Coronavirus

#165: Covid Vaccine Hesitancy in Sweden, with Dr. Mia-Marie Hammarlin

October 7, 2023 Academics

Dr. Mia-Marie Hammarlin, Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication at Lund University, shares her research on vaccine hesitancy in Sweden. We discuss the major themes of coronavirus vaccine skepticism on the Swedish online forum Flashback, as well as Dr. Hammarlin’s ethnographic research meeting with vaccine hesitant communities.


Here are links to Dr. Hammarlin’s research mentioned in the episode:


COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: A Mixed Methods Investigation of Matters of Life and Death (2023)

I bonded with COVID vaccine sceptics over saunas and Mother Earth rituals (2023)


And check out HT-samtal, a podcast on humanities research from Lund! 

#143: Challenging Covid Vaccine Misinformation on Private Social Media, with Prof. Andrew Chadwick

May 1, 2022 Academics

Prof. Andrew Chadwick, Professor of Communication at Loughborough University, shares insights from his new public research report: Covid Vaccines and Online Personal Messaging: The Challenge of Challenging Everyday Misinformation.


The report explores how British citizens use private social messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, and in particular how they experience and engage with coronavirus misinformation across private group chats on these platforms. We discuss the hybrid character of this engagement, the role of qualitative research in project designs, and person-centered solutions to countering misinformation on private social media.

#135: Digital Political Communication and Social Media Campaigning in Germany, with Juri Schnöller

November 14, 2021 Digital Strategists

Juri Schnöller, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Cosmonauts & Kings, discusses the latest trends in German digital political communication. We chat about the role of digital political consultants in Germany, the important role of messenger apps like Signal and Telegram, and how social media influencers are impacting coronavirus communication. We also compare how features of the German electoral rules, political culture, and media system work to shape German digital campaigning.


Extra links:


Public Arena Playbook: Juri’s Handbook for Digital Political Communication

Civical: A Social Media Management Software for Politics

#133: Covid Mask Wearing in Politicians’ Social Media Images and Emotions in German Politics, with Dr. Mirya Holman

October 10, 2021 Academics

Dr. Mirya Holman, Associate Professor of Political Science at Tulane University, shares her latest research on how politicians depict mask wearing through their social media images. We discuss how computer vision can be used to detect masks in images, as well as what factors correlate with politicians’ depicting masks. Later in the episode, we discuss another recent study by Dr. Holman, where emotions in the facial expressions and vocal pitch of German politicians were analyzed during election debates. 

 

Here’s a link to that study: 

Gender, Candidate Emotional Expression, and Voter Reactions during Televised Debates (2021)

 

And here’s a link to Mirya Holman’s Aggressive Winning Scholars (#MHAWS) Newsletter! 

#124: Deliberation in Practice and Pandemics, with Ieva Česnulaitytė

April 18, 2021 Civil Society

Ieva Česnulaitytė, Policy Analyst at the OECD, discusses her and her colleagues’ research on representative deliberative processes. We break down some of the key models of deliberative processes, when they tend to be used, and how their success can be measured. 

We also discuss how the coronavirus pandemic has moved deliberative processes online. As social distancing limits the ability for citizens to attend in-person events, how are deliberative processes being carried out? 

Here’s the report we discuss in the episode – Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions: Catching the Deliberative Wave. 

 

And the op-ed in Nature discussing online deliberation during the pandemic.