INFORMATION DISORDER ABOUT COVID-19 VACCINES: MULTIMODAL NARRATIVES SPREAD ON SOCIAL MEDIA BY SKEPTICS IN COLOMBIA

This article analyzes the information disorder about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in Colombia during the rollout of the National Vaccination Plan (February 2021-April 2022) and the months following its completion (May-December 2022). Based on a digital ethnography of the collective Our Truth on Twitter (X) and Instagram, and through multimodal analysis of their posts, this study identifies the deception techniques and narrative orientations that Colombian anti-vaccine activists deployed in their communication activities. The results show that multimodal narratives about vaccine safety and effectiveness are geared toward manipulating scientific discourse, constructing an anti-vaccine identity, and exacerbating anti-government sentiments. The vulnerabilities of the media ecosystem and the Colombian political context were exploited both to confuse and disorient the public, “muddying the waters,” and to make visible the anti-vaccine movement and mobilize citizens skeptical of vaccination in public spaces.