Memorialization, Contested Knowledge, and the Sociopsychological Impacts of Disinformation in the Context of COVID-19

SARS-CoV-2的感染和变种造成社会混乱、疾病和死亡的浪潮继续揭示了科学专业知识和权威的危机，以及政策制定者及其选民对这一流行病的广泛政治化。该项目研究了虚假信息（故意传播误导性信息），错误信息（谎言）和“信息流行病”（过度信息的情况，使问题的解决更加难以实现）如何影响美国个人和社区哀悼死者。它关注的是，在政治动荡的环境中，当COVID-19死亡事件被各种哀悼、驳回或归咎于他人时，人们如何管理自己的社会和心理生活。该研究有助于理解错误信息的社会影响，并为公共政策应对当前的流行病和未来的公共卫生危机提供信息，这些危机导致大规模死亡，不完整的哀悼和政治化的死亡。该项目还将在三年的研究过程中对18名研究生和本科生进行科学研究方法的培训。虽然大多数关于公共辩论的研究都集中在文本上，如政治演讲，报纸和学术文章，但这个项目探讨了在流行病的背景下，哪些行为已经成为哀悼体验的核心，以及哀悼者如何在家中，墓地，悲伤咨询会议、仪式、虚拟纪念活动和社交媒体帖子等。在这样做时，它涉及：（1）COVID-19错误信息如何在其演变过程中发生变化;（2）有争议的知识如何塑造了COVID-19受害者及其家人的哀悼过程;（3）COVID-19哀悼者如何定义和追究责任，以努力反击错误信息;以及（4）改变葬礼，葬礼和纪念活动如何影响哀悼。通过社交媒体分析，面对面和虚拟民族志参与，以及深入访谈，该项目分析索赔和反诉在其语言，媒体和社会关系的使用背景。数据和发现将有助于人类学对仪式的理解，特别是其在有争议的环境中的功效，并为长期公共卫生危机期间不完全哀悼的过程和后果提供重要的见解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

The waves of infection and variants of SARS-CoV-2 causing social disruption, sickness, and death continue to reveal a crisis in scientific expertise and authority, as well as the widespread politicization of the pandemic among policymakers and their constituents. This project examines how disinformation (the intentional airing of misleading information), misinformation (falsehoods), and the “infodemic” (a condition of excessive information that makes the solution to a problem more difficult to achieve), influence how individuals and communities in the United States mourn the dead. It focuses on how people manage their social and psychological lives when COVID-19 deaths are variously mourned, dismissed, or blamed on others in a politically fractious environment. The study contributes to understanding the social impact of misinformation and informs public policy responses to both the current pandemic and future public health crises that result in mass fatality, incomplete mourning, and politicized death. The project will also train eighteen graduate and undergraduate students in scientific research methods over the course of the three-year study.While most studies of public debates focus on texts, such as political speeches, newspaper and scholarly articles, this project explores what behaviors, in the context of the pandemic, have become central to the experience of mourning, and how mourners seek accountability in homes, cemeteries, grief counseling sessions, rituals, virtual commemorations, and social media posts, among other venues. In doing so, it addresses: (1) how COVID-19 misinformation has shifted over the course of its evolution; (2) how contested knowledge has shaped the mourning process for COVID-19 victims and their families; (3) how COVID-19 mourners have defined and pursued accountability in their efforts to counter misinformation; and (4) how altered burial, funeral, and commemorative practices affect mourning. Through social media analysis, in-person and virtual ethnographic engagement, and in-depth interviews, the project analyzes claims and counterclaims in their linguistic, media, and social relational contexts of use. Data and findings will contribute to anthropological understanding of ritual, particularly its efficacy in a contested environment, as well as provide important insight into the processes and consequences of incomplete mourning during a prolonged public health crisis.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.