Prevalence in News Media of Two Competing Hypotheses about COVID-19 Origins

from Rozado’s Visual Analytics [alt+shift+b] in AI

Published article Quick Twitter summary Introduction As of August 2021, the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic remain a mystery. This essay summarizes a recent article I published about the prevalence in news media articles of two popular hypotheses about SARS-CoV-2 virus origins: the natural emergence and the lab-leak hypotheses. Results show that for most of 2020, the natural emergence hypothesis was favored in news media content while the lab-leak hypothesis was largely absent. However, something changed around May 2021 that caused the prevalence of the lab-leak hypothesis to substantially increase in news media discourse. This shift was not uniform across media organizations but instead manifested itself more acutely in some outlets than others. A structural break analysis of daily news media usage of terms related to the laboratory escape hypothesis provides hints about potential sources for this sudden shift in the prevalence of the lab-leak...

over a year ago

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