INTRODUCTION At The Outset

At the outset, many expected the United States of America to be able to contain

the novel coronavirus like it had handled previous pandemics. Other comparable

countries like New Zealand, Iceland, Australia, Brunei, China, Taiwan and Thailand were

able to successfully manage its spread largely through strict lockdowns, mask ordinances,

clear risk communication strategies, and a national unity to accept momentary

inconveniences for the common good (Bremmer, Jun. 12, 2020). As of September 2020,

the U.S. is still the global leader of both coronavirus cases and deaths and in late July,

White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci testified that it is unlikely Covid-19

will ever be eradicated (Lovelace, Jul. 22, 2020). How did it get this bad? As the

American Federal Government failed to muster a sufficient national response to contain

the coronavirus, and would later shift responsibility away from the federal level, local

governments took steps to implement new laws to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

What some might not have expected would be the significant resistance from their own

citizens from measures that would keep them safe in the long run. On June 23rd,

Florida’s Palm Beach County council heard testimony from agitated activists who

believed that their own government was conspiring against them.

“You literally cannot mandate somebody to wear a mask, knowing that that

mask is killing people. It literally is killing people. We, the people, are

waking up… and every single one of you [lawmakers] who are obeying the

Devil’s laws [by mandating mask ordinances in public spaces] are going to

be arrested. You, doctor, are going to be arrested for crimes against

humanity… Every single one of you are going to be punished by God. You

cannot escape God not even with the mask [ordinance] or the six feet [social

distancing recommendation] ... All of you are practicing the Devil’s laws.

What happened to Bill Gates? Why isn’t he in jail? Why is Hillary Clinton

not in jail? Why are all these pedophiles that are demanding you to listen

to their rules, why are they not in jail? Is it because you’re a part of them?

Are you a part of the deep state?”

While her testimony was subsequently mocked online, her misunderstanding of

the public health crisis was emblematic of something more: The American public is not

only reckoning with a media landscape rife with misinformation (Orlowski, 2020), but

are so politically motivated that many reject information that is counter to their

preconceived worldview (Uscinski et al., 2020; Kahan, 2017).

According to a March GallupPoll, people's opinions about whether it is easier or

harder to be informed are strongly related to their attitudes about the media. Seventy

percent of those who have a positive opinion of the media say it is easier to be informed,

while 64 percent of those with a negative opinion of the news media say it is harder

(Ritter, Apr. 9, 2020). These numbers would fall even harder along partisan lines a month

later. In April, 85 percent of Democrats said the Trump administration was a main source

of misinformation about the virus, but only 4 percent of Republicans agreed. For 75

percent of Republicans, mainstream national news was the main source of virus

misinformation, but only 2 percent of Democrats agreed.

We have yet to know the final global impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic

but the delays, denials, and misinformation about COVID-19 have exacerbated its spread

and slowed pandemic response across the world, particularly in the U.S. (e.g., Abutaleb

et al., 2020). Americans are divided about many political issues, but how did the severity

of the coronavirus become a partisan fight? An August YouGov poll found that nearly

three-fourths of Republicans approved of how the U.S. was responding to coronavirus,

while 75 percent of self-identifying liberals said the U.S. response was very bad. Ten

percent of registered Democrats and 33 percent of registered independents believe that

the 185,000 coronavirus deaths were acceptable. Among registered Republicans, 57

percent believed those deaths were an acceptable amount (Salavanto et al., Aug 23,

2020).

While the role that misinformation played in slowing the American’s federal

government’s response to COVID-19 is better understood, less is known about what role

the media played in spreading that misinformation.

Americans’ attention to the news has increased from early December 2019 to

March 2020 (Ritter, Apr. 9, 2020) but where they would go to get accurate information

about the coronavirus depended on a number of factors. According to the April

Gallup/Knight Foundation poll, younger people (18-34) were more likely to consult

health professionals or official health organization websites directly while older people

(55+) were more likely to get information from the one or two news sources they trust

most (Jones, May 11, 2020).

Polling from the early stages of the pandemic suggests that many Americans were

misinformed about COVID-19 from the beginning. In early March 2020, a poll

conducted by YouGov and The Economist found that 13 percent of Americans believed

the coronavirus was a hoax, 49 percent believed the coronavirus was man made, and 44

percent believed the threat of coronavirus was being exaggerated for political reasons

(Economist, 2020). A mid April Gallup/Knight Foundation poll found that 58 percent of

US adults say they are well-informed about the virus while 36 percent say they’re

overwhelmed by all of the information going around (Jones, May 11, 2020).

This divide seems to be consequential - as the decisions that Americans made to

learn about the virus informed their beliefs about the virus and their behavior. A March

1st Civiqs poll found 68 percent of Democrats were moderately or extremely concerned

about COVID-19, but only 21 percent of Republicans expressed moderate or extreme

concern (Badger and Quealy, 2020). Another Quinnipiac University poll released early in

March found that roughly 6 in 10 Republican voters were not especially concerned that

the coronavirus would disrupt their lives (Quinnipiac University/Poll, 2020; Russonello,

2020a). Further, there have been considerable partisan gaps with respect to how citizens

were responding to the crisis, such as washing their hands, working from home, or

changing their travel plans (Stecula, 2020).

The variation in media coverage of the pandemic in its early stages may help

explain these partisan differences. Some American media, particularly popular

rightleaning outlets and pundits, spouted hoaxes and conspiracy theories behind the

pandemic:

Sean Hannity said the virus was a fraud by the “deep state” trying to spread panic,

manipulate the economy, and suppress dissent; Rush Limbaugh suggested the virus was a

plot hatched by the Chinese to harm the U.S. economy; and Fox Business anchor Trish

Regan told viewers that the worry over coronavirus “is yet another attempt to impeach

the president” (Peters and Grynbaum, 2020). As denial and disinformation exploded on

right-leaning media outlets, many conservative elites correspondingly downplayed

concern about the virus (Abutaleb et al., 2020; Badger and Quealy, 2020; Peters and

Grynbaum, 2020; Russonello, 2020b; Warzel, 2020).

Previous academic research has demonstrated that people accept factually

incorrect information as true if it originates from trusted sources or affirms their political

and social worldviews (Kahan, 2017). Considerable evidence also suggests that political

identity leads people to engage in motivated conspiracy endorsements that damage their

political rivals (Flynn et al., 2017; Miller et al., 2016). These motivations may be

amplified in an environment where the pandemic is highly politicized and trusted opinion

leaders also endorse dubious COVID claims (Stecula, 2020). As a result, even seemingly

innocuous denials or false claims from relied-upon media sources may lead individuals

either into a false sense of security or lead others to ignore government

recommendations.

The spread of misinformation about COVID-19 could be particularly problematic

if misinformed people are subsequently less likely to trust advice from experts or medical

professionals. Previous research has found that misinformation about vaccine safety is

associated with increased skepticism about the role medical professionals play in the

policy-making process (Motta et al. 2018) and also with noncompliance with

expertbacked health behaviors (such as wearing sunscreen or vaccinating children)

(Oliver and Wood, 2014). The highly partisan nature of early media coverage of the

coronavirus pandemic had important public health consequences. The relative

prominence of COVID misinformation shared by right-leaning media may have

contributed to the spread of misinformation about COVID and subsequently undermined

support for information from public health experts.

Across multiple media channels, conservative media (Fox News, Breitbart, Daily

Wire, Lowder with Crowder, and PragerU) regularly discussed misinformation about

COVID-19 during the early stages of the pandemic. Further, nationally representative

survey data suggest that people who consumed right-leaning media during that time were

more likely to endorse COVID-19 misinformation (Uscinski et al., 2020). Misinformed

people were more likely to believe that the CDC exaggerated COVID’s health risks,

suggesting that media coverage of the virus in the early stages of the pandemic may have

had important public health consequences. While previous studies (Brigman et al., 2020;

Uscinski et al., 2020) have examined the relationship between conservative media

coverage and misinformation, this article will take a closer look at how conservative

media audiences responded to conservative media coverage of the coronavirus.

The author decided to focus the attention on media effects from YouTube because

it is tremendously influential as a popular social media platform, but its moderation of

politically motivated conspiracy theories has been lax in recent years (Lewis, 2018). In

fact, according to the Pew Research Center, more than a quarter of Americans get their

news from YouTube (Stocking et al., Sept. 28, 2020). However, researchers have pointed

out problems with YouTube’s algorithm (Lewis, 2018; Orolowski, 2020), that promote

controversial and shocking content because it is engaging rather than factual and

explanatory content that can be trusted. Because of YouTube’s low standards of content

moderation, misinformation garners a wide audience and spreads quickly - embroiling

the video hosting platform in a number of scandals. For example, the platform was

responsible for promoting conspiracy videos about the mass shooting in Las Vegas

(Levin, Oct. 4, 2017), facilitated disinformation on such a scale that may have swayed the

2019 election in Brazil (Fisher and Taub, Aug. 11, 2019), and being the platform used

most by fascist groups in the US to indoctrinate others into their far-right world view

(Evans, 2018). While previous studies (Brigman et al., 2020; Uscinski et al., 2020) have

examined the relationship between conservative media coverage and coronavirus

misinformation on television and on Twitter, this article will focus specifically of

conservative news coverage on YouTube.

In this article, the author will be examining how the conservative coverage of the

coronavirus on YouTube affected its audience by examining user comments across three

channels: a total of more than 1,500 user comments (the top 30 comments from over 50

videos). This study will be examining the subject of these comments: how much of the

audiences’ ire was focused on external threats, how their internal processes were

influenced by social biases, and how the comment section became a virtual space to

engage with a like-minded community.

This article exists at the nexus of several disparate fields of study in mass

communication. Particularly, it relies on previous studies of conservative media

(DellaVigna and Kaplan, 2007; Hopkins and Ladd, 2014) and explores the history of

conservative media as it adapts to new technologies. As it relates to social media and

participatory culture, this article relies on recent studies on the kinds of influence that

YouTube has on its audience (Orlowski, 2020; Lewis, 2018 & 2019). Finally, this article

seeks to expand on coronavirus misinformation studies (Brigman et al., 2020; Uscinski et

al., 2020) that seeks to understand why lawmakers and their citizens would not adopt

simple public health measures to slow the spread of coronavirus. Media practitioners

should use this study to reflect on the impact that political influencers, particularly on

YouTube, can have on spreading misinformation about the politicized pandemics. This

article will expand on the existing study of social media’s facilitation of the spread of

misinformation and examine the kinds of relationships consumers have with conservative

news media.

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 HOW SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS IS POLITICALLY UNDERMINED IN

THE MEDIA

In the wake of the World Health Organization declaring that the coronavirus

pandemic would be a world catastrophe, they launched a platform designed to combat the

spread of misinformation (Zarocostas, 2020). This platform, EPI-WIN, was supposed to

combat the spread of misinformation around the virus and prevent the ensuing

‘infodemic,’ a portmanteau of the word ‘information’ and ‘pandemic’ used to describe the

wealth of misinformation and conspiracy theories that would be widely available on the

internet. While many world leaders would describe the virus as a common enemy that

divided factions must unite to combat (Oprysko and Luthi, Mar. 18 2020), that did not

insulate the response effort from being highly politicized to suit certain American

political goals. In fact, the scientific consensus around taking governmental action and

acting in the favor of public health, has a long history of being undermined politically in

American media (Oreskes and Conway, 2010).

This history of undue skepticism about scientific consensus has an impact on the

public trust in scientific experts and public health officials (Motta et al. 2018; Oliver and

Wood, 2014). Despite the severity of the coronavirus and the need for immediate,

decisive action to contain its spread, the necessary public health measures were not

immediately followed because of certain political interests and entrenched media

dynamics suited to cater to those interests.

Skepticism around scientific consensus has been a main feature of American

conservative ideology since 1965. This kind of undue skepticism about scientific

consensus has been a major factor in a number of public health problems: smoking,

asbestos, the hole in the ozone layer, fracking, second hand smoke, GMOs, acid rain,

CFC’s, climate change, and now around the government response to coronavirus.

In their 2010 book Merchants of Doubt, authors Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway

documented the use of sowing doubt around scientific consensus as a political tactic they

call the Tobacco Strategy. Historically, this process of preventing scientific consensus

from becoming regulatory policy begins not with finding facts, but fighting them

(Oreskes & Conway, 2010).

A crucial first step in this process involves finding highly visible scientists who

can produce a public study that does not accord with the scientific consensus. For

example, in February 1988, Philip Morris International hired scientists deliberately

outside of the smoking industry to “be able to produce research or stimulate controversy"

around the scientific consensus and create the illusion of a continued scientific debate,

when in actuality there was none (Schwartz, May 9, 1997). This parallel can be seen 23

years later when Fox News host Sean Hannity read a letter on March 23 from an

unidentified doctor “in the New York area” about the effectiveness of treating

coronavirus with hydroxychloroquine (Media Matters, Mar. 23 2020). It can also be seen

over a month later when Dr. Daniel Erickson and Dr. Artin Massihi went viral for

publishing a study comparing the virus’ severity to the flu, garnering over 4 million

views, and a lengthy interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingram on April, 28, 2020 (Times

of San Diego, Apr. 28, 2020). In both cases, those scientists’ credentials were leveraged

by public affairs people, including those on social media and in the news.

The Tobacco Strategy relies on scientists, public relations experts, partisan media,

and lawyers to “maintain the controversy” and “keep the debate alive” in the court of

public opinion in order to avoid governmental action (Losovitz, Feb. 25, 2017). A second

important step in the Tobacco Strategy is the desire for a continuous public debate

between the two sets of scientists (Oreskes and Conway, 2010). In fact, the presence of

the two sets of scientists are designed to conflate the posturing that happens in political

discourse with robust scientific debate. In the context of a debate, the scientists’

credentials are used as a way of concealing possible political motivations and thus the

disagreement is interpreted as a scientific debate rather than a political one. Because of

this, the scientific consensus of one side can appear to be in dispute if the opposing

argument comes from another scientist. As long as the opposing side can engage in a

vociferous debate in the public eye, the ‘consensus’ is perceived to be still up for

consideration and not yet worthy of immediate action.

In the context of coronavirus, as conservative media and right wing politicians in

America resisted immediate and strict public health measures, largely by following the

Tobacco Strategy. It is important to note that these lawmakers and media figures

delineated slightly from the Tobacco Strategy as they did the majority of the debating on

behalf of the doctors, rather than having the doctors do it themselves. Media Matters for

America, an organization that monitors right-wing disinformation across multiple

channels, published almost over 850 stories about coronavirus misinformation from

conservative media as of September. In a brief overview of their published stories, few of

the stories’ headlines contain scientists or medical professionals - with a majority of the

misinformation coming from reactionary figures of rightwing media channels.

Regardless, the Tobacco Strategy appears to mirror the coronavirus response.

Despite having politically motivated and often unscientific research, the opposing side

can appear to be equal to the best scientific opinion as a public disagreement gives the

impression of a serious debate, whose merits are worthy of discussion. Because

scientists’ credentials are so heavily used in this public discussion, artificially inflated

doubt can be conflated with healthy scientific skepticism. It creates the impression that

everything is unresolved and thus nothing can be done yet: “Doubt is our product” ran

the infamous memo written by one tobacco industry executive in 1969, “since it is the

best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general

public” (Oreskes and Conway, 2010 pg. 34; Smoking and Health Proposal, 1969).

Regardless of their credibility or credentials, when each ‘side’ is given equal time,

their arguments are perceived to be of equal importance, and thus the matter is ongoing

and undetermined. The presence of this debate can be further complicated when there are

multiple, possibly politically motivated sources who can repeat the unscientific claim and

appear to give it corroboration. In our modern media ecosystem, of media bubbles and

echo chambers, news media networks and prominent social media profiles can reach

thousands of people and can even unintentionally give oxygen to misinformation and

conspiracy theories by making the two narratives appear to be equally worthy of

consideration (Orlowski, 2020). Even though public health measures have the backing of

scientific rigor and scholarship, and the other doesn’t, something patently false like anti-

vaccination conspiracies can appear to be true if it has enough public salience (Jang et al.,

2017; Maza, May 9, 2019).

Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) developed a measure to

understand how humans perceive truth and developed the Coherence Test to determine

whether a fact-claim can be accepted as true (Christian, 1998). According to the

Coherence Test, a claim can only be accepted as true if it coheres with facts that have

already been accepted as true. For example, consider the following fact claim: There are

no sharks in Lake Murray. Under the Coherence Test, one can compare this claim to other

accepted facts like 1) Lake Murray is freshwater, 2) most sharks live in saltwater, 3) the

Saluda Dam closes the lake off to the ocean, 4) Freshwater sharks cannot swim past the

dam, and 5) no one has ever reported being bitten by a shark at Lake Murray.

However the Coherence Test has a serious flaw as it relies on a previous set of

assumptions that are believed to be true, whose veracity also largely depends on public

salience. In fact, Ciuk and Yost (2016) found that people’s willingness to adopt

policyrelevant information instead of partisan cues depends on the salience of a particular

issue. While this body of research is expanding, Yeyati et al. (2020) found that partisan

elites can have degrees of influence on public opinion. According to their research, the

endorsement of ideas from party elites can polarize public opinions when no prior

polarization exists. Using partisan and leader cues prove of little use in bridging opinion

gaps and building policy support in political climates that are not already polarized.

2.2 HOW CONSERVATIVE MEDIA BEGAN AND HOW IT OPERATES

The emergence of partisan news - as well as political media that presents itself as

news - broadly emerged after the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. The policy,

aimed at mandating newscasters to give equal time to two sides of a controversial issue,

was broadly aimed at making sure that Americans were uniformly informed about ‘both

sides’ of an issue to prevent individual media groups from having an outsized influence

on American political discourse. At the time, explicitly conservative media was relegated

to William F. Buckley’s The National Review and the monthly American Spectator

(Anderson, Sep. 2017). When the Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987, Rush

Limbaugh launched his national right-wing radio show a year later and inspired others

across the country. In the 90’s Rupert Murdoch conceived of a conservative alternative to

CNN and, with the help of Nixon aide Roger Ailes, launched the Fox News Channel

which joined the airwaves in 1996 (Groseclose and Milyo, 2005).

In June 2011, the Nixon presidential library resurfaced a 318 page memo from

Ailes outlining his plans in 1970 to be “Putting the GOP on TV News” (Cook, Jun. 30,

2011). Ailes’ plan was “to provide pro-administraiton, videotape hard news actualities to

the major cities of the United States” in order to circumvent the gatekeeping of

conventional news media. Ultimately, Ailes’ strategy was to undermine conventional

journalistic reporting and set a new media agenda, one that was always favorable to

Nixon and the Republican party. In the memo, he envisioned having a media organization

designed to disseminate interviews with pro-Nixon Republicans directly to their

constituency so that they could directly influence public opinion without “the censorship,

the priorities, and prejudices of network news selectors and disseminators.”

With a fawning media organization, Republicans and the Nixon White House

would be able to control the agenda setting power of the news media to its advantage.

This plan to create a pro-Republican media organization specifically relied on television

because “television news is watched more often than people read newspapers, than

people listen to the radio, than people read or gather any other form of communication.

The reason: People are lazy. With television you just sit—watch—listen. The thinking is

done for you.” Thus when Ailes later launched Fox News, it differentiated itself from

other major television news networks as being “balanced” and “fair,” and painted

conventional news networks as deceitful and illegitimate.

Because technology at the time was slowly advancing and the vast

communications infrastructure that exists today was still being built, the Fox News

Channel was not broadcasted across the country at the same time. Initially, the company

had to negotiate with individual cable companies and would take until the mid 2000s to

be accessible to the entire country. Due to the incremental layout, researchers were able

to determine that the individual media markets that aired the Fox News Channel

increased turnout among Republican voters and induced independents to vote for George

W. Bush in 2000 (DellaVigna and Kaplan, 2007; Hopkins and Ladd, 2014). Additionally,

Clinton and Emamordo (2014) found evidence that the congressional representatives of

the areas where Fox News aired marginally reduced their support for President Bill

Clinton.

A significant aspect of how partisan media works is what Kahan (2017) refers to

as identity-protective cognition, which describes a tendency of culturally diverse

individuals to selectively credit and dismiss evidence in patterns that reflect their

preconceived worldview. He found that people can accept factually incorrect information

as true if it originates from trusted sources or affirms their political and social

worldviews. Broadly, the existence of partisan media allows audiences to choose the

narrative about an event that they agree with, rather than subjecting themselves to

mainstream coverage that could contain narratives that disagree with their preconceived

notions and expose the audiences to the possible identity-threatening feelings that may

arise from reconciling the two (Kahan, 2020).

Considerable evidence also suggests that political identity leads people to engage

in motivated conspiracy endorsement impugning their political rivals (Flynn et al., 2017;

Miller et al., 2016). These motivations may be amplified in an environment where the

pandemic is highly politicized and trusted opinion leaders also endorse dubious COVID

claims (Stecula, 2020). As a result, even seemingly innocuous denials or false claims

from relied-upon media sources may lead individuals either into a false sense of security

or lead others to ignore public health recommendations.

The success of conservative media cannot be overstated. Fox News is the most

watched cable news network in the country and has been for a while. In both June 2020

and July 2020, Fox News was the highest-rated television channel in the prime-time

hours of 8 to 11 p.m. The average live Fox News viewership in those hours outstripped

cable rivals like CNN, MSNBC and ESPN, as well as the broadcast networks ABC, CBS

and NBC, according to Nielsen (Grynbaum, Aug. 9, 2020). In short, there was nothing

more popular on television than Tucker Carlson Tonight, Hannity, and The Laura

Ingraham Show - for better or worse, Fox News Programming is primetime television

(Grynbaum, Aug. 9, 2020).

As a whole, the channel generates an estimated $2.7 billion for its parent

company 21st Century Fox (Mayer, Mar. 11, 2019), and its influence on American

politics is unparalleled. President Donald Trump is not only a frequent guest for

interviews, he also regularly consults with its programmers, and employs many former

Fox News staffers in his administration (Mayer, Mar. 11, 2019). The President spends

much of his time in office watching television (Haberman et al., Dec. 9, 2017; Gertz, Jan.

05, 2018). His tweets regularly follow the Fox News programming that he consumes so

closely that experts claim he “prefers to rely on conservative cable news hosts to

understand current events” rather than the federally funded information gathering

apparatus designed to help the American executive branch (Gertz, Jan. 5, 2018).

In fact, Fox News has catered to the political right for so long, that they now

basically operate as a media arm for the Republican party, according to its own

employees. In the wake of numerous layoffs in Fox News’ fact-checking team, an

anonymous current Fox News employee told the Daily Beast “It looks like Fox is more

like an extension of [the Trump] administration, insead of a news network” (Falzone and

Grove, Sept. 28, 2020). Even under oath, lawyers for Tucker Carlson Tonight, one of the

most watched shows on television at the moment, referred to its own news program as

“hyperbolic opinion commentary,” and explicitly not “sober factual reporting.” Fox News

attorney Erin Murphy even questioned that “would a reasonable viewer be coming here

[to Tucker Carlson Tonight] and thinking, ‘this is where I’m going to be hearing the news

of the day?’ raising doubt that one of the most watched shows on the Fox News Network

has audiences that do not believe that Tucker Carlson would tell the truth about the news

(Pierce, Jun 21, 2020).

In addition to the words from Fox News’ own employees, the actions of both

media figures and Republican politicians raise questions about the right-wing news

media. Numerous Fox News hosts have broken traditional norms of journalistic

objectivity as they often campaign with the president and for the Republican party

(Mayer, Mar. 11, 2019; Maza, Nov. 26 2018). Numerous politicians have gone on Fox

News multiple times and received political benefit from campaign donations or

governmental contracts because of it (Derysh, May 20, 2020; Merchant, Aug. 3, 2020;

Caputo, Aug. 29, 2018).

As an example of conservative media’s influence, Fox News is the most watched

cable news program and its impact on electoral politics in America is unlike any other.

Martin and Yurukoglu (2017) found that if the channel had never existed, the Republican

presidential candidate’s share of the two-party vote would have been 3.59 points lower in

2004 and 6.34 points lower in 2008. That means that John Kerry would have been the

2004 popular vote winner, and in an alternative 2008, Barack Obama’s victory would

have turned into a 60% landslide victory. Arceneaux et al. (2016) found that Fox News

was so powerful at influencing congressional lawmakers, even Democrats increased

support for Republican party positions on divisive votes in the months before an election.

Fox News and conservative media also affects individuals in subtler ways. Ash

and Poyker (2019) found that “exposure to conservative news causes judges to impose

harsher criminal sentences... Fox News viewership increases incarceration length, and the

effect is stronger for black defendants and for drug-related crimes.” Vargo et al., (2017)

also found that partisan media is incredibly susceptible to consume and disseminate

misinformation and fake news.

The success of conservative media coincided with the emerging technological

platforms as well. The huge success of Limbaugh inspired a wide variety of conservative

radio shows and without any substantial media regulation, created a vast network of

conservative media airing misrepresentations, misinformation, and sometimes outright

conspiracy theories (Williamson and Steel, Sept. 7, 2018). More media channels,

including on television, the radio, and eventually on the internet, led to media a

‘narrowcast’ (Hamilton, 2005), resulting in media channels catering to different segments

of the population. Partisan news networks emerged from this fragmented media

environment (Webster, 2005), giving rise to individualized ‘media bubbles’ as opposed to

the uniform broadcasting of the past (Stroud, 2011).

This narrowcast becomes even more challenging in the era of social media.

According to a 2020 study conducted by the Pew Research Center found that 1 in 5

Americans get their news primarily from social media, less likely to closely follow major

news stories, and less informed about the events themselves (Pew Research, Jul. 30

2020). The ability to curate one’s source of information based on their appetite for news,

political affiliation, or interest in newsworthy topics directly impacts their real-world

response to their political reality (Orolowski, 2020). Bridgman et al. (2020) found that

exposure to social media is associated with misperceptions about basic facts about

COVID-19 while the inverse is true for news media.

Orolowski’s (2020) The Social Dilemma outlines the effect that social media has

on Americans’ perception of their political reality. Because social media giants like

Facebook are so adept at collecting their users’ data, they determine which users are more

likely to endorse conspiracy theories and feed them conspiratorial content. In fact, they

can find users who are susceptible to being radicalized by sensational political content

and market that content directly to those users. Content producers can essentially target

their audience with content they are sure to enjoy. Producers of political content on social

media especially have perverse incentives as they will make more money based on how

much attention they garner. There are financial incentives for these political social media

influencers to make bold statements and calamitous predictions. Lewis (2018) found that

these dynamics happen especially on conservative YouTube channels, whose coverage

pushes their audience to political extremes on YouTube’s platform.

2.3 CONSERVATIVE MEDIA IN THE ERA OF SOCIAL MEDIA

YouTube is among the most popular video-streaming platforms in the world and,

because of its popularity, it has elevated certain content creators to celebrity and financial

success. These content creators are able to amass huge platforms as its most popular

creators can rival the celebrity of superstar athletes and traditional media figures

(MorningConsult, 2019). Numerous media scholars have looked into how influential

YouTubers are on their viewers (O’Calagahan el al., 2015; Lee and Watkins, 2016;

Ferchaud et al., 2017; Lewis, 2018).

An important element of the research on YouTube has focused on the illusory

social interactions (Horton and Wohl, 1956) that exists between the YouTube creator and

their audience. These interactions, called parasocial relationships (PSR), can mimic the

two-way relationships people have offline: through features on the platform, viewers can

communicate to creators and other viewers through comments or upload videos

responding to other videos. Jung, Youn, and McClung (2007) found that these

communicative features allow users to become active gratification seekers in similar

ways as they would on other social networking platforms .

All of this is to suggest that a key factor in studying PSR is the perception of

authenticity. Rubin and Rubin (1985) found that the perceived realism of a soap opera

positively related to the audience’s parasocial interaction of its characters. Levy (1979)

found that one of the most common parasocial indicators of newscasters is that they “are

almost like friends you see every day” (p.180). These PSRs are powerful as viewers find

YouTube content creators to be credible and trustworthy (Rasmussen, 2018; Johnson,

2017; Ault, 2014). Several quantitative analyses have found similar results (Chapple and

Cownie, 2017; Morris and Anderson, 2015), with some investigating the perceived

intimacy between YouTube creators and their audiences (Berryman and Kavka, 2017).

This perceived authenticity is a key aspect of the popularity of YouTube

influencers, conservative political influencers use that both as a marketing tool and

rhetorical technique (Lewis, 2019). In this way, by using subtle techniques and

emphasizing “relatability, authenticity, and accountability” viewers feel like they can

have a closer, less polished connection to the conservative YouTuber that doesn’t exist on

television. Lewis (2018) outlines how YouTubers and their audience have a feedback

loop relationship where they are both shaped by the coverage and the source of its

demand - elevating influencers not based on their adherence to journalistic norms but on

who can best cater to their expectations.

When YouTube was created in 2005, it was conceived as a video library that

contained trivial videos that wouldn’t have significant effects on American political

discourse, but as the platform grew and its users became more savvy, it became

tremendously influential on political discourse. In the past three years alone, the now

Google owned company has faced a number of high profile public relations scandals:

including promoting conspiracy videos about the mass shooting in Las Vegas (Levin,

Oct. 4, 2017), facilitating disinformation on such a scale that may have swayed the 2019

election in Brazil (Fisher and Taub, Aug. 11, 2019), and being the platform used most by

fascist groups in the US to indoctrinate others into their far-right world view (Evans,

2018; Lewis, 2018).

In 2011, former conservative radio host Dennis Prager wanted to harness new

technologies and create a conservative media channel on YouTube. This new channel

would be made in opposition to a “Liberal Media” conspiracy (which we’ll examine

later) that he sees as dominated by liberal political activists who have infiltrated every

level of knowledge production, namely in the news media and universities. The channel’s

concept is giving the viewer a short, digestible conservative perspective about

conventional political topics that are designed to be in place of a semester long college

course on the subject:

“Our kids aren’t learning that America is a land of opportunity, a defender

of freedom around the world, a source of pride. They’re learning that

America is land of inequality and racism and imperialist power, something

to be ashamed of. Is there a way to undo this damage? There is: it’s called

PragerU, a totally new concept in education ” (“The Mission of PragerU,”

Aug. 24, 2015).

The channel has grown since 2011 and is now a 501(c)(3) that accepts online

donations through its website. Although portraying itself as a university, as well as Prager

admitting to Mother Jones that it was created as a virtual university (Oppenheimer, Mar.

2018), the channel’s website says it is not an accredited university and does not claim to

be [anymore]. In fact, PragerU is largely funded by fracking billionaires Dan and Farris

Wilks, who were supportive of Prager’s attempt to mass-produce conservative narratives

in the trappings of an academic work (Shea, Apr. 30, 2015; Oppenheimer, Mar. 2018;

Johnston, May 7, 2018).

In a similar way, former Canadian voice actor and Fox News guest Steven

Crowder wanted to make a conservative alternative to political comedy shows. In 2009,

he began uploading comedy bits on YouTube and attracted the attention of PJ Media who

molded his burgeoning comedy career with his future as a political commentator. After

YouTube, he was hired by Fox News and then transitioned into his own show on

YouTube hosted by Glen Beck’s BlazeTV (Dickinson, Jul. 11, 2017). Crowder has more

of a diversified revenue stream as he has one of the top political YouTube channels

(second to the liberal The Young Turks’ 4.9 million subscribers), and regularly gets more

than 100,000 views per video. In addition to his affiliation with BlazeTV and ad revenue

from YouTube, he sells merchandise, and has an exclusive subscription service called his

“MugClub.”

Crowder's videos present themselves to be the conservative version of political

comedy shows, but are filmed like sports radio shows as the host often bounces

conversation off of his co-hosts behind the audio controls. Crowder sometimes does

segments that interact with the public. Some of his segments involve man on the street

interviews, character sketches that involve the public, or debate requests with the public

to “change his mind” about political subjects. His channel is influential as he has more

than 4.5 million subscribers on YouTube, nearly twice as big as PragerU’s 2.7 million

subscribers or The Daily Wire’s 2.2 million.

The Daily Wire, like the other conservative flavors of pop culture, is a news and

opinion site that does not do any original reporting and its articles are often less than 500

words (Legum and Zekeria, Jun. 25 2020). It was founded in 2015 by Jeremy Boreing

and Ben Shapiro, former editor of Brietbart.com. Shapiro, who initially wanted a writing

job in Hollywood, transitioned into conservative commentary after graduating from

Harvard Law School. Shapiro, like Crowder, prides himself on his skills in debate but

sticks more towards a straightforward conservative media format.

Despite having a small news site that does not do original reporting, The Daily

Wire is incredibly popular on social media, vastly overperforming traditional news media

like The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post, and HuffPost on Facebook

(Legum and Zekeria, Jun 25. 2020). An investigation by the Popular Information

newsletter found that a vast network of popular conservative pages on Facebook exist to

promote Daily Wire content (Legum, Oct. 28, 2019). Leaks from Facebook employees to

NBC News revealed that the site regularly shields conservative media sites like PragerU

and The Daily Wire from persistent misinformation infractions (Solon, Aug. 7, 2020).

Despite having cozy relationships with Facebook, The Daily Wire does not appear

to have a financial relationship with the social media giant. The Daily Wire appears to

have a diverse revenue stream, taking an initial investment from the Wilks fracking

billionaires, an exclusive subscription service, in addition to Shaprio accepting regular

speaking fees with various Koch Foundation groups (Nguyen, Dec. 9, 2018; Johnston,

Jun. 25 2019).

The three channels operate in similar ways and exist in the same media ecosystem

as they often host the creator of another channel onto their show (Lewis, 2018). The

YouTube algorithm also pushes viewers of one channel to watch videos from another

channel; thus while the three channels post different levels of views and engagement, it is

conceivable that they share many of the same audience (Lewis, 2018). PragerU brands

itself as being educational and being able to explain complex situations from a

conservative perspective into short digestible videos. While the channel features longer

discussion videos, they often cover a wide range of unrelated topics. Unlike PragerU’s

shorter explanatory videos, Lowder with Crowder is centered around host Stephen

Crowder who claims to be a conservative comedian and discusses various news items

with his cohosts. He often does skits that involve mocking the public in some way and

likes to engage with the public in debates. Finally, the Daily Wire can be seen as more of

a traditional news network, or at least wraps itself in the trappings of a news broadcast.

The show is usually hosted by one person who gives a conservative slant on the news and

appears more to inform about subjects in the news rather than explain complex issues or

make jokes. It is important to acknowledge that while these channels present themselves

as authoritative, they do not produce original reporting.

In fact, it is the effect that these channels have on their audience that motivates

this inquiry. By examining audience comments, this article seeks to explore how the

coronavirus was understood by the audiences of the largest conservative YouTube

channels. Particularly, this article seeks to explore the perspectives of the conservative

YouTube audience about the coronavirus by asking three questions.

Q1: Who were conservative YouTube audiences wanting to blame?

By examining the external objects that commenters were concerned about, the

author intends to gain a greater perspective on the entities or groups that they paid

attention to during the pandemic. As previously mentioned, conservative groups were

less likely to be concerned with the virus itself and this paper seeks to explore what they

and the media they consumed paid attention to instead. In addition to focusing on the

external objects, this article seeks to explore the socio-political ideologies that may

inspire their worldview or their fascination with conservaitve YouTube. It is the author’s

hope that by examining these socio-political processes, researchers can better understand

why conservative media audiences were less likely to adopt simple public health

measures to control the spread of the virus.

Q2: What were the socio-political influences that commenters resonated with in

conservative YouTube’s coverage of the coronavirus pandemic?

Finally, this article seeks to do a more focused analysis on the YouTube medium

itself. By investigating what the commenters reveal about themselves and how they speak

to others, the author intends to explore the context of how the comment section connects

its users.

Q3: What message does the medium of the comment section provide for its users?

CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

This author selected the three most subscribed conservative media channels on

YouTube. They include “The Daily Wire” which has 2.13 million subscribers, “PragerU”

which has 2.7 million subscribers, and “Lowder with Crowder” which has 4.6 million

subscribers. In addition to their popularity on the platform, the channels represent a range

of overlapping conservative viewpoints that reject progressivism and wider social justice

movements, brand themselves in opposition to the “Liberal Media,” and an adoration for

Republican politicians and conservative thinkers. The three channels also appear in

Lewis’ (2018) ‘Alternative Influence Network,’ defined by mutual appearances in the

content of related conservative influencers. Finally, they fit similar conservative flavors

of popular media, as the Daily Wire mimics a conservative newscast, Lowder with

Crowder mimics a conservative political comedy show, and PragerU mimics a

conservative educational video.

Then the author went through all of their video archives on June 29th, 2020 and

looked at the title of the videos that contained the word ‘virus,’ ‘coronavirus,’ or

‘COVID-19.’ The author then only considered videos with 100,000 views or more

bringing the total from 104 to 54. Each video was ordered chronologically so that it

would be easier to understand the progression of their coverage. Then the author relied on

YouTube’s top comment feature, which relies on YouTube’s engagement metrics, copied

and pasted the top 30 comments into a separate file, and were examined in that order.

While each video was not watched in their entirety, all the 1,620 unique comments were

examined critically.

This article looked at the comments from over 50 videos across a time period

from February to the end of June. During this five month period, most Americans were

learning about the novel coronavirus for the first time and how it would impact their

lives. Further, the author believed this time was an important reference point as it would

not be drowned out by more important news stories. During this time, the national

attention would be mostly on COVID-19 as the 2020 Presidential election in early

November was still four months away.

The subject of selected videos’ coverage of COVID-19 mimicked the

conventional legacy media coverage, often discussing major developments such as the

implementation of public health measures or controversies in the conservative media

echo-chamber. The timeframe for considered videos started in mid-February and ended

before August. As one can imagine, the subjects of the comments were usually tied to the

content of the video. For example, top comments were talking about New York

Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the videos where she was prominently

featured (“AOC Says Coronavirus Causing Racism…,” “Greta & AOC use COVID19 to

Push Climate Change…,”). While the majority of comments appeared to be supporting

many conservative talking points about the virus, it is not accurate to say all of them

agreed with the creator. Creators got pushback especially on coverage that downplayed

the severity of COVID-19 and comparisons to the seasonal flu. While these comments

were interesting, they won’t be considered for further examination in this analysis as they

were not numerous enough and should be considered for further scholarship.

This analysis used a grounded approach to assign various themes to the comments

under each video. After copying and pasting all of the comments in a separate file, they

were then reviewed in chronological order. As the subject of the videos changed from

video to video, the author looked for any connections between the comments from one

video to the next. The author settled on the themes of external enemies, internal

processes, and social processes as a way of categorizing the comments as it relates to the

individual commenter. In addition, the author consulted similar studies that examined

right-wing coronavirus coverage and compared the comments to existing trends in the

relevant literature.

While the researcher did not watch all 54 videos, he did examine the top 30

comments from each of them. Videos were viewed when the subject of the comments

deviated wildly from the previous video or when the author wanted to know what the

commenters were referring to in their messages. The commenters' profiles remained

anonymous in this article but can be seen in the appendix section. While the author

struggled with anonymizing them in the appendix, the comments are publicly available

on the original YouTube video.

CHAPTER 4

RESULTS

In investigating this article’s research questions, the author wanted to provide the

reader with a brief overview of the findings. The external section will examine the

external groups that were almost uniformly criticized by the commenters. The internal

section will seek to understand the context of the comments and examine the processes

involved in understanding the commenters’ worldview. Finally, the social sections will

examine how the commenters relate to others and identify themselves. Table 1 outlines

the various themes and subsections of this article.

Table 4.1 Outline of Subsequent Analysis

I. External

II. Internal

III. Social

A. China

A. Overriding

Suspicion

A. Talking to Host

B. The “Liberal

Media”

B. Contempt for the Weak

B. Talking about “me”

C. Democrats

C. Change as unmasculine

C. Talking about “us”

4.1 CONTEMPT FOR EXTERNAL ENEMIES

This section will be discussing the top external entities that were almost

uniformly criticized by both the commenters and the video hosts themselves.

The first subtheme will focus on the contempt for China, the roots of ‘yellow

peril’ discourse, and how that manifested in the coronavirus comments. The

second subtheme will discuss the “Liberal Media” conspiracy, the origins

of the conspiracy, and how their criticisms echo old antisemitic

conspiracies. Finally, the last subtheme will discuss the commenters’

contempt for Democrats, how negative partisanship has shaped

conservative media coverage, and its implications on how citizens perceive

their political reality.

4.1 CHINA

The Covid 19 pandemic began in late 2019 as the virus was zoonotic in form and

jumped from bats to humans in the city of Wuhan, China. Although it was unknown at

the time, the virus was contracted by humans and spread asymptomatically in an open-air

market, eventually becoming a super spreading event. It would take researchers another

two months before realizing that the virus could be from people spread without obvious

symptoms. From there, infected travelers went around the world spreading the virus to

other parts of China as well as Europe in late December 2019.

In early January, the World Health Organization announced a mysterious

coronavirus related pneumonia, but they would take until the end of the month to declare

a global health emergency. From there, skeptics and political opportunists, including

tabloid news sites The Daily Mail and The Washington Examiner, spread conspiracy

theories falsely claiming that the virus could be a man-made biological weapon from

China. Research suggests that during times of national crisis, but especially during

pandemics, minority groups are historically scapegoated (Keil and Ali, 2006; Rohleder,

2007; Monson, 2017; White, 2020).

For years, the United States has had an adversarial relationship with East Asian

countries, but specifically China. While economic ties have improved diplomatic

relations over the years, Americans’ cultural attitudes about East Asian countries and their

people have remained tragically regressive. Scholars referred to these biases and attitudes

about East Asian groups as “Yellow Peril” and are characterized by the use of tropes as

“dishonesty, disease, invasion, as well as cultural and political inferiority (Del

Visco, 2017). These tropes are a major feature of Americans’ perspective on the global

east and have had a lasting impact on conservative attitudes of nationalism,

anticommunism, and anti-immigration (Del Visco, 2017).

Yellow peril, much like other forms of racialization of ethnic groups in America,

is not static. Instead, “Yellow Peril is a fluid designation that has been used alternatively

to label various East Asian people as the ‘enemy’ of Western civilization and to signify

‘invasion and infection of civility by an inferior culture’” (Lyman 2000, 684). While

these tropes can be traced back centuries ago, these ‘yellow peril’ tropes largely still exist

in conservative spaces today. As China has increased its influence over the global

economy, President Donald Trump has exacerbated existing ‘yellow peril’ ideologies by

worsening economic relations between the two countries and using them as a scapegoat

to shirk responsibility for allowing the coronavirus to spread. Thus, it comes as no

surprise that yellow peril fears appear in many of the comments of conservative media’s

coverage of coronavirus.

As outlined in Del Visco (2017), many comments castigate perceived dishonesty

by the Chinese: “China lying is nothing new,” “It’s from China it’s their fault… China

messed up,” “China is lying about the coronavirus,” [the virus] “was man made in

China,” “why do you trust the Chinese numbers? They have never given any reason to

believe them,” “China is lying about the death rate. It’s much higher than what they are

pointing out, “You can NEVER trust the media OR the CCP!” The perceived dishonesty

of China is a main feature of the yellow peril attitudes in the coronavirus comments.

Stemming from the condemnation of Chinese dishonesty is a major feature of yellow

peril: invasion.

As Del Visco outlines, the fears of Chinese invasion can be through expansion

and ideology. The expansion fear appears very prominently in the coronavirus comments

in a number of ways. The first echoes fears of America having a reduced impact on the

global economy as China has gained a greater position in recent years. The second can be

seen in many of the commenters’ desire to punish China for the coronavirus

economically. For example, “Something should be done to China. Sanctions?,” “Why do

we continue to buy products from them. Bring our work home!!!! Trump 2020,” “China

should be sued,” “China makes all our masks and medications. Brilliant Globalists.,”

“China released this virus as a biological weapon, with the intent to tank the world and

the US economies, thus leading to Trump losing the election.”

While many non-partisan public health experts tried to avoid the racial

stereotyping that follows global pandemics, that did not prevent political elites and

conservative media from using the coronavirus to exploit white racial resentment politics

through yellow peril tropes. Although yellow peril tropes have existed in culturally

conservative spaces in America long before COVID-19, they absolutely show up in a

prominent way in the comments. These fears of Chinese dishonesty, disease, and invasion

are a main feature of commenters’ concern. While many of their fears of China appeared

to be related to economics, commenters were also worried of an ideological invasion.

They fear that the ideological infiltration has already reached American shores,

particularly through their perception of the “liberal media.”

4.2 THE “LIBERAL MEDIA”

A common feature of conservative media is the contention of a vast “Liberal

Media”' that exists outside of the conservative media echo-chamber. The allegation,

which has become a common talking point in much of contemporary conservative media,

characterizes a vast and interconnected conspiracy by political activists to deceive the

public by infiltrating and populating almost all of American knowledge production. This

“Liberal Media” is purported to exist as a monolith, united in their opposition to

conservatives and Republican politicians, and is often conceived as a single entity and

not numerous organizations that exist independently from each other.

The allegation of a “Liberal Media” has its origins in the late 1950’s and early

60’s (Greenberg, 2008). At the time, national journalists covered the Civil Rights

Movement, portraying black activists as fighting for their right to vote against brutalism

from the police. Segregationists saw their coverage as evidence of losing the battle for

public opinion, which inspired the white supremacist Alabama Governor George Wallace

to adopt the populistic idiom of the existence of vast conspiracy of an elite, left-leaning

Northeastern media were distorting the news to fit their politics - an idea that soon, under

President Nixon, became conservative dogma (Greenberg, 2008).

The term’s usage in contemporary discourse can be best outlined by Rush

Limbaugh who described the “Liberal Media” conspiracy as upheld by four corners of

deceit:

“We really live, folks, in two worlds. There are two worlds. We live in two

universes. One universe is a lie. One universe is an entire lie.

Everything run, dominated, and controlled by the left here and around the

world is a lie. The other universe is where we are, and that’s where reality

reigns supreme and we deal with it. And seldom do these two universes

ever overlap. … The Four Corners of Deceit: Government, academia,

science, and media. Those institutions are now corrupt and exist by virtue

of deceit. That’s how they promulgate themselves; it is how they

prosper.”

The allegation of a vast “Liberal Media” is very powerful as it allows for the

conservative audience to anticipate a discrepancy between mainstream and conservative

media coverage. The term, especially when conflated with the allegation of ‘fake news,’

primes conservative media consumers to be sensitive to criticisms of conservative

political figures and inspires a lowered ability to identify credible news (Van Duyn and

Collier, 2018). While mainstream journalism relies on legitimized sources of knowledge

production in its coverage, the term allows the conservative media audience to re-

imagine these legitimized sources as ‘deceitful.’

Additionally, the term acts as a way to insulate conservatives from bad press.

Credible claims of sexual misconduct (Givas, Sep. 17, 2019), abuse of power (Gainor,

Jan. 25, 2020), or a slow federal response to the coronavirus outbreak (Graham, Jul. 18,

2020) are re-imagined as public attacks by political operatives and thus must be

disregarded as partisan and illegitimate. The conspiracy is ‘self-sealing’ as the believers

don’t have to critically examine why conservative politicians are receiving bad press or

why conservative media coverage is different, because any evidence that points out those

problems is re-imagined as further evidence supporting the conspiracy (Lewandowsky

and Cook, 2020).

Rhetorically, the term can be used both defensively and offensively to explain

why the conservative coverage of a news story varies from the most of the other media’s

coverage.

Even though the “Liberal Media” conspiracy supposedly taints so much of the

knowledge production in American life, conservative media cannot do their job without

relying on it. While conservative media often feel that they are not treated fairly outside

of their specific media ecosystem (Nadler et al., 2020), they still rely on the use of

mainstream journalism to guide their coverage. For example, PragerU, Lowder with

Crowder, and the Daily Wire all do not do original reporting, they incorporate

mainstream media coverage of an event as an important feature of their coverage (Legum

and Zekeria, Jun. 25, 2020).

However because of the salience of the “Liberal Media” conspiracy, the

conservative YouTube audience is rarely encouraged to consume the specific coverage

themselves and thus creates an uneven knowledge gap between the conservative news

producers and their audience. This can lead to a game of telephone where the YouTuber

is not only politically motivated but twists valuable information about the coronavirus

into an opportunity to make a certain political point. In much of the early coronavirus

coverage, mainstream news sources were cited and then discredited in the same video

(The Coronavirus Crisis is Worse Than We Thought…).

This knowledge gap becomes a problem where the conservative YouTube

audience relies on the show host to accurately explain what the original reporting means

rather than outlining what it says. This could explain why mainstream print media

consumption led to more accurate beliefs and closer adherence to CDC guidelines

(Jamieson and Albarracin, 2020) and why exposure to social media is associated with

misperceptions about the coronavirus (Bridgman et al., 2020).

Before examining the various themes about the media seen in the comments, they

appear to echo longstanding antisemitic conspiracies about Jewish people seeking to

destroy the Western world with liberal policies and their purported control of the news

media. Jewish heritage and history scholars have found origins of this antisemitic

conspiracy theories in the 1903 Russian story The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

(Zipperstein, Aug. 25, 2020; Klug, 2003). Levine and Newman (2018) outlines how the

conspiracy has evolved to fit different narratives and different political contexts, but

especially in anti-communist, religious, and conservative spaces in America.

As we can see in the comments about coronavirus, the users feel persecuted by

the news media which they believe to be deceitful, left-wing political activists seeking to

harm the country. To the commenters, they believe the media is maliciously conspiring

against them, the president, and the country: “the ‘journalists’... are attacking our

president,” they don’t inform the public in order to make “their president look bad,”

“We’re in a panic because that’s exactly what the [mainstream media wants] ... to happen.

The stock market is crashing and that’s exactly what they want!!!! They believe this will

help them in November,” “Now they tell people to freak out and panic all the while

trying to blame it all on the President.”

In addition to being nefarious and malicious, the commenters believe the news

media is deceitful: “And they wonder why everyone calls them fake news and doesn’t

trust them,” “The [mainstream media] need to find something else to complain about,”

“these smug reporters are never asking constructive questions for the benefit of the

general public,” “Today’s reporters are merely actors playing to their respective

audience,” “We have a press that cries wolf all day,” “The media sells you a crisis.”

Finally, the comments echo the last part of the antisemitic conspiracy that the

news media is comprised of left-wing political activists. Rhetorically, we can see this in

the ways that the news media, Democrats, and all left-wing ideologies are lumped

together as working together in the same plot. “You can NEVER trust the media or the

[Chinese Communist Party]!,” “the [mainstream media] are worried about offending the

Chinese Government,” “political activists disguised as reporters,” “today’s reporters are

merely actors playing to their respective audience,” “The media is complaining about

retractions??!! That’s rich. Such hypocrisy. I can’t stand the left,” “the press and

democrats are not helping… the left does what it wants… we have a press that cries wolf

all day,” “the media told people not to panic, now they tell people to freak out… Liberals

‘never let a crisis go to waste,’” “the media sells you a crisis, politicians sell you a

solution,” “the fact is left wing media panics instantly and spreads like wildfire,” “This is

what happens when ‘Truth-in-Journalism’ is substituted for rabid ideology,” “I’d add that

it’s not just the schools but the media pushes a leftist agenda.”

As we can see, nearly all of the commenter’s criticisms of the media fall onto

antisemitic tropes of being malicious, deceitful, political activists who want to see the

demise of the Christian world in America. In the commenter’s characterization of how

the media operate outside of their conservative media bubble, they rhetorically combine

the news media institution, Democrats, and all the different ideologies on the left as

working together on the same plot against them. It is curious how conservative media

networks (Fox News, Breitbart, or the channels on YouTube) are never included in their

criticisms - perhaps because they tacitly acknowledge that conservative media will never

tell them something that will contradict their worldview or ask them to reconsider their

political alliances. “Yep. Mainstream media is imploding on itself. It’s up to YouTube

journalists to give us the real facts and truth,” one commenter wrote.

4.3 DEMOCRATS

One of the most common enemies of both the commenters and the conservative

YouTube hosts are Democrats or anyone on the left. While their contempt for their

political rivals can be understood merely in opposition to their political goals, it does not

explain the degree of their difference in opinion. According to Pew Research Center

(2014), Republicans and Democrats are more divided along ideological lines than they

have been in over 20 years. A key factor in that study asked participants not just if they

disagreed with their enemies, but whether the opposition party is a threat to the nation's

well-being. In 2014, 27 percent of Democrats believed Republicans threatened America -

over a 10 point increase from 1994. Among Republicans, over a third of participants

believed Democrats were a threat to America - more than doubling what it was in 1994.

This polarization is no-doubt in part due to the prevalence of partisan media and

the ability for social media feeds to curate echo-chambers (Pew Research, 2014), but,

more critically, the competition between the two parties puts each other at odds. Since

most elections in American are determined by a winner take all system, many voters can

be motivated to cast their ballots in opposition to a candidate rather than for one they

like. This phenomenon, of voting for a party not because of your support for their

platform, but because of your opposition to its opponent, is called negative partisanship.

Through negative partisanship, voters can be mobilized not through their support of a

certain policy, but in opposition to their rival’s agenda (Abramowitz and Webster, 2015;

See also: Bafumi and Shapiro, 2009; Greenberg, 2004; Jacobson, 2007; Iyengar et al.,

2012; Iyengar et al., 2012; Mason, 2013, 2015; Abramowitz, 2015; Huddy et al., 2015).

Abramowitz and Webster (2015) found that negative partisanship was responsible

for an increase in straight-ticket voting, a steep decline in the advantage for incumbents,

and a closer alignment between the results of presidential elections and the results of

House, Senate and even state legislative elections. Pew Research (2020) found that 83

percent of Amercians believe it ‘really matters’ who wins the presidency, a more than 30

point increase since 2000. This hatred for the other side doesn’t just impact how voters

vote, but how politicians govern themselves. In Congress, the ideological divide between

Democrats and Republicans in both the House and Senate is now larger than at any time

in the past century (Ansolabehere et al., 2001; Theriault, 2008; Bafumi and Herron, 2010;

Mann and Ornstein, 2013; Kraushaar, 2014). Party unity on roll call votes has increased

dramatically in both chambers in recent years (Izadi, 2014; McCarty et al., 2008;

Theriault, 2008; Sinclair, 2006). Moreover, the party divide in Washington is not limited

to the elected branches of government. On the Supreme Court, the justices now divide

along party lines on major cases with greater frequency than at any time in recent history

(Clark, 2009; Bartels, 2015; Stone, 2014).

Because there are enormous incentives to motivate your voters’ support by

demonizing your enemy, this could explain why conservative media describes both

moderate and progressive Democrats with the same extreme language. In 2017, YouTube

channel PragerU host Dennis Prager said “defeating the left is as great of a moral urgency

as defeating islamism” (Rubin Report, Jan. 18, 2017). Ahead of the 2018 midterm

elections, Sean Hannity joined President Trump at a political rally and attacked

Demcratic candidates in critical races across the country, calling former Missouri Senator

Claire McCaskill a “Liberal, radical, leftist,” Arizona Senate challenger Kyrsten Sinema

as “radical, leftist,” and Florida governor challenger Bill Nelson as “Democratic,

donothing, Shumer Democrat” (Maza, Nov. 26, 2018).

While using negative partisanship in conservative media coverage is not new, its

influence on their conservative media audience is real and powerful (Martin and

Yurukoglu, 2017; Arceneaux et al., 2016). Because conservative media describes

Democrats in this way, it inspires their audience to describe them as “vipers,” “leftists,”

“miserable people,” “spreading disinformation about the coronavirus,” “[praying] for

World War III, Virus Epidemic, & Recession,” “demon rats,” wanting something to

destroy civilization, “don’t even understand basic reality,” and “inanimate objects [who]

don’t have personalities.”

CHAPTER 5

RESULTS

SOCIAL INFLUENCES DETERMINING PERCEPTION OF RISK

The second section will examine the social influences that motivate how

conservative media consumers perceive the new political reality dealing

with the coronavirus pandemic. The first subtheme of this section will

discuss the overriding suspicion that motivates conspiratorial thinking

and the perception of the coronavirus pandemic. The second subtheme will

discuss the contempt for the weak, a hallmark of contemporary

conservatism. Finally, the third subtheme will discuss how the gendered

resistance to change was a major factor in the global response to

coronavirus, but also how it impacted citizens and world leaders in largely

the same ways.

5.1 OVERRIDING SUSPICION THAT SOMETHING IS WRONG

A consequence of branding your news show in opposition to a vast “Liberal

Media” conspiracy that infiltrates almost all of American knowledge production, is what

Lewandowsky and Cook (2020) refer to as an ‘overriding suspicion’ about the official

record or account of a major news event. They outline this ‘overriding suspicion’ as a

nihilistic degree of skepticism towards the official account: “this extreme degree of

suspicion prevents belief in anything that doesn’t fit into the conspiracy theory.”

In the conservative coronavirus coverage on YouTube, this overriding suspicion

resulted in creators raising a number of specific conspiracy theories about the origins or

official narrative surrounding the virus. Daily Wire host Andrew Klavan suggested that

the virus could be a Chinese bioweapon in mid-February (The Coronavirus Crisis is

Worse Than We Thought…). In late February, another Daily Wire host Michael Knowles

suggested that the virus was no more a threat to global health than the seasonal flu and that

media reports about the severity of the virus in other countries are evidence of coordinated

effort by political activists in the media to harm the economy before the 2020 election

(Coronavirus Kills The Economy…). In early April, Lowder with Crowder host Steven

Crowder suggested that the official death rates in America were overinflated because

people die from complications like respiratory failure, pneumonia, or ARDS and not the

virus itself (The REAL COVID-19 Numbers...).

In their 2017 report, the Council of Europe outlined frameworks to understand

false information and how it spreads online. Particularly they describe how often true

information can be said in such a way to imply something false. In their videos, the

conservative content creators can raise the idea of a conspiracy theory (like coronavirus

being a manmade bioweapon or that the government is overinflating death rates) without

using the exact words to explicitly spell it out. Alternatively, creators can still endorse

conspiracy theories despite equivocating or rhetorically distancing themselves by

claiming ignorance or drawing connections by ‘just asking questions.’ These rhetorical

strategies insulate the creators from legal consequences while inferring connections in the

minds of their audience. These unfounded conspiracy theories become even more

problematic when the shows present themselves in the trappings of conventional news

shows, with authoritative speakers with various credentials, talking about topics in the

news in an accessible way that is easy to understand. These factors contribute to

worldview around an overriding suspicion that appears to trickle down into the audience.

Keeley (1999) finds that the overriding suspicion involved in both the conspiracy

theories raised by the content creators and the same ones that appear in the comments,

depends on a desire to hold onto notions of an ordered universe. “By supposing that

current events are under the control of nefarious agents, conspiracy theorists entail that

such events are capable of being controlled… On this view, there is some hope that

humans can understand, predict, and conceivably control the course of human events.

This the conspiracy theorists believe, only they further believe that the wrong folks are at

the helm” (p.123-124).

The author reveals that this ‘overriding suspicion’ perfectly exemplified in late

March, April, and early May with the often repeated talking point in the conservative

coronavirus coverage that the ‘media refuses to talk about the positives’ of the

government’s response. The allegation goes that the mainstream media has been

deliberately focusing negative aspects of the coronavirus outbreak instead of framing

their coverage that paints the Trump administration in a more positive light. Daily Wire

host and Founder Ben Shapiro outlines that particular talking point in “Ben Shapiro

Provides Positive Updates on Coronavirus; SLAMS Mainstream Media”

“Listen to the questions there. It’s terrible. The members of the media who are

spending all their time asking ‘is [the federal response] enough?’,

‘is it enough?’ They’re looking for bad news at this point. How about this,

when a Democratic governor of a state says that the Feds are doing their

best in providing help, you say ‘oh that’s good news!’ instead of ‘is it

enough?’ [or] ‘what more can you get out of them?’

The attempt to castigate the media for ‘not focusing on the positives’ is a veiled

attempt to reconcile the severity of the coronavirus without assigning blame to the Trump

Administration’s slow federal response. Under this framing, there is a clear villain behind

why the virus is perceived to be as bad as it is and further suggests that there is reason to

be suspicious of the official narrative as the media could be exaggerating.

5.2 CONTEMPT FOR THE WEAK

In the wake of the controversial election of 2016, media figures and scholars have

attempted to explain the basis of support for Trump. Some in the media saw his support

as a result of ‘economic anxiety’ from white people of all economic backgrounds

(Semuels, Dec. 27 2016). Others laid the blame on the growing right-wing populism of

the Republican Party, racism, sexism, and a desire for fascism (e.g., MacWilliams, 2016;

Rahn and Oliver, 2016; Schaffner et al., 2017; Sides and Farrell, 2016; Wayne et al.,

2016).

Perhaps most importantly, analysts have focused on Trump’s appeal to white

Americans who harbor animosity toward “undeserving” racial minorities. Trump’s lack

of support among people of color and his popularity among nearly every white subgroup

suggest that support for his candidacy was rooted in racial hostility (Luttig et al. 2017).

Moreover, Trump’s call for law and order in the context of discussing urban unrest is

reminiscent of previous racial appeals in American politics, including George HW Bush’s

Willie Horton ad (Mendelberg, 2001) and Richard Nixon’s “Southern strategy” (Hillygus

and Shields, 2008). More diagnostic still are studies showing that variables measuring

white in-group favoritism and those measuring bias against racial and ethnic out-groups

strongly correlate with support for Trump (e.g., Cohen et al., 2016; Gest, 2016; Nteta and

Schaffner, 2016; Schaffner et al., 2017; Tesler, 2015, 2016a; Wood, 2017; Luttig et al.

2017).

One of the most provocative essays about the energy behind President Donald

Trump is written by Adam Serwer of The Atlantic, titled “The Cruelty is the Point”

(Serwer, Oct. 3 2018). In his essay, he describes how Trump does not lose support for the

harsh and nativist actions he takes as president of the United States, but in fact is because

he inflicts suffering onto those marginalized groups, who are deemed to be enemies: “It is

that cruelty, and the delight it brings them, that binds his most ardent supporters to him,

in shared scorn for those they hate and fear: immigrants, black voters, feminists, and

treasonous white men who empathize with any of those who would steal their birthright.”

These elements could explain not only the sexism and racism found in some of

the comments, but also the irreverence and enjoyment of those same remarks. However

these comments don’t come out of nowhere: the YouTubers play a critical role as well. In

addition to spreading racist ideologies, the content creators play an important role in

shifting the definition of racism from a system of advantage based on race (Wellman,

1977) to a much narrower one that includes intentionality and a desire for easily

identifiable universal signals of discriminatory language and action. In these ways,

creators can incentivize racist behavior while commenters can believe that they are

actually not being racist as their actions do not meet this narrower definition.

Trump’s support, especially around his desire to punish demographics of people

determined to be enemies, has been named many things (Sheparrd and Jones, Oct. 5,

2017) and often reflect key identifiers of fascism (Paxton, 2004; Harris et al., 2017;

Robinson, 2019). As Historian Umberto Eco outlined in Ur-Fascism (1995) a key

element of fascism is a ‘Fear of Difference’ that often results in a popular sentiment of

‘us vs. them.’ This popular sentiment is rooted in a chauvinistic, ultra-nationalism that

favors the country over all else and the perceived inferiority of outsiders (Johnston, Jul.

19, 2018). Eco outlines that these beliefs often translate into a form of ‘popular elitism,’

where citizens believe they are the best citizens of the world and contrast those beliefs

with a strong contempt for the weak (Eco, 1995).

This contempt for classes of people deemed to be foreign and weak often appears

in sexism and misogyny. Even in covering coronavirus, the YouTubers made several

videos talking about the ‘irrationality’ and ‘stupidity’ of female Democratic lawmakers as

well as climate activist Greta Thunberg. In the context of Coronavirus, the YouTubers

relentlessly mocked these women for claiming that coronavirus exacerbates existing

inequalities. However, the YouTubers and the commenters’ misogyny did not translate

into a uniform hatred of all women: Former Governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley and

Dr. Deborah Birx were interviewed by Daily Wire Host Ben Shaprio in late March and

early April - and were largely praised by the commenters.

Philosopher Kate Manne describes this reaction of criticizing dissenters and

praising advocates in her book Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny (2017) as being

wholly consistent with the logic of misogyny. She theorizes that because of the nature of

patriarchies, women are born into an “unofficial service industry” that requires “a masked

quality about it: it is supposed to look amicable and seamless, rather than coerced.

Service with a smile, not a grimace, is the watchword” (Manne, Jul. 11, 2016). Because

of this ‘service position,’ misogyny acts as a form of enforcement: to punish the

disobedient and to praise the obedient whose actions uphold the patriarchal order. Under

her framework, misogyny isn't purely a hateful reaction. While hateful and hostile

reactions are directed at women who challenge men’s power and authority, misogyny can

also take the form of paternalism and high praise.

“Misogyny can afford to be selective because its fundamental goal is

enforcement. Women who know their place do not need to be put in it…

Trump also has high praise for some of the women who love and revere

him, such as his daughter Ivanka… By saying that her father supported her

career ambitions, as well as those of his women executives, Ivanka missed

the point that she and they represent no threat to her father and are thus

unlikely to come under fire. It is primarily women who challenge Trump’s

power and preeminence who suffer his comebacks” (Manne, Jul. 11, 2016).

For example, Manne’s framework for misogyny is evident in how the commenters

perceive Haley as “awesome” and someone who “just says it how it is.” To them, she is

someone who would get enthusiastic support from nearly everyone in the comment

section if she were to run for president. Haley is praised as she is supportive of their

ideological interests and does not threaten patriarchy. On the other hand, Democratic

Congresswoman from New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Senator

Elizabeth Warren, are the victims of intense hatred and scorn from the comment section.

They are labeled as ignorant, childlike, and weak: “She is ignorant to almost everything,

speaks rambling sentences, and when she does convey an idea, it has little to no

relevance. Yet she expects people to take her seriously.” “When is someone with some

cred going to tell Warren that she is truly insane and needs help… to her face?,” “She is a

child in an old woman’s body.” Through the logic of misogyny, the disobedient women

are not just child-like figures to be ignored, but insolent children in need of discipline and

punishment. “We are essentially living through the societal equivalent of ‘spare the rod,

spoil the child,’” one comment reads.

However, it also must be acknowledged that even positive praise for a person is

not without its racial underpinnings. Bill Richmond is a recurring character on Lowder

with Crowder, which he and the commenters lovingly refer to as “half-Asian lawyer Bill

Richmond.” While some ethnic minorities are racialized in a negative sense, some are

racialized in a positive sense. As the result of postwar American government propaganda

efforts, east-Asian people are perceived to be extraordinarily smart, hardworking, polite,

and particularly adept at math (Burns and Yu, May 29, 2018.) In this context, Richmond

is a ‘model-minority,’ who recognizes his place as subordinate and is unthreatening to the

white supremacist hegemony and thus deserving of praise: “Crowder’s bringing out the

heavy artillery. Half-Asian Lawyer, FULL Asian Doctor,” “I’m starting to think you only

hire Asian professionals. That’s either racist, or very, very smart.”

Rhetorically, the constant labeling of Richmond as ‘half-Asian lawyer Bill’ serves

as a constant reminder to Richmond and the audience that he is from a different racial

category than Crowder’s other white guests. The constant reminders not only reinforce

his racial otherness, but also becomes one of the most prominent features of his identity

and his reputation. The audience mimics Crower’s persistent labeling of being ‘half-

Asian lawyer Bill,’ but likely interprets the Crowder’s persistent labeling as a compliment

because of the model-minority myth.

Perhaps it is because of the commenters’ contempt for the weak that dampened

the willingness for conservatives to adopt communitarian public health measures. From

their perspective, it would be an unacceptable reality to disrupt their daily lives to protect

the marginalized groups whom they despise.

5.3 TOXIC MASCULINITY AND CHANGE AS VULNERABILITY

While the coronavirus was affecting large parts of the world, most authoritarian

leaders resisted implementing the public health measures necessary to prevent its spread

(Rachman, Apr. 20, 2020). In May, as many countries in Europe and New Zealand were

seeing a slow spread and steady decline in coronavirus cases, many commenters in the

media saw comparisons between the high number of cases in countries with strongman,

authoritarian world leaders (America, Britain, Brazil, Russia, Iran, Italy, Hungary, and

Belarus) and the low number of cases in countries with female world leaders (Germany,

New Zealand, Finland, Norway, Iceland, and Taiwan) (Taub, May 15, 2020; Cox Apr. 13,

2020). While the comparisons are interesting, and presents a significant opportunity to

increase female representation of leaders on the world stage (Piazza and Diaz, 2020), the

evidence suggests that gender had an influence on not just political decision making, but

also willingness for citizens to adopt public health measures.

British Journalist Gideon Rachman interpreted the reluctance for the countries

with strongman, authoritarian leaders to quickly adopt public health measures as

evidence of their “refusal to be intimidated by a mere disease.” Brazilian President Jair

Bolsonaro, who would later contract the virus multiple times, said on March 29th that the

country would “tackle the virus but tackle it like fucking men – not like kids” (Phillips,

Mar. 30, 2020). Belarusian Dictator Alexander Lukashenko, who would later contract the

coronavirus, continued to hold public appearances without a mask, continued to play

hockey, and was interviewed in late March in full hockey gear and said, “It’s better to die

standing, than live on your knees” (Evans, Aug. 20, 2020). British Prime Minister Boris

Johnson, who would also later contract the virus, minimized the severity of the virus by

saying that he “wouldn’t need to worry” about the virus because of his “history as an

athlete” (Cottle, Mar. 27, 2020). After four months of refusing to wear a mask, repeatedly

undermining his own public health agency’s guidelines, and mocking his political

opponent for wearing one, American president Donald Trump told aides that wearing a

mask would “send the wrong message,” according to one administration and two

campaign officials not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations (Associated

Press, May 7, 2020). It would take until July for Trump to wear a mask for the first time

publicly, who was flanked by military generals at the time and was praised by aides on

Twitter for being ‘patriotic.’ He would later test positive for the coronavirus.

The desire to promote strength and dominance by resisting public health

measures, reflects what Johnathan Metzel describes in his book, Dying of Whiteness:

How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland, as “an assumption

of a kind of invincibility that is tied to this idea of white masculinity” (North, May 12,

2020). Glick et al. (2018) outlines how showing weakness contradicts a core element of

contemporary masculinity. He later found that “Leaders who are more concerned with

preserving a macho public image put our lives at risk as they prove their manhood by

showing resistance to experts’ opinions, hypersensitivity to criticism and constant

feuding with anyone who seems to disagree with them” (Glick, Apr. 30, 2020).

The stereotype of contemporary masculinity as an invincibility and reluctance to

show vulnerability plays out in other adherence to public health measures. Global Health

50/50 suspected that an explanation for why men were dying from coronavirus at higher

levels were because of a higher likelihood to smoke, consume alcohol at higher rates, and

lower likelihood to wash their hands than women (Global Health 50/50, 2020; American

Cleaning Institute, 2010). Men were also more likely to spread the virus as Capraro and

Barcelo (2020) found that they were less likely to wear a mask as well.

The reluctance to accept simple public health measures from both political leaders

and from their citizens directly played into a slow response to coronavirus. This

reluctance played out in both conservative media coverage as well as in the comments.

While many YouTubers were downplaying the severity of the virus, many commenters

found that their lives did not have to change significantly. This reaction appeared to take

many forms as some claimed that there was no reason to worry “zero concern,” that

public health measures can be easily accommodated in their lives “you mean I shouldn’t

bug out to the Rockies, I do that every summer,” and that Trump’s comparisons to the flu

over the recommendations from the YouTuber assuaged them from taking action “sorry

ben, but trump stating the average flu stats calms my fears.”

Finally, because people can live in can construct media bubbles where through the

severity of the coronavirus is portrayed only in one way, even best efforts to

communicate risk were never taken seriously as their audience was primed to ignore

reports from the “Liberal Media,” health experts or others.

CHAPTER 6

RESULTS

COMMUNITY OF THE LIKEMINDED

The last section of this analysis will discuss how consumers of conservative

YouTube use the medium to interact with the host, themselves, and each

other. The first subtheme will discuss how users talk to the host as if they

were friends, giving both praise and criticism. The second subtheme will

examine how commenters used the medium to talk about themselves,

especially using ethnic identity labels as a way to denounce something

mentioned in the media coverage. Finally, the last subtheme will examine

how the users talk to each other through in-jokes and a community of shared

ideologies.

6.1 NAVIGATING PARASOCIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH HOST

Lewis (2019) outlines the various ways that conservative YouTube creators inspire

connections with their audience. She relies on a definition of these creators as

‘microcelebrities,’ who have developed highly engaged niche audiences by constructing a

public person to be consumed by others and “use strategic intimacy to appeal to

followers, and regard their audience as fans” (Marwick, 2015). Lewis (2019) found that

the conservative YouTubers can inspire powerful parasocial relationships with their

viewers by using micro-celebrity strategies not only as a business strategy but also a

political stance that positions them as more credible than mainstream media.

Specifically, she looked at conservative YouTubers Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and

Blaire White and examined how they weaponized “relatability, authenticity, and

accountability” to establish credibility with their audience. Worse, she outlines that these

relationships can inspire an “authoritarian potential” that destabilizes their audiences’

worldviews by using anti-progressive viewpoints to castigate mainstream media and

“serve as an entryway into other alternative information sources” (Lewis, 2019).

Thus the dynamics of the parasocial relationship between the creator and audience

are even more slanted. The content is not only entertainment but one of the sole sources

of ‘true’ information in opposition to a vast and interconnected “Liberal Media”

conspiracy. Perhaps this media effect, coupled with existing parasocial relationships,

could explain the positive comments between the commenters and host.

Some of the positive comments involved being proud of the guests that were

interviewed by Ben Shapiro. Over the 4 month period that this study looked at, The Daily

Wire’s guests have included Former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, top

public health official Dr. Deborah Brix, and Vice President Mike Pence. These guests

were universally praised as a success, as many of the comments seemed to be praising

Shapiro and the Daily Wire for having such high profile guests, rather than engaging with

what they said or the implications of their warnings of the coronavirus. Negative

comments did not appear in the top comments under these videos.

While many envision the conservative media audience to be uniform, who exist

largely in an echo chamber who believe the same things, the number of negative

comments prove otherwise. On Steven Crowder’s “Leftist Coronavirus Lies

DEBUNKED” on March 9, seven of the top 30 comments pointed out how this video

coverage would not age well. On several occasions, commenters posted lengthy rebuttals

about the severity of the coronavirus. Others wrote longer essay style responses to the

hosts, castigating them for politicizing the virus response or criticizing the president’s

slow federal response.

Others criticized the programming decisions of Steven Crowder. In his March

17th video, “PRANK CALL: Nike's Racist Coronavirus Policies!,” Crowder calls Nike to

complain to one of their customer service employees about a number of Nike official

policies in an offensively exaggerated asian accent. In the video, Crowder badgers the

customer service employee about Nike’s decision to close stores in America, whether

stores are open in Asia, and differing prices between certain shoes. Despite the customer

service employee being very composed in his responses, Crowder aggressively tries to

put him into a corner, asking him about his personal opinion about shoe prices and then

conflating that with the official position from Nike. Nearly half of the top 30 comments

disapproved of the segment or praised the customer service employee for having to deal

with Crowder’s harassment.

The comments appear to be a way for the audience to give their feedback to the

show, both the good and the bad. Many of the comments were directed at the host as a

singular person, rather than the entire program staff. This could be evidence of a

parasocial relationship and an imagined personal connection with the host.

Finally as evidence of a personal connection, some comments were made as an

attempt to a joke at the hosts’ expense. A common joke against Daily Wire host Ben

Shaprio refers to his constant mention that his wife is a doctor. While most of the

conservative YouTube channels appear to be non scripted - as the show hosts don’t

appear to be reading anything and occasionally use verbal crutches like ‘um’ - the joke

can be evidence of the audience’s awareness of common talking points and the repetitive

nature of conservative media.

6.2 USE OF IDENTIFYING LABELS WHEN TALKING ABOUT “ME”

An interesting series of comments were involving several self disclosures. These

types of comments tended to be longer and revealed a number of facets into their lives.

While it is impossible to determine the veracity of the personal information, much of this

information was intended to give anecdotal accounts. It is important to acknowledge that

these comments are giving a first person account in a media environment dedicated to

skepticism about the official narrative of the coronavirus.

During the months of February to June, public knowledge of the coronavirus has

developed and sometimes shifted. The virus can be spread by people who do not exhibit

obvious symptoms, a fact that was first disputed by the WHO in February and later

clarified in June. Masks are an important and cost effective way to reduce the spread of

coronavirus through droplets in the air. People who leave the safety of their own homes

should wear them in public to prevent the spread of the virus. While the production of

personal protective equipment like masks was overwhelmed and medical practitioners

were running on short supply, some officials told Americans to not buy them to allow

doctors and nurses to have them. As mask wearing became an important aspect of the

public health response, the issue became politicized and fodder for conspiracy theories.

As consumers of conservative media, who are often told not to believe official

reporting, government authorities, or academic studies, these first person accounts give a

brief window into the lives of these individuals. Many of them involve identifying

themselves with a label: “as a Christian” “I’m Chinese” “As a Mexican American” “I am

an immigrant” “As a Latino man” “As we say in Texas.” While profiles on YouTube have

less identifiable information than most social media platforms, the preference for

identifying labels in their comments is curious and echoes previous scholarship on ethnic

identity (Brittian et al., 2014; Morrison and Chung, 2011).

Most of the comments that feature ethnic identity labels appear to be forms of

denouncement. For example, “As a Latino man… I can’t help but wonder why anyone

would vote for AOC. She is ignorant to almost everything,” “I am an immigrant…

luckily didn’t do school here,” “As a Mexican American… It makes me sick how other

citizens of Mexican descent complain about supposed injustices,” “I’m Chinese and i’m

sorry for the tragedy my country brings you… I sincerely apologize to you all.” While it

is impossible to determine the veracity of their ethnic identity labels, it is curious that

these labels appear in the context of conservative media, whose audience is

conventionally perceived to be uniformly white. Future studies of the conservative media

audience should look at how these self-disclosed labels of ethnic identity are used to

denounce various objects of contempt in conservative media.

Another feature of these self-disclosure comments do not reflect lives of

privilege. In fact, many self disclosures included descriptions of difficult upbringings and

precarious economic situations. “I’m VERY poor (becoming homeless is a very

possibility in my life)” , “My childhood was nothing but pain and suffering, from the

hands of my own father, and as a ward of the State of Connecticut… I had my share of

other problems, including 18 months in jail” , “I’m making deliveries all over town for

people” , “I work in customer service” , “life can be [pain]” , “As someone who works in

a pizza place.”

While some of these kinds of comments were denouncing something, (“I pity the

‘trophy generation’”), many of them were telling others to resist large changes in their

lives because of coronavirus: “it’s not the virus itself that’s scaring them,” “[Coronavirus

is] letting me appreciate what I already have,” “this chat was comforting and reassuring,”

“I’ve been ‘self-quarantining’ for the past 39 years, this is great news.”

This is to say, the many communicative features that YouTube facilitates, through

its comment section and PSRs, found that these communicative features allow users to

become active gratification seekers in similar ways as they would on other social

networking platforms (Papacharissi and Rubin, 2000; Jung et al., 2007). In addition to the

audio and visual simulation of the company that videos provide, YouTube users can

provide avenues for communication among other conservative media consumers. These

features allow users to explore both personal and social identities with other people they

see as like them.

6.3 TALKING TO OTHERS

Taken together, the comments reflect a range of reactions to conservative media’s

coverage of coronavirus. The comment section appears to be a way for audience

members to communicate directly with the host. From the audience’s perspective, it can

also be used to communicate with other audience members who are likely likeminded

individuals. One of the primary ways that users talked to others in the comment sections

were through a series of repetitive jokes. These jokes provided a social role, in order to

build a connection with other audience members through their shared perspective on a

topic. These jokes ranged in creativity and appeared to closely follow the subject of the

video.

Several jokes were insensitive and often repeated. While the nature of humor

sometimes involves taboo subjects, the jokes’ repetitiveness grew the simple joke into

more of an internet meme. While the memes involve different subjects, like the apparent

suicide of celebrity sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein or comparing coronavirus to cheap

Chinese manufactured goods, they had similar effects. Their repetitive nature signaled a

shared set of values that the jokes reflect - in the case of Epstein, that we should be

skeptical of the official narratives, and in the case of Chinese goods, that foreign goods

are lesser in quality than American products.

Many of the comments also reflect a shared community around many of the same

fears: of a Chinese conspiracy, a “Liberal Media” conspiracy, or of Democrats gaining

political power. This feature of conspiratorial thinking in both the conservative

coronavirus coverage on YouTube, as well as in the comments, echo a threatened way of

life - and conservative media appears to offer audience members a safe haven to express

shared in-jokes, fears, and sometimes personal anecdotes.

CHAPTER 7

CONCLUSION

Previous studies looked at the correlation between conservative media coverage

and their audience’s likelihood to follow public health guidelines or have misinformed

beliefs about coronavirus. This study looked at the audience of conservative media and

their actual responses to content. While a few commenters pushed back on the

misinformation and misrepresentation in the coronavirus coverage, most did not. Many

echoed the conspiracy theories raised by the hosts and many shared similar sentiments

about the virus.

While these YouTube channels were likely not to be the only form of news this

audience was consuming, the channels were incredibly popular and shaped how hundreds

of thousands of Americans saw the pandemic. With their unique attachment to their

audience, influencers were able to circumvent traditional norms of journalism and

sometimes elevate conspiracy theories about the virus. Yet viewers saw these YouTube

influencers in opposition to the media organizations that exist outside of the conservative

media ecosystem, the few beacons of truth among a vast ocean of lairs. This paper argues

that the way conservative YouTubers covered the coronavirus had lasting effects on their

audience and undermined critical health communications by using their agenda setting

capabilities to shift their audience’s attention toward external enemies, fueled by division

and contempt.

The first section of this discussion examined how much of the content creators

and the commenters’ ire was focused on external enemies. These enemies were not

unfamiliar characters in conservative media as there is a long history of demonizing

China, the “Liberal Media,” and the Democrats. Many of the China comments fell into

familiar ‘yellow peril’ tropes, blaming them for disease and afraid of an invasion. Many

of these fears resulted in a desire to primarily punish China economically as a way to

prevent further prominence in the world economy. The second subtheme examined the

contempt for the “Liberal Media” that commenters felt were conspiring against

conservatives. The “Liberal Media” trope was not only powerful but the subject of

intense scrutiny from commenters. Finally, the last subtheme examined contempt for

Democrats and how negative partisanship influenced their perception of the new political

reality under coronavirus.

The second section of this discussion looked at the social influences that shaped

how conservatives perceived the coronavirus pandemic. The first subtheme of this

section looked at the overriding suspicion that guided conspiratorial thinking and why

commenters were willing to raise doubts over the origins of the virus or simple public

health measures to prevent its spread. The second subtheme examined how a contempt

for the weak was not only a feature of contemporary conservatism but a common

reoccurrence in the coronavirus comments. Finally, the last subtheme examined how the

gendered resistance to adopt public health measures was a factor in the global response to

coronavirus, but also a part of the comments.

Finally, the last section of this discussion looked at the social aspect of the

comment section. The first sub theme examined how the parasocial relationship between

the audience and the producer influenced how commenters spoke to the host in a familiar

tone. The second subtheme addressed how users spoke about themselves, notably using

ethnic identity labels to denounce things in the coverage. Finally, the last subtheme

looked at how the commenters spoke to other commenters, demonstrating a familiarity

between commenters based on shared values and interests.

This work expands on the literature of Oreskes and Conway (2010) and their book

Merchants of Doubt especially in terms of understanding how interconnected right wing

media is, especially with regards to being a part of an ‘Alternative Influence Network’ as

described in Lewis (2018). Specifically, this article contributes to the existing body of

research that has looked into the origins of conservative media and how it has adapted to

various technologies and in numerous political contexts. Finally, it understands how this

type of political content functions and the kind of effects it has on its audience,

particularly with regards to the spread of COVID-19 misinformation on social media.

This work expands on the existing communications research into conservative

media, online misinformation, and coronavirus health communication. While previous

studies like Brigman et al. (2020) and others at the Harvard Kennedy School

Misinformation Review looked at broader COVID-19 misinformation across social

media platforms, this study focused more specifically at how users responded to slanted

and politically motivated coverage of the coronavirus on YouTube. This work also

expands on Lewis (2018) who pioneered how theorists understand the influence of

conservative media on YouTube consumers. Further research in this field should examine

the correlation between the consumption on conservative media on YouTube and voting

behavior or willingness to adopt public health measures to prevent the spread of

coronavirus. Media practitioners should use this study to reflect on the impact that

political influencers, particularly on YouTube, can have on spreading misinformation

about the politicized pandemics. This article will expand on the existing study of social

media’s facilitation of the spread of misinformation and examine the kinds of

relationships consumers have with conservative news media.

Students also viewed