Post-truth Flashcards
What is post-truth?
circumstance in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal beliefs
Malinformation
true news but adapted to pollute the debate
What are the cognitive mechanisms of conspiracy theories?
- Strong cognitive closure
- Selective bias
- Backfire effect
- Dogmatic and tribal attitude
What is strong cognitive closure?
tendency to refuse contrasting arguments
What is dogmatic and tribal attitude?
they perceive themselves as honest while all pharma companies are corrupted
Which 2 theories are part of the dogmatic and tribal attitude?
filter bubble theory
eco-chamber approach
What is the filter bubble theory?
People continously tend to stay in their own information bubble
Define conspiracy theory
an explanation of an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy, generally one involving an illegal or harmful act supposedly carried out by government or other powerful actors, without credible evidence
Define apophenia
The tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things
What are the most influencing factors in vaccination acceptance?
- Trust in national health authorities
- Trust in scientists
- Trust in the government
Reasons determinant of the resistance to vaccines during the pandemic
- the perception of COVID-19 as a low risk illness
- Guinea pig effect: consideration of how relatively new the vaccine was
- Public confusion between all the information of social media platforms
When was the Wakefield affair?
1998
What did Wakefield suggest?
That there was a link between autism and MMR vaccine
What did the investigations of the journalist Brian Deer show?
That Wakefield had:
1. Falsified evidence FFP: fabrication, falsification and plagiarism
2. Acted in serious conflict of interest
3. Acted without ethics towards disabled patients
What happened to Andrew Wakefield as a consequence?
The lancet withdrew the article and he was found serious of misconduct and was struck of the UK medical register
