpretive control are clearly evident in the tapestry of rumor discourse. We propose a categorization of statements (the Rumor Interaction Analysis System) and find differences between dread rumors and wish rumors in anxiety-related content categories. Cluster analysis of these statements reveals a typology of voices (communicative postures) exhibiting sensemaking activities of the rumor discussion group, such as hypothesizing, skeptical critique, directing of activities to gain information, and presentation of evidence. These findings enrich our understanding of the long-implicated sensemaking function of rumor by clarifying the elements of communication that operate in rumor's social context.
The discovery of SARS-like coronavirus in bats suggests that bats could be the natural reservoir of SARS-CoV. However, previous studies indicated the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) protein, a known SARS-CoV receptor, from a horseshoe bat was unable to act as a functional receptor for SARS-CoV. Here, we extended our previous study to ACE2 molecules from seven additional bat species and tested their interactions with human SARS-CoV spike protein using both HIV-based pseudotype and live SARS-CoV infection assays. The results show that ACE2s of Myotis daubentoni and Rhinolophus sinicus support viral entry mediated by the SARS-CoV S protein, albeit with different efficiency in comparison to that of the human ACE2. Further, the alteration of several key residues either decreased or enhanced bat ACE2 receptor efficiency, as predicted from a structural modeling study of the different bat ACE2 molecules. These data suggest that M. daubentoni and R. sinicus are likely to be susceptible to SARS-CoV and may be candidates as the natural host of the SARS-CoV progenitor viruses. Furthermore, our current study also demonstrates that the genetic diversity of ACE2 among bats is greater than that observed among known SARS-CoV susceptible mammals, highlighting the possibility that there are many more uncharacterized bat species that can act as a reservoir of SARS-CoV or its progenitor viruses. This calls for continuation and expansion of field surveillance studies among different bat populations to eventually identify the true natural reservoir of SARS-CoV.
Endothelial cell infection and endotheliitis in COVID-19
This article reviews innovations in ethnographic methods that have developed over the past 25 years, specifically the emergence of multisited and short-term fieldwork, digital ethnography, various kinds of participatory and collaborative ethnography, and the use of interviews. Ethnographic methods, once primarily employed by anthropologists, have now been embraced by many other social science practitioners. The article discusses the strengths and weaknesses of how these methods are being implemented and applied; the ethical challenges their use raises; and the kinds of novel modes of interpretation, analysis, and representations of research findings they are producing.
"Governmentality Genealogical Analysis of Modern Logics of Government" Sage Research Methods Cases
With the dawn of the twenty-first century, catastrophic crises such as the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis, the 2010 BP Oil Spill, and the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster produced social, economic and environmental effects that reverberated across the globe as people lost life savings and the eco-systems upon which their livelihoods depended. I sought to understand why government and industry crises managers failed to address underlying conditions giving rise to each crisis, particularly because risks had been well mapped prior to each disaster. In order to understand how crises arise out of known risks I turned to governmentality as a framework for understanding how particular understandings, communications, and protocols rendered crises inevitable despite considerable expert forewarnings. Governmentality bridges micro and macro analyses, linking everyday practices and operations to social logics of conduct shaping institutions and circulating across global society. Governmentality allowed me to analyze, compare and contrast each crisis, looking for contiguities in conduct across disasters while also identifying particular distinctions and outcomes.
In the past ten years, we have seen great changes in the ways government organizations and media respond to and report on emerging global epidemics. The first outbreak to garner such attention was SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome). In Rhetoric of a Global Epidemic, Huiling Ding uses SARS to explore how various cultures and communities made sense of the epidemic and communicated about it. She also investigates the way knowledge production and legitimation operate in global epidemics, the roles that professionals and professional communicators, as well as individual citizens, play in the communication process, points of contention within these processes, and possible entry points for ethical and civic intervention. Focusing on the rhetorical interactions among the World Health Organization, the United States, China, and Canada, Rhetoric of a Global Epidemic investigates official communication and community grassroots risk tactics employed during the SARS outbreak. It consists of four historical cases, which examine the transcultural risk communication about SARS in different geopolitical regions at different stages. The first two cases deal with risk communication practices at the early stage of the SARS epidemic when it originated in southern China. The last two cases move to transcultural rhetorical networks surrounding SARS.With such threats as SARS, avian flu, and swine flu capturing the public imagination and prompting transnational public health preparedness efforts, the need for a rhetoric of global epidemics has never been greater. Government leaders, public health officials, health care professionals, journalists, and activists can learn how to more effectively craft and manage transcultural risk communication from Ding's examination of the complex and varied modes of communication around SARS. In addition to offering a detailed case study, Rhetoric of a Global Epidemic provides a critical methodology that professional communicators can use in their investigations of epidemics and details approaches to facilitating more open, participatory risk communication at all levels. © 2014 by the Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University. All rights reserved.
This book reimagines New England's literary history by tracing seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century epidemics alongside the era of early colonial expansion, the Antinomian controversy, the evolution of the halfway covenant and jeremiad, and Boston's 1721 inoculation controversy. Moving beyond familiar histories of New World epidemics (often referred to as the "virgin soil" model), the book identifies epidemiology as a generic category with specialized forms and conventions, and considers how regional and generational patterns of illness reposition our understanding of the relation between immunology and ideology in the formation of communal identity. Epidemiology functions as subject and method of analysis in the book: it describes those narratives that represent modes of infection, population distribution, and immunity, but, more germane to the field of literary criticism, it also describes a set of analytical practices for theorizing the translation of epidemic events into narrative and generic terms. Without denying epidemiology's usefulness in combating contemporary epidemics, the book affirms its power to transform colonial spaces, and thus to reshape inquiries into the nature of community and identity; it offers critics new trajectories for analyzing late-twentieth- and early-twenty-first century epidemiology, and for rethinking illness and infection in terms of the geopolitics of medicine.
Chinese officials confirm latest health crisis caused by SARS-like coronavirus
- T Durden
Durden, T. (2020a, January 9). Chinese officials confirm latest health crisis caused by SARS-like
coronavirus. ZeroHedge. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/chinese-health-officialsconfirm-latest-outbreak-caused-sars-coronavirus
The real Umbrella Corp: Wuhan ultra-biohazard lab was studying “the world’s most dangerous pathogens
- T Durden
Durden, T. (2020d, January 24). The real Umbrella Corp: Wuhan ultra-biohazard lab was
studying "the world's most dangerous pathogens". ZeroHedge. https://www.zerohedge.
com/economics/real-umbrella-corp-wuhan-ultra-biohazard-lab-was-studying-worlds-mostdangerous-pathogens
Coronavirus crisis: How the death of Li Wenliang, a doctor and ordinary citizen, sparked Chinese demands for freedom of speech. South China Morning Post
- A J Li
Li, A. J. (2020a, February 12). Coronavirus crisis: How the death of Li Wenliang, a doctor and
ordinary citizen, sparked Chinese demands for freedom of speech. South China Morning
Post. https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3049910/coronavirus-crisis-howdeath-li-wenliang-doctor-and-ordinary
AQ7
Chinese officials warn of “virus mutation spreading” - 4402020 cases confirmed
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