Miss Information Axis Mundi Media

Why did around 25% of Americans refuse to take the covid-19 vaccine? The pandemic raised the issue of vaccination to a new height in public awareness. In this episode, we look at the religious roots of vaccine resistance in the US with Kira Ganga Kieffer from Boston University. Beginning with the documentary Died, Suddenly, we learn about claims that vaccines are a cover for elites trying to depopulate the Earth. We talk about the social media campaign around the documentary, in which sudden deaths are linked to vaccines, including some famous examples. Tiffany Dover, a nurse who was among the first to receive a covid-19 vaccine, fainted and claims of her death went viral, persisting even after she did interviews and released a video explaining that she was alive. We look at the effect of online misinformation on vaccine decisions, and how the health freedom movement has leveraged social media to spread its messages.
For more information about research-based media by Axis Mundi Media visit: www.axismundi.us
For more information about public scholarship by the Institute for Religion, Media, and Civic Engagement follow us @irmceorg or go to www.irmce.org
Created by Dr. Susannah Crockford
Funding for this series has been generously provided by the Henry Luce Foundation. 
Executive Producer: Dr. Bradley Onishi (@bradleyonishi) 

Audio Engineer: Scott Okamoto (@rsokamoto)

Production Assistance: Kari Onishi 

Dr. Susannah Crockford (@suscrockford)
Ripples of the Universe: Spirituality in Sedona, Arizona
Kira Ganga Kieffer is writing a book for Princeton University Press based on her dissertation, Pure Bodies, Sacred Souls: Religion and Vaccine Skepticism in Modern American History. 

Truthers: Tiffany Dover Is Dead. Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/truthers-tiffany-dover-is-dead/id1618512442 

Larson, Heidi J. Stuck: How Vaccine Rumors Start - and Why They Don't Go Away. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Millward, Gareth. Vaccinating Britain: Mass Vaccination and the Public since the Second World War. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019.

Sobo, Elisa J. "Theorizing (Vaccine) Refusal: Through the Looking Glass." Cultural Anthropology 31 (2016): 342-50. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca31.3.04 

Wolfe, Robert M, and Lisa K Sharp. "Anti-Vaccinationists Past and Present." BMJ: British Medical Journal 325 (2002): 430. https://doi.org/10.1136/BMJ.325.7361.430 

“How American conservatives turned against the vaccine,” Vox https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv0dQfRRrEQ&ab_channel=Vox

Misinformation is big news, but what does it mean and why does it matter? If misinformation is simply incorrect information, can it be solved simply by telling people the right answer? 
In this episode, we learn how misinformation can prevent people from voting if they think they aren’t eligible or can’t vote by mail; how misinformation can convince people to take certain drugs to cure a disease even if it’s not proven to be safe; and the ways misinformation can draw people into conspiracies like QAnon. But it’s not as simple as dispelling all misinformation from our midst. That seems impossible. Rather, in dialogue with Dr. David Robertson from the Open University, what we will discover points to a different question: Why do people believe misinformation at all and what does it do for them? In other words, instead of focusing on what people believe, perhaps the phenomenon of misinformation directs us to ask what beliefs do - who they favor, who they put in power, who they marginalize, and who they leave vulnerable. And by understanding the mechanics, maybe we can mitigate the damage misinformation does to our public square.

For more information about research-based media by Axis Mundi Media visit: www.axismundi.us
For more information about public scholarship by the Institute for Religion, Media, and Civic Engagement follow us @irmceorg or go to www.irmce.org
Funding for this series has been generously provided by the Henry Luce Foundation. 
Creator: Dr. Susannah Crockford
Executive Producer: Dr. Bradley Onishi (@bradleyonishi) 

Audio Engineer: Scott Okamoto (@rsokamoto)

Production Assistance: Kari Onishi 
Dr. Susannah Crockford (@suscrockford): Ripples of the Universe: Spirituality in Sedona, Arizona

Further Reading

Robertson, David G. UFOs, Conspiracy Theories and the New Age: Millennial Conspiracism. London: Bloomsbury, 2016.

Robertson, David G., and Amarnath Amarasingam. “How Conspiracy Theorists Argue: Epistemic Capital in the Qanon Social Media Sphere.” Popular Communication 20 (2022): 193-207. https://doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2022.2050238.

Howard, Philip N. Lie Machines: How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Political Operatives. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020.

Bail, Chris. Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2021. 

Uscinski, Joseph E., and Joseph M. Parent. American Conspiracy Theories. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. 

Byford, Jovan. Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Argentino, Marc-Andre. “The Church of QAnon: Will Conspiracy Theories Form the Basis of a New Religious Movement?” The Conversation, May 18, 2020, https://theconversation.com/the-church-of-qanon-will-conspiracy-theories-form-the-basis-of-a-new-religious-movement-137859 

Hao, Karen. “How Facebook got addicted to spreading misinformation,” MIT Technology Review, March 11, 2021, https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/11/1020600/facebook-responsible-ai-misinformation/ 

Welcome to Miss Information! This is a limited podcast series about the ways online misinformation and conspiracy theories infiltrate wellness communities and religious spaces. It's hosted by Dr. Susannah Crockford, lecturer in anthropology at the University of Exeter in the UK. Fascinated by weird beliefs and alternate realities of our current moment, Susannah researches conspiracy theories, environments, wellness, and social media. You can read more in her book, Ripples of the Universe: Spirituality in Sedona, Arizona (University of Chicago Press, 2021), in her academic articles and public scholarship, and on Twitter.