Re-Gendering Conspirational Thinking: How Social Media Use, Gender and Population Densities Affect Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories on COVID-19

This paper aims to investigate how social media use and gender affect beliefs in conspiracy theories on COVID-19 and how these beliefs correlate with the frequency and patterns of their use, as well as the distribution of population density in rural, town, and urban areas. I collected data from Valc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Genealogy (Basel) 2024-09, Vol.8 (3), p.100
Main Author: Sorci, Giuliana
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Conspiracy
Conspiracy theories
COVID-19
COVID-19 vaccines
Endorsements
Gender differences
gender gap
Gender identity
Pandemics
Population density
Research methodology
Rural areas
Social media
Social networks
Surveys
Women
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Summary:This paper aims to investigate how social media use and gender affect beliefs in conspiracy theories on COVID-19 and how these beliefs correlate with the frequency and patterns of their use, as well as the distribution of population density in rural, town, and urban areas. I collected data from Valcon Project surveys, analyzing the usage of social media by citizens from six European countries (Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Poland, and Ireland) on issues like the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic spread. The findings, which take into consideration gender and population density, suggest that different social media platforms affected such beliefs in different ways (platform association), and this effect is also mitigated by the specific content of such conspiracy theories (content association).
ISSN:2313-5778
2313-5778
DOI:10.3390/genealogy8030100