The imaginative dimension of digital disinformation: Fake news, political trolling, and the entwined crises of Covid-19 and inter-Asian racism in a postcolonial city

Abstract

This article uses the concept of the ‘imaginative dimension of digital disinformation’ to explore how inter-Asian racism in a postcolonial city matters to the way people engage with racially tinged Covid-19 digital disinformation. It pays attention to two key socialities that fake news and political trolling online seek to weaponise people's existing social narratives as well as their relationally embedded practices of media consumption. Drawing on 15 life story interviews with locals from the Philippines capital of Manila, this article characterises their interpretations of online disinformation campaigns that aim to amplify their shared social narrative of resentment towards China and bank on their communicative practices surrounding this. It also aims to show the value of empirical research that possesses a transnational sensibility in assessing the interpretive and social dynamics surrounding such racist Covid-19 digital disinformation.

Transforming Disinformation on Minorities Into a Pedagogical Resource: Towards a Critical Intercultural News Literacy

“…In addition, they can merge with alleged health concerns, as seen in disinformation spread about Covid-19 associated with Chinese and Muslim migrants (Cabañes, 2022;. A recurring theme accuses immigrants of defying isolation measures to reinforce the nativist narrative that migrants do not belong in the nation (Culloty & Suiter, 2021, p. 222).…”