A desinformação científica no meio digital: dos mecanismos de funcionamento às estratégias de enfrentamento

Abstract

In the heterogeneous context of social networks, activists from anti-vaccination movements, healers, conspiracyists, charlatans, historical revisionists, influencers, religious fanatics and neo-Luddists thrive, who have occupied these spaces with narratives of great popular appeal, relativizing the idea of truth and attacking the scientific activity. This work aims to understand the profile of scientific disinformation on the web and its possible relationship with pseudosciences. Scientific disinformation is characterized by false content with a denialist discourse in relation to scientific consensus in an anti-science stance, with frequent use of conspiracy narratives and the mobilization of alternative evidence in an attempt to mimic an appearance of legitimate science. In these contents, scientific knowledge is questioned and often categorized as false or ideologically biased. The work analyzed the conformation of scientific disinformation and its relations with pseudosciences, seeking to understand its working mechanisms and propose coping strategies. The research is classified as basic, as it aims to generate new knowledge by listing evidence. As for the objectives, the research is descriptive. The approach is qualitative and the technical procedures are documental research and multiple case studies in a digital environment. In a first phase, 5,234 analysis articles produced by Brazilian and North American disinformation checking services were consulted in 2019. From this document analysis, 111 articles referred to scientific disinformation. The exogenous (platforms, dissemination mechanisms) and endogenous (discursive strategies, message framing and vision of science, etc.) characteristics of the referenced disinformation were evaluated. The results indicated that 68% of the scientific disinformation in the sample was characterized by a notorious lack of methodical, linguistic or content sophistication and that science does not necessarily have a target, but rather as a reference to substantiate claims, generate alarmism, humor, audience and income. In the other 32% of the corpus, there is a discourse aligned with pseudo-theories, endowed with broader foundations and, often, with some methodical or linguistic refinement. In a second phase, a study of the interactions between creators and users on YouTube was carried out, with the support of tracking software for data collection. The observation demonstrated the existence of a consumer market of pseudoscientific discourses that present themselves as a moral and epistemic solution to a supposed degradation of traditional scientific activity, providing easy and cheap solutions to numerous followers. Scientific disinformation was linked to this discourse. Strategies to face disinformation were outlined and challenges for information science were highlighted in its concern with the problem of information and its relationship with social and human development.