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The view of traditional media on conspiracy theories and believers How the traditional media’s view on conspiracy theories and believers developed during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands

Kolkman, G. (2022) The view of traditional media on conspiracy theories and believers How the traditional media’s view on conspiracy theories and believers developed during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands.

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Abstract:With the rise of conspiracy theories in uncertain times, such as a pandemic, the need for reliable and neutral information is high. This means that traditional media have an important role to play. Although several studies indicate how conspiracy believers view the traditional media, there are no studies available on how the traditional media view conspiracy believers. Therefore, this study will focus on how the traditional media’s view on conspiracy believers developed during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands. A qualitative content analysis involving 200 Dutch news articles covering (COVID-19) conspiracy theory related topics was conducted. The articles were collected from the four largest Dutch newspapers and 50 articles per newspaper were collected. An inductive approach was used to establish the coding scheme used in coding the articles. In the first three months, the traditional media reported mostly on conspiracy theories, but later the focus changed to the conspiracy believers. Furthermore, the traditional media used the neutral tone of voice slightly more often than the negative tone of voice to describe conspiracy theories and believers. However, the emotion used in the news articles were more often negative than neutral or positive. Finally, the traditional media assigned four different characteristics to conspiracy believers. This is the first study that describe the development of the traditional media’s view during the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous studies were focused on the role social media play regarding to the spread of conspiracy theories, but the traditional media is still relevant nowadays. Concluding, this study contributes to the current literature on how traditional media’s view of conspiracy theories and believers developed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:05 communication studies
Programme:Communication Studies MSc (60713)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/89805
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