How do COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, exposure to alternative sources and social media correlate in Germany?

Abstract

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, conspiracy beliefs about the virus spread quickly. Using an online-representative survey in Germany, this study examines the relationship between such conspiracy beliefs and media use with special regard to alternative media and influencers as well as social media. Instead of aggregating different social media platforms, this study identifies differences between them. The results show that COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs are positively associated with the use of Telegram. The use of alternative media, Facebook, and YouTube shows only very weak positive associations. On the other hand, exposure to journalistic media is negatively associated with conspiracy beliefs. Causalities and implications of these findings are discussed.

Alternative News, Alternative Views? How Populist Alternative News Consumption Contributes to Political Attitudes During the 2021 Federal Election in Germany

“…The majority of the mentioned studies consistently find that consumers of alternative news media exhibit a higher level of interest in politics compared to non-consumers. Additionally, links between authoritarianism and conspiracy mentality have been established (Frischlich et al, 2021(Frischlich et al, , 2022Hetzel et al, 2023;Schemer et al, 2022). Individuals with higher authoritarian tendencies perceive "distorted" news as more credible, and users of PANM display greater susceptibility to conspiracy beliefs, particularly regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Distribution and Reception of Conspiracy Theories and Mobilization Calls on Telegram. Combining Evidence from a Content Analysis and Survey During the Pandemic

“…Re search has identified conspiracy thinking as a crucial factor in adopting conspiracy theories (Brotherton et al, 2013;Douglas & Sutton, 2023;Uscinski et al, 2022). Furthermore, it may condition the relationship between media use and conspiracy belief as individuals with high levels of conspiracy thinking are more influenced by conspiratorial information (Hetzel et al, 2022;Uscinski et al, 2022). Consequently, understanding the moderating effect of conspiracy thinking is critical to properly assessing the relations between media exposure and conspiracy beliefs.…”

“…When it comes to media use during the Corona pandemic, studies have shown that some media are more strongly associated with conspiracy belief than others. According to Hetzel et al (2022), across all media sources and channels the use of Telegram emerged as the strongest predictor of conspiracy beliefs. For journalistic media, studies find a negative relation or none at all to beliefs in conspiracy (e.g., Hetzel et al, 2022), while the use of social media, such as Facebook and YouTube, is associated with very weak relationships (Hetzel et al 2022;Theocharis et al, 2021).…”

“…According to Hetzel et al (2022), across all media sources and channels the use of Telegram emerged as the strongest predictor of conspiracy beliefs. For journalistic media, studies find a negative relation or none at all to beliefs in conspiracy (e.g., Hetzel et al, 2022), while the use of social media, such as Facebook and YouTube, is associated with very weak relationships (Hetzel et al 2022;Theocharis et al, 2021). Moreover, it has been found that individuals who employ conspiratorial explanations for salient events are more likely to actively seek out such content online (Bessi et al, 2015).…”

“…Social crisis situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic are often associated with a distrust of elites as well as the spread of conspiracy theories-with social media adopting a central role as a driver of the so-called "infodemic" (Cinelli et al, 2020). In this context, conspiracy theories, which people have seized upon and disseminated as explanations for various as pects of the pandemic and to call for resistance against certain measures, have become more relevant (Darius & Urquhart, 2021;Hetzel et al, 2022). Conspiracy theories are often used in light of societal uncertainty and insecurity and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic was 1.…”