Of Sheeple and People: Echo Chambers, Pseudo-experts and the Corona Crisis
Abstract
Throughout the COVID-19-crisis conspiracy theories and false information spread all around the globe. In this article, we want to suggest that the spreading and retainment of disinformation despite counter-evidence is best to be understood in the context of echo chambers as described by Chris Thi Nguyen. Moreover, we want to argue that people active in those echo chambers are at the same time perpetrators as well as victims of epistemic injustice to different amounts. Although this article cannot cover the phenomenon as a whole, we hope to outline a path for further investigation.r investigation.
References
Annesley, Kelley (2020). «Connecting epistemic injustice and justified belief in health-related conspiracies». Ethics, Medicine and Public Health 15: pp. 1-8.
Apuke, Oberiri Destiny and Omar, Bahiyah (2021). «Fake news and COVID-19: modelling the predictors of fake news sharing among social media users». Telematics and Informatics 56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2020.101475.
Catala, Amandine (2021), «Echo Chambers, Epistemic Injustice, and Ignorance». Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 10 (3): pp. 30-37. https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-5JF.
Freeman, Daniel; Waite, Felicity; Rosenbrock, Laina; Petit, Ariane; Causier, Chiara; East, Anna; Jenner, Lucy; Teale, Ashley-Louise; Carr, Lydia; Mulhall, Sophie; Bold, Emily and Lambe, Sinéad (2020). «Coronavirus conspiracy beliefs, mistrust, and compliance with government guidelines in England». Psychological Medicine, pp. 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291720001890
Fricker, Miranda (1998). «Rational Authority and Social Power: Towards a Truly Social Epistemology». Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society New Series 98: pp. 159-177.
Fricker, Miranda (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. New York: Oxford University Press.
Klepper, David; Amiri, Farnoush and Dupuy, Beatrice (2021). The superspreaders behind top COVID-19 conspiracy theories, abc-News, available at: https://abcnews.go.com/Health-/wireStory/superspreaders-top-covid-19-conspiracy-theories-75898559 (last seen: 24.05.2021).
Kuhn, Sarah Anna Kezia; Lieb, Roselind; Freeman, Daniel; Andreou, Christina and Zander-Schellenberg, Thea (2021). «Coronavirus Conspiracy beliefs in the German-speaking general population: endorsement rates and links to reasoning biases and paranoia«. Psychological Medicine, pp. 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291721001124
Levelu, Anthonin and Sandkamp, Alexander (2022). «A lockdown a day keeps the doctor away: The effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions during the Covid-19 pandemic.«. Kiel Working Paper No. 2221. ISSN: 1862-1155.
Medina, José (2013). The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and the Social Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.
Oreskes, Naomi and Conway, Erik M. (2010). Merchants of Doubt. How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tabacco smoke to global warming. London, New Dehli, New York, Sydney; Bloomsburry.
Reutlinger, Alexander (2020). «Strategischer Wissenschaftsskeptizismus». In: Wissenschaftsreflexion. Leiden: Brill, mentis. doi: https://doi.org/10.30965/9783957437372_015
Santos, Breno R. G. (2021). «Echo Chambers, Ignorance and Domination». Social Epistemology 35, no. 2, pp. 109-119. DOI: 10.1080/02691728.2020.1839590
Thi Nguyen, Chris (2020): «Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles». Episteme 17, no. 2, pp. 141-162. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2018.32
Woomer, Lauren (2019). «Agential Insensitivity and Socially Supported Ignorance«. Episteme 16 (1): pp. 73–91. doi:10.1017/epi.2017.28
Copyright (c) 2022 Disputatio. Philosophical Research Bulletin
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
