Last week, Erik C. Nisbet, Owen L. Coon Professor of Policy Analysis & Communication and Director of the Center for Communication & Public Policy, presented his research “Pandemic Legacy: How the COVID Online Ecosystem of 2020–2021 Shaped Enduring Distrust in Public Health” at the Symposium on Science & Politics, hosted by the Center for Science of Science & Innovation (CSSI), the Ryan Institute on Complexity, and the Northwestern Innovation Institute.
Nisbet’s presentation examined how the polarized information ecosystem that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic continues to influence public trust in science and health institutions. Drawing on longitudinal survey data and large-scale social media analyses, he traced how cross-platform diffusion of misinformation—particularly between Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook—helped fuse pandemic skepticism with broader political identities and movements.
His findings revealed that while endorsement of misinformation eroded trust in public health authorities, it did not always translate directly into vaccine hesitancy—suggesting a more complex relationship between belief, trust, and behavior. The presentation also highlighted ongoing work linking anti-vaccine and conspiratorial online networks with broader far-right digital ecosystems.
The Symposium on Science & Politics brought together scholars across disciplines to explore the interplay between scientific communication, political polarization, and public policy. Nisbet’s talk underscored how crises like COVID-19 expose and amplify structural vulnerabilities in democratic information systems, with enduring implications for public trust in science.
Elements of this research were supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. 2031705) and involved collaboration with Robert Bond, Graham Dixon, Hoda Fakhari, Fatima Gaw, Kelly Garrett, Shelly Hovick, Ayse Lokmanoglu, Samuel Malloy, Kilhoe Na, Matthew Osborne, Joseph Tien, and Duane Wegener.