Full-text resources of CEJSH and other databases are now available in the new Library of Science.
Visit https://bibliotekanauki.pl

Results found: 3

first rewind previous Page / 1 next fast forward last

Search results

Search:
in the keywords:  RUMOURS
help Sort By:

help Limit search:
first rewind previous Page / 1 next fast forward last
1

SPECIFIC SOCIAL FUNCTION OF RUMOURS AND CONSPIRACY THEORIES: STRENGTHENING COMMUNITY’S TIES IN TROUBLE TIMES. A MULTILEVEL ANALYSIS

100%
Giry J.
Slovenský národopis (Slovak Ethnology)
|
2017
|
vol. 65
|
issue 2
187 – 202
EN
This paper hypothesizes that conspiracy theories and rumours are an act of social conformism. The evaluation of their plausibility, and their success, is collectively determinate regarding the established values of an in-group and the social context. In periods of troubles they flourish to reaffirm themselves and strengthen community’s ties, structures and leaderships. After a theoretical introduction, the author will demonstrate this assumption through a multilevel analysis (macro, meso, micro) which considers a wide range of social situations from the French Revolution to neighbourhood conflicts and from open riots to latent crises.
2

ANGELS IN WHITE COATS OR ANGELS OF DEATH? RUMOURS AND CONSPIRACY NARRATIVES ABOUT MEDICAL SPECIALISTS IN BULGARIA DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

86%
Ilieva A.
Slovenský národopis (Slovak Ethnology)
|
2022
|
vol. 70
|
issue 3
328 – 348
EN
The article discusses a thematic group of rumours and conspiracy narratives, propagated mainly through Facebook, according to which the real culprits for the spread of the coronavirus infection and the growing number of deaths in Bulgaria are medical specialists. Since the very beginning of the pandemic, rumours about false COVID-19 diagnoses and particularly about falsified death acts have been intensively circulating on social media. In Facebook groups of COVID sceptics, a conspiracy theory has been constructed by stories, opinions, and ideas of monstrous corruption, fabrications of data, and deliberate contaminations during COVID-19 testing procedures, and putting to death through hospital treatment protocols. Following the approval of COVID-19 vaccines and their administration, pre-existing mistrust in medicine and pharmaceutics has escalated into open hostility and aggression towards medical specialists. The interpretation of these narrative forms unfolds in two directions. On the one hand, the peculiar logic and cultural practice of constructing a “medical conspiracy theory” are discussed. On the other hand, attention is drawn to its broad socio-cultural context and the longstanding problems of the Bulgarian healthcare system.
3

DOUBTING THE MALAGASY REMEDY. RUMOURS AND SUSPICION DURING COVID-19 IN MADAGASCAR

86%
Desplat P.
Slovenský národopis (Slovak Ethnology)
|
2022
|
vol. 70
|
issue 3
411 – 429
EN
After the world came into the grip of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Madagascar suddenly moved into the spotlight of global media attention. Backed up by low incident rates and no deaths, the president of Madagascar announced in April that local scientists had found a cure for COVID-19. During a TV broadcast, he sipped from a bottle dubbed Covid-Organics (CVO) and heralded the herbal concoction as a remedy for the global crisis. The World Health Organization (WHO), however, reacted with scepticism and cautioned against the drink because no evidence of its effectiveness had been proven. The announcement of CVO and the response of the WHO sparked new hearsay in Madagascar and on social media alike. Some focused on the marginalisation and exploitation of Africa by global health organisations. Others assumed hidden intentions of the Malagasy government. Many buzzes questioned the ingredients of the herbal drink or that CVO was just another political stage act with a hidden agenda. This article takes rumours about conspiracies and other hidden schemes about CVO as a starting point to scrutinize how Malagasy debunk a state-inflicted infodemic. I argue that these narratives are not about an epistemic void that needs to be filled but, instead, about knowing too much about an ongoing drama to take a single, even hopeful, political act at face value. More specifically, I engage with suspicion as the driving force to decipher political acts as manipulative populism. Rumours and conspiracy theories are part of everyday discourses in Madagascar, and the challenges of navigating fact and fiction became a habitual practice that highlights the normalisation of socio-economic crises over the last five decades.
first rewind previous Page / 1 next fast forward last
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.