Clickbait or conspiracy? How Twitter users address the epistemic uncertainty of a controversial preprint

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dc.contributor.authorBauer, Mareike
dc.contributor.authorHeimstädt, Maximilian
dc.contributor.authorFranzreb, Carlos
dc.contributor.authorSchimmler, Sonja
dc.date.accessioned2024-08-27T09:12:04Z
dc.date.available2024-08-27T09:12:04Z
dc.date.issued2023
dc.description.abstractMany scientists share preprints on social media platforms to gain attention from academic peers, policy-makers, and journalists. In this study we shed light on an unintended but highly consequential effect of sharing preprints: Their contribution to conspiracy theories. Although the scientific community might quickly dismiss a preprint as insubstantial and ‘clickbaity’, its uncertain epistemic status nevertheless allows conspiracy theorists to mobilize the text as scientific support for their own narratives. To better understand the epistemic politics of preprints on social media platforms, we studied the case of a biomedical preprint, which was shared widely and discussed controversially on Twitter in the wake of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Using a combination of social network analysis and qualitative content analysis, we compared the structures of engagement with the preprint and the discursive practices of scientists and conspiracy theorists. We found that despite substantial engagement, scientists were unable to dampen the conspiracy theorists’ enthusiasm for the preprint. We further found that members from both groups not only tried to reduce the preprint's epistemic uncertainty but sometimes deliberately maintained it. The maintenance of epistemic uncertainty helped conspiracy theorists to reinforce their group's identity as skeptics and allowed scientists to express concerns with the state of their profession. Our study contributes to research on the intricate relations between scientific knowledge and conspiracy theories online, as well as the role of social media platforms for new genres of scholarly communication.
dc.description.sponsorshipThis work has been partially funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) under grant no. 16DII138 (Weizenbaum Institut)
dc.identifier.citationBauer, M., Heimstädt, M., Franzreb, C., & Schimmler, S. (2023). Clickbait or conspiracy? How Twitter users address the epistemic uncertainty of a controversial preprint. Big Data & Society, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231180575
dc.identifier.doi10.1177/20539517231180575
dc.identifier.issnissn:2053-9517
dc.identifier.urihttps://www.weizenbaum-library.de/handle/id/726
dc.language.isoeng
dc.rightsopen access
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
dc.subjectpreprint
dc.subjectscholarly communication
dc.subjectconspiracy theorists
dc.subjecttwitter
dc.subjectsocial network analysis
dc.subjectsocial media
dc.titleClickbait or conspiracy? How Twitter users address the epistemic uncertainty of a controversial preprint
dc.typeArticle
dc.type.statuspublishedVersion
dcmi.typeText
dcterms.bibliographicCitation.urlhttps://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231180575
local.researchgroupReorganisation von WissenspraktikenDigitalisierung und Öffnung der Wissenschaft
local.researchtopicOrganisation von Wissen
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