From Theory to Telegram
Enabling Factors of Anti-vaccine Disinformation in Brazil
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59490/dgo.2025.1064Keywords:
Disinformation, Information Disorder, Anti-vaccine, TelegramAbstract
This study addresses two central questions: (1) What enabling factors associated with information disorder are identified in the literature? and (2) Which of these factors manifest in anti-vaccine Telegram communities in Brazil, facilitating the spread and normalization of related disinformation? Combining a systematic literature review with empirical analysis of nearly 10 million posts from Brazilian conspiracy theory groups on Telegram (2016–2024), the research identifies 18 enabling factors—classified into sociopolitical and informational ecosystem dimensions—that contribute to information disorder. Of these, 11 are empirically observed in the analyzed Telegram communities. Drawing on both qualitative and computational methods—including time series, content, and link analysis—the study proposes a conceptual model that illustrates how these conditions interact and reinforce one another, creating an environment in which disinformation can flourish. The findings contribute to ongoing theoretical analyses on the sociotechnical dynamics of disinformation.
Downloads
References
Arceneaux, K., & Truex, R. (2023). Donald Trump and the lie. Perspectives on Politics, 21(3), 863-879. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592722000901
Balfour, L. (2020). A discussion of Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum's A lot of people are saying: The new conspiracism and the assault on democracy. Perspectives on Politics, 18(4), 1156-1157. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720003503
Bjola, C., & Papadakis, K. (2020). Digital propaganda, counterpublics and the disruption of the public sphere: The Finnish approach to building digital resilience. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 33(5), 638-666. https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2019.1704221
Bolton, D. (2021). Targeting ontological security: Information warfare in the modern age. Political Psychology, 42(1), 127-142. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12691
Casarões, G., & Magalhães, D. (2024). The hydroxychloroquine alliance: How far-right leaders and alt-science preachers came together to promote a miracle drug. Revista de Administração Pública, 55, 197-214. https://doi.org/10.1590/0034-761220200556
Celliers, M., & Hattingh, M. (2020). A systematic review on fake news themes reported in literature. In IFIP WG 6.11 Conference on e-Business, e-Services, and e-Society, I3E 2020, Proceedings, Part II (pp. 223-234). Springer International Publishing.
Chernobrov, D. (2022). Diasporas as cyberwarriors: Infopolitics, participatory warfare and the 2020 Karabakh war. International Affairs, 98(2), 631-651. https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac015
Czech, F. (2022). Links between conspiracy thinking and attitudes toward democracy and religion: Survey data from Poland. Politics and Governance, 10(4), 192-202. https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v10i4.5832
Dawson, A., & Innes, M. (2019). How Russia's Internet Research Agency built its disinformation campaign. The Political Quarterly, 90(2), 245-256. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.12690
De Zúñiga, H. G., Marné, H. M., & Carty, E. (2023). Abating dissonant public spheres: Exploring the effects of affective, ideological and perceived societal political polarization on social media political persuasion. Political Communication, 40(3), 327-345. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2022.2139310
Dowling, M.-E., & Legrand, T. (2023). "I do not consent": Political legitimacy, misinformation, and the compliance challenge in Australia's Covid-19 policy response. Policy and Society, 42(3), 319-333. https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puad018
Edelman. (2025). Edelman Trust Barometer. [link]
Edwards III, G. C. (2020). The bully in the pulpit. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 50(2), 286-324. https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12644
Enders, A. M., & Smallpage, S. M. (2019). Informational cues, partisan-motivated reasoning, and the manipulation of conspiracy beliefs. Political Communication, 36(1), 83-102. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2018.1493006
Faris, R., Roberts, H., Etling, B., Bourassa, N., Zuckerman, E., & Benkler, Y. (2017). Partisanship, propaganda, and disinformation: Online media and the 2016 U.S. presidential election (Berkman Klein Center Research Publication 2017-6). [link]
Freiling, I., Stubenvoll, M., & Matthes, J. (2023). Support for misinformation regulation on social media: It is the perceived harm of misinformation that matters, not the perceived amount. Policy & Internet, 15(4), 731-749. https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.360
Gadjanova, E., Lynch, G., & Saibu, G. (2022). Misinformation across digital divides: Theory and evidence from northern Ghana. African Affairs, 121(483), 161-195. https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adac009
Guess, A. M., Nyhan, B., & Reifler, J. (2020). Exposure to untrustworthy websites in the 2016 US election. Nature Human Behaviour, 4(5), 472-480. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0833-x
Gunther, R., Beck, P. A., & Nisbet, E. C. (2019). "Fake news" and the defection of 2012 Obama voters in the 2016 presidential election. Electoral Studies, 61, 102030. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2019.03.006
Heckler, N., & Ronquillo, J. C. (2019). Racist fake news in United States' history: Lessons for public administration. Public Integrity, 21(5), 477-490. https://doi.org/10.1080/10999922.2019.1626696
Hidalgo, O. F. (2022). Religions and conspiracy theories as the authoritarian "other" of democracy? Politics and Governance, 10(4), 146-156. https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v10i4.5826
Hughes, H. C., & Waismel-Manor, I. (2021). The Macedonian fake news industry and the 2016 US election. PS: Political Science & Politics, 54(1), 19-23. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096520000992
Islam, M. S., Mahmud, R., & Ahmed, B. (2023). Trust in government during COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh: An analysis of social media users' perception of misinformation and knowledge about government measures. International Journal of Public Administration, 46(8), 570-586. https://doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2021.2004605
Jenke, L. (2024). Affective polarization and misinformation belief. Political Behavior, 46(2), 825-884. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09851-w
Jiang, Y. (2023). The impact of political ideology, knowledge and participation on electoral conspiracy endorsement. Frontiers in Political Science, 5. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2023.1069468
Jungherr, A., & Rauchfleisch, A. (2024). Negative downstream effects of alarmist disinformation discourse: Evidence from the United States. Political Behavior, 46(4), 2123-2143. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-024-09911-3
Kapantai, E., Christopoulou, A., Berberidis, C., & Peristeras, V. (2021). A systematic literature review on disinformation: Toward a unified taxonomical framework. New Media & Society, 23(5), 1301-1326. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820959296
Karekwaivanane, G. H. (2019). 'Tapanduka Zvamuchese': Facebook, 'unruly publics', and Zimbabwean politics. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 13(1), 54-71. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2018.1547257
Keller, F. B., Schoch, D., Stier, S., & Yang, J. (2020). Political astroturfing on Twitter: How to coordinate a disinformation campaign. Political Communication, 37(2), 256-280. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1661888
Kermani, H. (2023). #MahsaAmini: Iranian Twitter activism in times of computational propaganda. Social Movement Studies, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2023.2180354
Koc-Michalska, K., Lilleker, D. G., Mamonova, M., & Gibson, R. (2023). (Digital) campaigning in dissonant public spheres. Political Communication, 40(3), 255-262. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2023.2173872
Krafft, P. M., & Donovan, J. (2020). Disinformation by design: The use of evidence collages and platform filtering in a media manipulation campaign. Political Communication, 37(2), 194-214. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1686094
Kweon, Y., & Choi, B. (2023). Fueling conspiracy beliefs: Political conservatism and the backlash against COVID-19 containment policies. Governance. https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12808
Lôbo, E., & Bolzan de Morais, J. L. (2021). New technologies, social media and democracy. Opinión Jurídica, 20(41), 253-274. https://doi.org/10.22395/ojum.v20n41a9
Lombana-Bermúdez, A., Palacios Cruz, G., Valcárcel, J., & López, G. (2021). Echo chambers, disinformation and discrediting campaigns in Colombia. Política y gobierno, 29(1). [link]
Maati, A., Orsini, A., Swigart, L., & Rohlinger, D. A. (2023). Information, doubt, and democracy: How digitization spurs democratic decay. Democratization, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2023.2234831
Martini, S., Torcal, M., & Orriols, L. (2022). Paranoid styles and innumeracy: Implications of a conspiracy mindset on Europeans' misperceptions about immigrants. Italian Political Science Review, 52(1), 66-82. https://doi.org/10.1017/ipo.2021.26
Massari, O. (2018). Dal partito di massa alla partitocrazia senza partiti. Rivista Nomos Le Attualità Nel Diritto, Antecipazioni convegni, 3, 10. [link]
Mauk, M., & Grömping, M. (2024). Online disinformation predicts inaccurate beliefs about election fairness among both winners and losers. Comparative Political Studies, 57(6), 965-998. https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140231193008
Ndahinda, F. M., & Mugabe, A. S. (2024). Streaming hate: Exploring the harm of anti-Banyamulenge and anti-Tutsi hate speech on Congolese social media. Journal of Genocide Research, 26(1), 48-72. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2022.2078578
Nguyễn, S., Nguyen, E., Fernández Campbell, A., & Tran, M. (2023). "We never really talked about politics": Race and ethnicity as foundational forces structuring information disorder within the Vietnamese diaspora. Political Communication, 40(4), 415-439. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2023.2201940
Partheymüller, J., Kritzinger, S., & Plescia, C. (2022). Misinformedness about the European Union and the preference to vote to leave or remain. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 60(5), 1449-1469. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13316
Perl, A., Howlett, M., & Ramesh, M. (2018). Policy-making and truthiness: Can existing policy models cope with politicized evidence and willful ignorance in a "post-fact" world? Policy Sciences, 51(4), 581-600. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-018-9334-4
Pickel, G., Pickel, S., & Yendell, A. (2022). Covid-19-related conspiracy myths, beliefs, and democracy-endangering consequences. Politics and Governance, 10(4), 177-191. https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v10i4.5798
Pinheiro, C., Benazzi, S., Ferrari, B., Esteves, B., & Kugler, H. (2022). Roots of the anti-vaccine movement in Brazil. Questão de Ciência. https://doi.org/10.1590/0037-8682-0592-2021
Ricard, J., Yañez, I., & Hora, L. (2025). A framework for information disorder: Modeling mechanisms and implications based on a systematic literature review. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2504.12537
Serani, D. (2022). The Covid pandemic enters the ballot box: The impact of conspiracy theories on Italians' voting behavior during the COVID-19 crisis. Italian Political Science Review, 53(1), 50-67. https://doi.org/10.1017/ipo.2021.56
Silva, E. C. M. (2023). TelegramScrap: A comprehensive tool for scraping Telegram data. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.16786
Stabile, B., Grant, A., Purohit, H., & Harris, K. (2019). Sex, lies, and stereotypes: Gendered implications of fake news for women in politics. Public Integrity, 21(5), 491-502. https://doi.org/10.1080/10999922.2019.1626695
Vićić, J., & Gartzke, E. (2024). Cyber-enabled influence operations as a 'center of gravity' in cyberconflict: The example of Russian foreign interference in the 2016 US federal election. Journal of Peace Research, 61(1), 10-27. https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433231225814
Willis, D. E., Andersen, J. A., Bryant-Moore, K., Selig, J. P., Long, C. R., Felix, H. C., McElfish, P. A. (2021). COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: Race/ethnicity, trust, and fear. Clinical and Translational Science, 14(6), 2200-2207.
Yair, O., Cavari, A., & Efrat, A. (2024). Conspiracy thinking and electoral trust during tumultuous times: The case of Israel. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 36(2). https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edae014
Yendell, A., & Herbert, D. (2022). Religion, conspiracy thinking, and the rejection of democracy: Evidence from the UK. Politics and Governance, 10(4), 229-242. https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v10i4.5904
Zhao, B., Su, Y., Zhan, J., & Di, Z. (2024). Manufacturing conflict or advocating peace? A study of social bots agenda building in the Twitter discussion of the Russia-Ukraine war. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 21(2), 176-194. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2023.2189201
Zimmermann, F., & Kohring, M. (2020). Mistrust, disinforming news, and vote choice: A panel survey on the origins and consequences of believing disinformation in the 2017 German parliamentary election. Political Communication, 37(2), 215-237. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1686095
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Conference Proceedings Volume
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Julie Ricard, Ergon Cugler de Moraes Silva, Ivette Yañez, Leticia Hora
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
