Tailored Truths. Interests and Facts in Controversy During the Pandemic

Abstract

This article aims to articulate, from a critical point of view, the relationship between truth, fact and interest in current socio-technical dynamics. Assuming that the current social and informational acceleration is strongly motivated by strategies to capture the attention, we understand digital networks as one of the main means for expansion and propagation of information, ideas and news, but that do not escape particular objectives. In the case of the pandemic, the current socio-technical contingency revealed, per se, a dynamic of conquest and capture of space-time, putting facts and interests that proved to be controversial face to face. Using an exploratory and reflective methodology, we focused our analysis on four major controversies that emerged in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. These controversies generate news, denials, shares and thousands of online comments, have often throw up confusion in the already complex pandemic scenario, accelerating processes of counter-information, disinformation and fake news. We also discuss how the current informational dynamics in the digital mobilize or create discursive arguments that end up in extreme positions, in disputes between private interests and the scientific facts.