"The spread of disinformation has been a topic of heightened concern, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the response to a public health crisis relies on the ability for public officials to inform citizens. Using a representative two-wave panel of internet users in Brazil, we examine the ... relationship between pathways to information, WhatsApp use, and the persistence of misinformed beliefs about the pandemic. We find a strong relationship between presidential support, right-wing news sources, and participating in WhatsApp groups with strangers, and becoming more misinformed over time. Conversely, most media diets (traditional news media, social media and WhatsApp for news) had no effect. However, Bolsonaro supporters, using WhatsApp and Facebook for news was strongly associated with increasing and persistent misinformation. Our findings provide further evidence that political leaders undermine a country’s ability to respond to a pandemic insofar as they breed mistrust in other institutions by instrumentalizing public health measures to win political fights." (Abstract) more

"This article takes up the popular argument that much online discussion is toxic and hence harmful to democracy, and argues that the pervasiveness of incivility is not incompatible with democratically relevant political talk. Instead of focusing on the tone of political talk, scholars interested in ... understanding the extent to which digital platforms threaten democratic values should focus on expressions of intolerance. I demonstrate the validity of this conceptual model by investigating the discursive and contextual features associated with incivility and intolerance online in the context of public comments in two different platforms—news websites and Facebook. Results show that incivility and intolerance occur in meaningfully different discussion settings. Whereas incivility is associated with features that reveal meaningful discursive engagement, such as justified opinion expression and engagement with disagreement, intolerance is likely to occur in homogeneous discussions about minorities and civil society—exactly when it can hurt democracy the most." (Abstract) more