{"id":5593,"date":"2020-04-27T16:36:25","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T16:36:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.antropologia2-0.com\/?p=5593"},"modified":"2020-04-27T16:36:25","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T16:36:25","slug":"coronavirus-and-5g-or-why-the-bat-doesnt-cut-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.antropologia2-0.com\/en\/coronavirus-and-5g-or-why-the-bat-doesnt-cut-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus and 5G, or Why the Bat Doesn\u2019t Cut It"},"content":{"rendered":"

In her book, Psychology of Conspiracy Thinking [in original Psychologia my\u015blenia spiskowego] (2016), Monika Grzesiak-Feldman cites a late-1970s study in which researchers tested the theory that people are more inclined to attribute a big cause to big events. Participants were presented with two possible assassination scenarios: in the first one the attacker shot and killed the president, in the second, he missed. Participants were more likely to believe that the attacker was part of a larger conspiracy if his attempt was successful. But let\u2019s come back to the present and the ongoing pandemic. The popular online meme has it that the coronavirus is a perfect illustration of the butterfly effect (a Chinese man ate a bat in November and in March you have to use your elbow to open the lift), but many people believe that a big event requires a big cause, and this is where 5G comes in.<\/span><\/p>\n

A few years ago, we saw a surge of interest in the health effects of electromagnetic fields. The public\u2019s limited understanding of the field emitted by 5G base stations and the accumulation of unscientific beliefs had a palpable outcome. Online discussions morphed into local protests and boosted the popularity of the term \u2018electrosmog\u2019. The pandemic gave these beliefs a new life amid media reports of the burning of 5G masts in the UK, Italy and elsewhere. Quantitative analyses of social media data, for example from Twitter, suggest that this might have been up to disinformation. We have been there before. One notorious example is the emergence of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the early twentieth century, which, by the way, were concocted by a Russian disinformation expert. I could explore in more detail how certain things are rediscovered time and time again, and describe the activity of the infamous Russian troll farms, but this is not what I want to focus on here.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we look at the discussions happening on Facebook, we see that the subject has been picked up by many users around the world, including Poland. A quick check of the Polish users\u2019 discussion containing the combination of words \u2018coronavirus\u2019 and \u20185G\u2019 reveals 40,000 social media posts last month, and most of the relevant comments are far from challenging the alleged detrimental impact of 5G.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A number of narratives come to the fore:<\/span><\/p>\n