Image: Pixabay

Belief in Covid-19 ‘Facts’ Differs Based on Media Preferences

Views of conspiracy theories and established facts vary based on use of social, conservative and mainstream media, survey finds

Robert Roy Britt
3 min readApr 26, 2020

--

A survey of Americans’ knowledge of Covid-19 revealed that 23% believed it was “probably or definitely true that the Chinese had created the virus as a bioweapon.” Meanwhile, 21% thought vitamin C “can probably or definitely prevent infection by the coronavirus.” There is no credible evidence for either of those claims, scientists say.

The survey of 1,008 adults, released April 24, was conducted March 3–8 on behalf of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While views may have changed since then, given the volume of coronavirus coverage, the survey revealed notable differences in beliefs based on the type of media people consumed.

People who used social media (including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube) were more likely than others to believe:

  • The vitamin C claim
  • That some people in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention exaggerated the threat of Covid-19 to harm President Trump
  • That the virus was created by the…

--

--

Robert Roy Britt

Editor of Aha! and Wise & Well on Medium + the Writer's Guide at writersguide.substack.com. Author of Make Sleep Your Superpower: amazon.com/dp/B0BJBYFQCB