ANZCA 2021

Sharing Uncertain Science: Mapping the Circulation of COVID-19 Preprint Research Reported in The Conversation on Facebook

Michelle Riedlinger, Axel Bruns, and Jean Burgess

• 8 July 2021 – paper presented at the Australia New Zealand Communication Association conference, online

In the absence of relevant peer-reviewed COVID-19 research, media coverage of COVID-19-related preprints—publicly available research papers that have yet to be peer reviewed—skyrocketed during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Conversation was globally one of the top 15 media outlets reporting on COVID-19 research via preprints during the first few months of the pandemic. This media outlet published 41 stories linking to one or more of the 100 most-cited preprints posted on medRxiv and bioRxiv (two of the most widely used preprint servers) from 1 January to 30 April, 2020. Fewer than half of these stories included linguistic strategies presenting the preprint research as scientifically uncertain. The omission is surprising, given that The Conversation’s official terms and conditions specify that “Research, as a general principle, should not be reported before it has been subjected to a recognized process of peer review” (Terms and Conditions, 2020, para.10). The urgent nature of a crisis situation like the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have prompted a tacit revision to the existing media policy. Scholars have recognised for decades that framing research as scientifically uncertain in media reporting does not occur unless the implications for the audience require it. The implications of this tacit policy change for social media curators is the focus of this research. Using the Facebook public insights tool, CrowdTangle, we identify all Facebook posts on public profiles, groups and pages that share links to these COVID-19 preprint articles and/or The Conversation stories that report on them. Using content analyses we determine who is posting about this preprint research, how the (un)certain nature of this research is reflected in the content of those who curate it and how Facebook users engage with this content. It doing so, this work highlights important changes in knowledge production, explanatory journalism and social media health reporting practices and amplification in times of crisis.

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