COVID-19 Mis/Disinformation in Online Wellness Communities: Narratives of Individualism and Practices of Networked Resistance

Abstract

Widespread news coverage, politicised debate and social media commentary have given prominence to COVID-19 as an unparalleled threat to global health and mortality, intensifying panic and insecurity worldwide. In response, the endorsement and amplification of false claims about the pandemic has proliferated, in many cases, by public figures in the online ‘wellness’ realm. Using COVID-19 as a case study, this chapter interrogates observed connections between digital wellness cultures and informational disorders in times of crisis. The authors discuss the bourgeois liberal-individualist ideals that increasingly underpin much of this communication, exemplified through the co-option of social justice rhetoric and narratives of the ‘persecuted hero’. The authors also recognise the growing number of wellness influencers openly resisting pandemic-related mis/disinformation, and note the forms of anti-individualist, mutual care demonstrated in these ‘debunking’ efforts. The authors argue that these practices reflect a form of networked solidarity – enacted alongside a discursive distancing from individualist modes of thinking – that can be understood by applying a social ecological framework for understanding ‘resilience’.

Citation

Haw, A., Thompson, J.D. and Cover, R. (2024), "COVID-19 Mis/Disinformation in Online Wellness Communities: Narratives of Individualism and Practices of Networked Resistance", Smith, N., Southerton, C. and Clark, M. (Ed.) Researching Contemporary Wellness Cultures, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 33-45. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80455-584-220241003