CONSPIRACY WAVES
CLIMATE DISINFORMATION DURING THE 2024 FLOODS
Keywords:
social media, climate change, disinformationAbstract
In 2024, devastating floods struck Rio Grande do Sul and, during the tragedy, online content circulated attributing the rains to a research program allegedly operated as a climate weapon. Conspiracy narratives recurrently associate the program with the manipulation of natural disasters. Climate Disinformation prevents climate action and collective mobilization while, in general, incorporates ideological repertoires, cultural values, and local beliefs. Drawing on contributions from Information Science to the study of climate disinformation, this study investigates the construction and dissemination of this narrative on social media. The corpus comprises data collected from Telegram, YouTube, and Instagram, and the analysis methodology combines thematic classification and timeline mapping. Results indicate the cross-platform activation of a global conspiratorial repertoire, thematic co-occurrences suggesting the employment of technopolitical explanation for the catastrophe, and distinct circulation patterns across platforms. The study contributes to the understanding of informational disputes surrounding extreme climate events and the epistemic displacement produced by conspiratorial narratives.
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