Titre:	Political preferences, knowledge, and misinformation about COVID-19 : the case of Brazil
Auteur(s):	Gramacho, Wladimir Turgeon, Mathieu Kennedy, John Stabile, Max Mundim, Pedro Santos
Assunto::	Covid-19 Desinformação Preferências políticas
Date de publication:	mai-2021
Editeur:	Frontiers
Référence bibliographique:	GRAMACHO, Wladimir et al. Political preferences, knowledge, and misinformation about COVID-19: the case of Brazil. Frontiers in Political Science. v. 3, 646430, maio 2021. DOI: 10.3389/fpos.2021.646430. Disponível em: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpos.2021.646430/full. Acesso em: 24 dez. 2021.
Abstract:	The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a vast research agenda focusing on how citizens acquire knowledge about the virus and the health expert guidelines to protect themselves and their close ones against it. While many countries and regions have been accounted for, there still remains a substantial gap with respect to public opinion about the virus in Latin America, most notably in Brazil, which currently has the second highest in number of fatalities in the world. In this article, we employ a national survey of Brazilians (n = 2,771) to measure and explain knowledge and misinformation about the coronavirus and its illness, COVID-19. Our focus concerns the role of political preferences in a context of high elite polarization with a sitting government that has systematically downplayed the risks associated with the coronavirus and its illness. Our findings are clear: political preferences play a substantial role in explaining differences in knowledge about the coronavirus and COVID-19, more than conventional determinants of learning like motivation, ability, and opportunities. Specifically, we find that supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro—an avid science and COVID-19 denier—know significantly less about the coronavirus and its illness and are more likely to believe in a conspiracy theory that claims that the coronavirus was purposefully created in a Chinese laboratory to promote China's economic power, when compared to Brazilians who are less supportive of him and his government. Our findings carry important implications for how Brazilians take informational cues from political elites in that—even in a major event like a global pandemic—supporters of the president are as likely as ever to “follow their leader” and deny expert-backed scientific evidence.
metadata.dc.description.unidade:	Faculdade de Comunicação (FAC) Departamento de Jornalismo (FAC JOR)
Licença::	Copyright © 2021 Gramacho, Turgeon, Kennedy, Stabile and Mundim. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
DOI:	https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2021.646430
Collection(s) :	Artigos publicados em periódicos e afins UnB - Covid-19

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