Project Title

Dynamic networks and emergent publics of Covid-19 vaccine conspiracy theories: starting from (not just fringe) communities on 4chan, 8kun and Reddit

Research Topic

Zichen (Jess) investigates the dissemination process and consequences of vaccine conspiracy theories—one of the most disreputable ways of responding to pandemic crises—in their delegitimisation of scientific truth claims, epistemic authority, and challenge to what counts as “literate public” and “global public good”. Leveraging network analysis and combined digital methods, her PhD thesis explores how people holding conspiracist beliefs bind together on platforms under laissez-faire governance (4chan, 8kun and Reddit), where banned users from mainstream platforms aggregate and share a techno-libertarian and anarchist platform imaginary. The project maps the fractured, fluctuating cross-site associations, focusing on the evolving alignments and formation of (e.g., semi-expert) coalitions that aim to establish new epistemic authorities and the way they strategically navigate the affordances of the “platforms for free speech” for expanding their network and influence. Exploring these network structural configurations enables Zichen (Jess) to articulate the platforms’ affordances of crowdsourcing evidence for making and amplifying conspiracy theories, which create “path dependencies” (Peters, 2015, p. 33) for political interactions and lend momentum to the emergence of (counter) publics associated with, yet more complex than, populism. Jess's project takes the networks as “microphysics of power” (Foucault, 1979) and a roadmap for unpacking the contestability of power shown in the evolving transnational conspiracy theory networks and evolving narratives of the conceived power relations amongst scientific R&D institutions, policy making authorities and the wider public. This leads to the analysis of such dynamic networks and discursive boundary work that brings in the genealogy of power struggles amongst the above stakeholders. Particularly, Jess is analysing the power struggles over the credibility and trustworthiness of knowledge production about not only bioscience on immunology; but also, its ethical parameters comprised of free (or careless/hate/irresponsible) speech, transmissible risks versus liberal imaginaries of body sovereignty, (anti)globalisation (transnational pharmaceutical corporates’ role in global development), and international (dis)order (vaccine diplomacy, etc.).

Biography

Zichen (Jess) is now a digital technologies and governance researcher in Oxford Global Society, where she collaborated with academic and industry experts to publish policy reports (see publications). She’s now also working as the editor of the Special Issue “Technology and Governance in the Age of Web 3.0” for the journal Politics and Governance (Cogitatio Press). She has also been an invited reviewer for Humanities and Social Science Communications (Nature Springer) on network analysis method (spatial distribution and associated spatial regression distribution analysis), various digital methods for corpus linguistic analysis, and topics of hate speech in the context of ultra-nationalism, populism, and anti-feminism. She has also reviewed for conferences on digital platform and infrastructure studies.

Zichen (Jess) obtained her master’s degree in MSc Politics and Communications in 2022 with a distinction at LSE Media and Communications Department. Her dissertation was entitled “Big Brother Watch’s campaign against COVID Pass and its implications for science communication” (Distinction, supervised by Claire Milne), in which she investigates campaigning strategies that foreground the tension between citizenship and public health measures, and she uses Social Network Analysis to provide empirical evidence of political publics that resonate with such a tension in citizenship and urge to have a consequential dialogue with new knowledge in science seeking to have it verified and proved within ethical parameters in order to reestablish trust under (authoritarian) capitalism, where there are competing imperatives (ie profit, political stability). The pursuit of understanding what counts as, and who are eligible to define “literate and conscientious public” in highly mediated media environment sustained throughout her master’s study with other empirical studies across different national and historical contexts (UK, US, China, and Russia).

In 2021, Zichen (Jess) completed a BA (Hons) degree in International Communications with Spanish (First Class Honours) from University of Nottingham Ningbo China. She was trained on philosophy of technology, STS, critical theories, and cultural studies, and awarded multiple scholarships during her bachelor’s study from the university, provincial government, and China’s National Council. During her undergrad exchange at the University of Warwick, Zichen (Jess) studied political science and sociology focusing on China’s populist nationalism and modernity characterised with a priority of Science and Technology development, and UK’s class stratification, educational inequality, ideological contour of STEM curriculum and consequences on the public opinion on technocrat governance. This is where she formed a Sino-West comparative insights of global populist orientation that gives rise to challenges to rationalised systems of knowledge and specialist expertise, particularly evident during the pandemic when the efforts in science communications were ethically and practically challenging. She used to be a research programme member at LSE Government Department, working on China's multifaceted public diplomacy strategy in reporting the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Prior to that, she used to be a research assistant at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China and contributed to many research projects on China’s media diplomacy, bibliometric analysis of political communication scholarship (please see the publication part).

Supervisors 

Dr Nick Anstead and Professor Shakuntala Banaji