The Opposite of Denial: Social Learning at the Onset of the Ebola Emergency in Liberia

Abramowitz, Sharon; McKune, Sarah; Fallah, Mosoka; Monger, Josephine; Tehoungue, Kodjo; Omidian, Patricia A.

doi:10.1080/10810730.2016.1209599

Cited by 77 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…However, there were also rumors in all three locations, and these rumors drove resistance. Rumors included accusations that medics were spreading the disease rather than treating it, that the disease was a plot by governments to take out troublesome marginal groups, that it was a genetically engineered disease from the West designed to kill Africans, and that medical teams were stealing the bodies of the deceased to sell their organs as part of the international organ market (Fairhead, 2016;Abramowitz et al, 2017;Desclaux et al, 2017;Wilkinson and Fairhead, 2017).…”

Section: The Ebola Casementioning

confidence: 99%

On Trusting Neighbors More Than Experts: An Ebola Case Study

Furman

2020

Front. Commun.

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In this paper I argue that rumors pose a challenge to effective science communication. I also argue that it is sometimes reasonable for ordinary laypeople to trust rumors over the experts. The argument goes like this. There are strong fact-value entanglements in the sciences. Further, my friends and neighbors may be more likely than the experts to make value judgments that line up with my own. As such, it can make sense for me to pay close attention to their testimony. It may even make sense for me to trust testimony within my peer network-or "rumors"-more than the experts, especially if the experts' values are especially opaque or suspicious to me. I ground this discussion in the recent West Africa Ebola outbreak, where rumors posed a substantial challenge to containing the epidemic.

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Section: The Ebola Casementioning

confidence: 99%

On Trusting Neighbors More Than Experts: An Ebola Case Study

Furman

2020

Front. Commun.

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“…Communicative inequities can lead to tragedy when public health workers confront resistance to or suspicion of biomedical solutions by people most vulnerable to infection and death, such as during the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa (Abramowitz et al. ).…”

Section: Plague Signs and Plotlinesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Zoonotic Semiotics: Plague Narratives and Vanishing Signs in Madagascar

Sodikoff

2019

Med Anthropol Q

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Zoonosis calls for a multispecies approach to medical semiotics, a method involving the decipherment of outward symptoms and the construction of narrative. In Madagascar, early detection of bubonic plague outbreaks relies on sightings of sick and dead rats. However, people most vulnerable to plague often do not perceive warning signs, and plague symptoms do not always present in rat and human bodies. In August 2015, a plague outbreak killed 10 residents of a rural hamlet in the central highlands. To reconstruct the transmission chain, scientists elicited survivors' memories of dead rats in the vicinity. Not only were these clues imperceptible to most, but residents had also constructed an alternative outbreak narrative based on different evidence. Stark health disparities, a lack of historical memory of the plague, and genetic adaptations of rats and plague bacteria have created a problem of "semiotic cluelessness" that complicates outbreak control measures and increases mortality.[zoonosis, plague, multispecies ethnography, outbreak narrative, Madagascar]The bubonic plague is flourishing in Madagascar, maintaining its foothold in the black rat population and infecting people with increasing frequency and scope. Madagascar has the highest incidence of plague cases worldwide and suffered its worst outbreak in over 50 years between August and November 2017, with a total of 2,348 confirmed, probable, and suspected cases and 202 deaths (World Health Organization 2017). Over the past decade, climate change and land degradation have exacerbated the conditions of plague transmission. Climate change has impacted the movement of plague bacteria through rat, flea, and human bodies, but sorting out how it has done so remains a complex task. What is clearer is that land degradation, particularly deforestation, lures rats out of the woods toward agricultural fields and homes where rice is abundant. Scientists continue to decipher how changing rain patterns influence the reproductive patterns of rat fleas (Xenopsylla cheopis and Synopsyllus fonquerniei), the plague's main vectors in Madagascar (Ben-Ari et al. 2012; Gage and Kasov 2005).The introduction of raticide, insecticide, and antibiotics into both the sylvatic (nonhuman) cycle of the plague and its urban cycle, which includes humans, is transforming the lives of multiple species, as well as the plague bacillus,

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“…Over a third of Americans believes this to be true. The existence of conspiracy theories regarding the spread of viruses has been shown in the case of AIDS [e.g., 16], H1N1 [2] and Ebola [1].…”

Section: Conspiracy Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Public Responses to the Zika-Virus on YouTube

Nerghes¹,

Kerkhof

Hellsten

2018

Proceedings of the 10th ACM Conference on Web Science

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Early public responses to the Zika-virus on YouTube: Prevalence of and differences between conspiracy theory and informational videos Nerghes, A.; Kerkhof, P.; Hellsten, I.R. General rightsIt is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. ABSTRACTIn this paper, we analyze the content of the most popular videos posted on YouTube in the first phase of the Zika-virus outbreak in 2016, and the user responses to those videos. More specifically, we examine the extent to which informational and conspiracy theory videos differ in terms of user activity (number of comments, shares, likes and dislikes), and the sentiment and content of the user responses. Our results show that 12 out of the 35 videos in our data set focused on conspiracy theories, but no statistical differences were found in the number of user activity and sentiment between the two types of videos. The content of the user responses shows that users respond differently to sub-topics related to Zika-virus. The implications of the results for future online health promotion campaigns are discussed.

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The Opposite of Denial: Social Learning at the Onset of the Ebola Emergency in Liberia

Cited by 77 publications

References 20 publications

On Trusting Neighbors More Than Experts: An Ebola Case Study

On Trusting Neighbors More Than Experts: An Ebola Case Study

Zoonotic Semiotics: Plague Narratives and Vanishing Signs in Madagascar

Early Public Responses to the Zika-Virus on YouTube

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