The American Anti-Vaxxer COVID Dead: A Dynamic Chronicle of Failed Sacrifices

Unlike earlier pandemics, where a "politics of blame" was directed against those who spread infection, the COVID pandemic in the United States has created occasions for the deployment of a "politics of commendation" for performing acts of sacrifice. Frontline healthcare workers have been celebrated for sacrificing themselves in service to their patients, even as critics have charged their being hapless victims of "social murder" at the hands of irresponsible medical administrators. Governmental officials, notably in Texas, have also recommended the elderly to refuse COVID care, die and thus sacrifice themselves selflessly for the benefit of the younger generation. Lately, COVID vaccine-refusal has been seen as an act of noble political sacrifice-typically to further individual liberty against the coercive power of the Federal government's promotion or mandating of vaccination. Anti-vaxxers embracing the role of such political sacrifices, however, generally fail to realize this aspiration, insofar they are often just culpable of their own demise by neglecting public health advisories. Furthermore, the partisan politicization of their deaths militates against the normal recognition of their being sacrifices. Party political calculations have frequently demanded denial of the COVID origins of the anti-vaxxer deaths, and also effectively eliminated any normal attendant rites of reciprocation, memorialization or sacralization of the victims, typical of sacrifices, proper.

Queer Politics of a Pandemic: LGBTQ + People's Conceptions of COVID-19's Politicization.

Introduction: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer (LGBTQ+) people have historically been at the center of contentious political debates in the United States. The pandemic's divisive politicization has created societal stress in both hindering mitigation efforts and exacerbating social marginalization. Research has examined relatively privileged groups' COVID beliefs; however, explorations are needed into ideological processes among those marginalized by COVID, such as LGBTQ+ people, to provide a holistic framework of queer politics. Methods: Data come from in-depth interviews conducted with 43 LGBTQ+ people collected between October 2020 and January 2021. Purposive sampling was used to recruit participants from a larger survey on pandemic experiences. Results: Through the "underdog" framework," LGBTQ+ people held strong convictions to science-informed political beliefs, which informed their critiques of inadequate government leadership. Participants also engaged in ideological resistance to harmful individualistic rhetoric through an emphasis on collectivism. The divisive politicization of the pandemic shaped numerous social stressors that LGBTQ+ people adapted to using various strategies to maintain their mental health. Conclusions: Participants viewed American individualism and Christian nationalism as a public health threat that led to resistance to health and safety measures putting other people at risk. Findings support the underdog theory, with LGBTQ+ people elevating evidence-based science and disadvantaged groups' wellbeing by emphasizing social empathy as a collective good that supports community health. Policy Implications: Findings can inform policies and community programming that promotes equity across all social identities through the depoliticization of public health and centering LGBTQ+ people's capacity for resistance and resilience.

Did text-based news-media coverage about the COVID-19 pandemic increase vaccine uptake? A population-based study in Alaska.

COVID-19 vaccinations protect against severe infection, hospitalisation, and death. News media can be an important source of information for the public during a health crisis. This study explores the extent to which local or statewide text-based news coverage of the pandemic was related to the uptake of initial doses of COVID-19 vaccines among adults in Alaska. Multilevel modelling was employed to explore the association between news media intensity and vaccine uptake rates across boroughs and census areas, while controlling for relevant covariates. Results suggest that the intensity of news media did not significantly influence vaccine uptake during the majority of this time period and had a negative affect during the Delta-surge in the fall of 2021. However, the political lean and median age of boroughs or census areas were significantly associated with vaccine uptake. Race, poverty, or education were not significant determinants of vaccine uptake suggesting there are unique differences in Alaska compared to the U.S., particularly amongst Alaska Native people. The political environment in Alaska surrounding the pandemic was polarized. Future research in communications and channels that can cut through this polarized and politicized environment, and reach younger adults is needed.

Politicians and immigration on Facebook: how the migration discourse is (de)legitimized during the health emergency

In this article we analyse how the immigration issue is narrated during the Covid-19 outbreak by several Italian political actors. We select Facebook as the main digital arena of political communication in the Italian public sphere. Quantitative analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis have been applied to politicians' posts aiming at identifying the linguistic strategies that contribute to instrumentalizing the emergency and aim to reinforce the politicization of the issue. Findings suggest that the main discursive strategies used by politicians do not only include migrants as a danger for the spread of the virus, but the migratory narration is systematically organized on negative campaigning blaming political opponents. The contribution helps to reveal how the anti-migration discourse is reproduced during the Covid-19 outbreak and how the politicization of the migration serves as a context for the normalization of migrant's exclusion.

Politicizing Global Governance Institutions in Times of Crisis The Case of World Health Organization during the Coronavirus Pandemic

This article examines the politicization of the World Health Organization (WHO) over the course of the coronavirus pandemic ( January-December 2020), a paradigmatic case of politicization of global governance institutions. During the pandemic, the WHO was subjected to considerable scrutiny and contestation. This research focuses on politicization at the level of behavior and discourse. Conceptually, it leverages the analytic purchase of politicization and framing. Empirically, it is based on a corpus comprising 505 texts gathered from key actors involved. The analysis not only lays bare the varying demands and arguments vis-a-vis the WHO, but foregrounds the broad consensus among the actors examined (barring the Donald Trump administration) on the imperative to support the organization. Additionally, seven distinct frames on the WHO are identified: Puppet, Handcuffed, Scapegoat, Irreplaceable, Botched, Comme il faut, and Battleground. Together, they offer a holistic overview of the diverse perspectives on the WHO and its pandemic response.

How Science Influencers Polarize Supportive and Skeptical Communities Around Politicized Science: A Cross-Platform and Over-Time Comparison

Contention over COVID-19 is only a recent example of increasing social division around science in the U.S. Many blame these divisions on actors who have strategically sowed doubt and distrust around expert supported positions and policies. However, this overlooks how scientists have fueled narratives of social and political conflict around science. This study explores how science influencers on social media have used group identity language in ways that may perpetuate narratives of intergroup conflict around science. Using computer-assisted content analytic methods, we examine how science influencers' use of group identity language has changed in response to recent events (Trump presidency, COVID-19 pandemic) and across different social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram). While there are slight increases in group identity language between 2016 and 2021, different patterns across platforms suggest that science influencers use different platforms to perform multiple roles of engaging diverse audiences, building ingroup solidarity, and defending against outgroup criticism. © 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Framing covid-19 through memes: A way for young people to shape the narrative in austria

The Covid-19 pandemic and the intensified digitalization of life-worlds has especially affected younger generations, also in Austria. In this paper, we approach digital practices of 43 young adults between 16 and 18 years in a frame-analytical perspective to understand forms of politicization during the Covid-19 pandemic. We analyze memes in order to make sense of youth's life-worlds during the pandemic. The memes were created by youth as a result of a workshop series with the researchers. Our research shows that memes have provided a means for engaging and dealing digitally and emotionally with Covid-19-related problems. We show that the respective youth address educational, social and democratic issues by problematizing 'homeschooling as overburdening', a 'lack of planning' and 'social divisions'. Moreover, meme-creation offers a perspective on how youth express and create a 'sense of community' through digital practices. During the pandemic youth have increasingly come to understand and represent themselves as a group with shared experiences in digital space, going along with a positioning as 'younger generation' vis-a-vis older generations. We argue that the fact that the pandemic has affected youth heavily and the fact that they do not see their issues and needs represented by political representatives or media shows the potential and limits of digital spaces for younger generations to connect (politically). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Politicization of Science in COVID-19 Vaccine Communication: Comparing US Politicians, Medical Experts, and Government Agencies

We compare the social media discourses on COVID-19 vaccines constructed by U.S. politicians, medical experts, and government agencies, and investigate how various contextual factors influence the likelihood of government agencies politicizing the issue. Taking the political corpus and the medical corpus as two extremes, we propose a language-based definition of politicization of science and measure it on a continuous scale. By building a machine learning classifier that captures subtle linguistic indicators of politicization and applying it to two years of government agencies' Facebook posting history, we demonstrate that: 1) U.S. politicians heavily politicized COVID-19 vaccines, medical experts conveyed minimal politicization, and government agencies' discourse was a mix of the two, yet more closely resembled medical experts;' 2) increasing COVID-19 infection rates reduced government agencies' politicization tendencies;3) government agencies in Democratic-leaning states were more likely to politicize COVID-19 vaccines than those in Republican-leaning states;and 4) the degree of politicization did not significantly differ across agencies' jurisdiction levels. We discuss the conceptualization of politicization of science, the incumbency effect, and government communication as an emerging area for political communication research. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Political Communication is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Using General Messages to Persuade on a Politicized Scientific Issue

Politics and science have become increasingly intertwined. Salient scientific issues, such as climate change, evolution, and stem-cell research, become politicized, pitting partisans against one another. This creates a challenge of how to effectively communicate on such issues. Recent work emphasizes the need for tailored messages to specific groups. Here, we focus on whether generalized messages also can matter. We do so in the context of a highly polarized issue: extreme COVID-19 vaccine resistance. The results show that science-based, moral frame, and social norm messages move behavioral intentions, and do so by the same amount across the population (that is, homogeneous effects). Counter to common portrayals, the politicization of science does not preclude using broad messages that resonate with the entire population.

I politici e l'immigrazione su Facebook: come si (de)legittima il discorso migratorio durante l'emergenza sanitaria

In this article we analyse how the immigration issue is narrated during the Covid-19 outbreak by several Italian political actors. We select Facebook as the main digital arena of political communication in the Italian public sphere. Quantitative analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis have been applied to politicians' posts aiming at identifying the linguistic strategies that contribute to instrumentalizing the emergency and aim to reinforce the politicization of the issue. Findings suggest that the main discursive strategies used by politicians do not only include migrants as a danger for the spread of the virus, but the migratory narration is systematically organized on negative campaigning blaming political opponents. The contribution helps to reveal how the anti-migration discourse is reproduced during the Covid-19 outbreak and how the politicization of the migration serves as a context for the normalization of migrant's exclusion.

The political aspects of solidarity mobilizations in the context of shrinking civil society during the first wave of COVID-19

This paper contributes to the literature on solidarity mobilizations and the framings of social and political change in the context of the shrinking welfare state, de-democratization, and repressive state policies towards civil society. These issues are explored through the lens of interview-based research on Hungarian solidarity initiatives that emerged in response to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic between March and June 2020. We specifically look at the ways in which volunteers and activists engaged in solidarity activities associated with healthcare, care-work, and education;accounted for their aspirations;conceptualized social responsibility;and reflected on the crisis management of the state. We found that newly emerging grassroots actors reinforced the documented trend of depoliticization in civil society. Although most respondents formulated a depoliticizing narrative, they did offer interpretations of their public role and collective action, values, and responsibilities, and pronounced a desire for social change. Nevertheless, to account for these framings, we need to move beyond the binary understanding of politics in solidarity and civil society research.

What Really Drives the Spread of COVID-19 Tweets: A Revisit from Perspective of Content

COVID-19 content spreads wildly on social media and produces significant effects in both causing social panic and assisting pandemic management. However, what really enhances the diffusion of pandemic-related content during COVID-19, particularly from the perspective of the content itself, remains unexplored. Using large-scale COVID-19 tweets posted on Twitter, this paper empirically examines the effects of the four key characteristics, namely emotions, topics, hashtags, and mentions, on information spread in the pandemic. The empirical results show that most negative emotions have positive effects on retweeting. Nevertheless, the positive effect of trust on retweeting is unexpectedly the strongest. And the positive effects of the political topics and mentioning politicians further indicate that people are sensitive to the politicization of information during the pandemic. The strongest anger intensity in the political topic also needs to be noticed. The results complement the extant understanding of information diffusion during COVID-19 and provide insights for the governments to understand the psychology and behavior of large population during disasters like global pandemics. © 2022 IEEE.

Systemic Changes in the Politicization of the International Trade Relations and the Decline of the Multilateral Trading System

This Article contributes to the discussion about the development of international trade regulation of state interventionism by situating the tensions that exist about the future design of subsidies and state enterprises treaty regulation in the broader context of current systemic challenges to the multilateral trading system. While recent studies have explored the issues of subsidies and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as one of the most significant in impact among the contemporary challenges to the WTO, there is certainly scope to discuss further such a problem from the broader point of view of the crisis of the multilateral trading system, its systemic challenges and the concomitant increasing politicization of international trade relations. To this end, this Article analyzes the interactions between the lasting decline of the WTO, growing political interferences with international trade flows and the prospects of reforming multilateral trade rules to address its systemic challenges and manage/mitigate newly central problems of the 21st century such as the Covid-19 Pandemic, climate change and the greening of economic production and international trade. The Article argues that existing WTO rules are not adequate to address these challenges and problems. It concludes that, like in the GATT era, it is only the spirit of pragmatism that may provide chances to find alternatives to growing frustration with negotiating inaction and, hence, to reform the system. However, the question remains whether it is possible to find an approach to imagine, remodel and craft multilateral rules that are sensitive to different economic, political, and social choices and able to rebalance the position of all members, large and small, rich and poor.

Pandemics and Politics: Analyzing the politicization and polarization of pandemic-related reporting.

The COVID-19 pandemic generated tremendous journalistic attention, and occurred during a period of increasing politicization and polarization in America's news media. This study considers the intersection of both phenomena, and the extent of politicization in recent and historical pandemic-related reporting. Results suggest that political topics, actions and actors have frequently been the focus of COVID-19-related reporting, and that such political content has grown more substantial over time.

Transnational or Not: COVID Pandemic and Chinese Academic Migrants

Based on 25 in-depth interviews collected during the COVID pandemic from Chinese academic immigrants in the U.S., we find that COVID immediately halted their transnational travels. Furthermore, catalyzed by changes in the Sino-U.S. geopolitical relationship, the soaring Anti-Asian hate in the U.S., and the raging storm of patriotism and nationalism in China, COVID impacts academic migrants' perceptions of opportunities, pursuits of transnational movements, and ethnic and diasporic identities. The disrupted transnational migration of people and knowledge due to the intersection of the pandemic, social contexts, and geopolitics may have long-term detrimental effects at the individual, institutional, national, and global levels. © 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

The Conspiracy Theory/Vaccine Hesitancy nexus as rhetorical boundary work. A critical analysis of the production of scientific ignorance in literature reviews

With the Covid-19 outbreak the request for useful knowledge to inform policy measures rapidly escalated. On the verge of infodemics, vaccine hesitancy and conspiracy theories have been individuated as major threats to society which need rapid responses. In this context of uncertainty, literature reviews are a great way to retrieve useful knowledge from the large and dispersed amount of knowledge produced in the last two years. Nevertheless, the structural process of reviewing is not a neutral process of evidence retrieval and can lead to the deformation of initial knowledge through synthesis and simplification. Furthermore, the boundary work in the review process, if not properly critically assessed, can polarize the distinction between scientists and non-experts. Drawing from STS literature on boundary work and scientific ignorance production, this article critically analyzes 12 literature reviews regarding the nexus between conspiracy theory and vaccine hesitancy. The results highlight how the rhetorical construction of the ignorance areas leads to the neglected arguments in the form of an implicit elitist discourse which reproduce the deficit model of policy intervention through the preference for the psychological explanation. Furthermore, the uncritical assumption of the rightfulness of the evidence retrieval leads to polarization in the construction of otherness and depoliticization of agency. The implications are discussed, along with examples of more creative and emancipative reviews.

Vaccine hesitancy and refusal during the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy: Individualistic claims or repoliticization?

The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted new (or renewed) forms of conflict within a longer path of distrust and dissatisfaction towards politics and growing scepticism towards 'official truths' and 'official science'. Italy was the first European and Western country in which the pandemic spread in February 2020, and also one that adopted particularly stringent measures to contain the virus. In this scenario, a country in which political distrust was particularly diffused experienced an increase in institutional trust, accompanied by a strong demand for security from above. At the same time, radicalisation and distrust have grown among larger strata of the Italian population, leading to a significant polarisation of the public sphere. This essay critically embraces the perspective of the vast and plural universe of vaccine hesitancy and refusal (VHR) and, more generally, the materialisations of conflict concerning vaccines and policies aimed to address the Covid-19 pandemic. In the media and public debate, these protests have been mainly regarded as populist, driven by individualistic claims nurtured by indifference towards the collective good. We specifically explore whether VHR should be viewed exclusively as a sign of selfishness and populism or also as a form of repoliticisation around new issues and, in particular, as an expression of critical citizenship manifesting doubts about the decisions made by politicians, affirming a critique of the model of instrumental rationality, and advocating a pluralist debate on complex issues which directly affect individual life-choices and the body. Our study is based on 67 qualitative interviews with VHR citizens and a focus group with four key figures of the 'Movimento 3V' (3VM), a minor Italian party advocating freedom of choice in relation to vaccines.

The politicization of Public Administration as an aggravating factor in the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil

This study demonstrates the negative impact of the politicization of Public Administration in combating the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. In order to do so, we discussed the process of State Reform in the period of redemocratization, the changes inaugurated with the Federal Constitution of 1988, the phenomenon of politicization of public institutions and its repercussions on the scope of public interest, especially with regard to health, and facing the emergency caused by COVID-19. To achieve the objective of this article, the nature of basic research was used. As for the research objectives, they were descriptive-explanatory, of bibliographic technical procedure. Thus, it is necessary to implement changes in Public Administration, with a view to making popular demands and expectations viable. In addition, greater rigor in the selection of public office holders is essential, especially those with functions involving health, distancing political party interests and promoting the full effectiveness of the provisions of article 196 of the Charter. © 2022, Instituto de Direito Romeu Felipe Bacellar. All rights reserved.

The Nordic governments' responses to the Covid-19 pandemic: A comparative study of variation in governance arrangements and regulatory instruments.

Government responses to the Covid-19 pandemic in the Nordic states-Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden-exhibit similarities and differences. This article investigates the extent to which crisis policymaking diverges from normal policymaking within the Nordic countries and whether variations between the countries are associated with the role of expertise and the level of politicization. Government responses are analyzed in terms of governance arrangements and regulatory instruments. Findings demonstrate some deviation from normal policymaking within and considerable variation between the Nordic countries, as Denmark, Finland, and to some extent Norway exhibit similar patterns with hierarchical command and control governance arrangements, while Iceland, in some instances, resembles the case of Sweden, which has made use of network-based governance. The article shows that the higher the influence of experts, the more likely it is that the governance arrangement will be network-based.