This is the main conclusion of a qualitative study presented yesterday at the UCA.
The study of practices, tactics, and strategies that deliberately generate doubt, confusion, or ignorance among the population is known as agnotology.
The term was coined by Stanford University professor Robert Proctor in 2008 and disseminated in the book “Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance”. Twelve years later, El Salvador has the first agnotological study in Central America entitled “Agnotology and pandemic: a case study on agnotological practices in response to VOCID 19 by the Government of El Salvador.”
The research, conducted by Herman Duarte as part of his specialization in Human Rights at the London School of Economics (LSE), concludes that the government of El Salvador has engaged in agnotology practices, and these practices violate the human rights” .
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To reach this conclusion, Duarte downloaded and rated 12,741 posts on Twitter and Facebook from the official accounts of President Nayib Bukele, Presidential House and the Ministry of Health published between March 1 and July 1. He then made an analysis of thematic, discourse, and semiotic content.
The study focused on identifying strategies that spoil “knowledge production and how it impacts people in different dimensions, starting with the right to have a clear, unmanipulated, picture of reality.”
Distortion practices
The analysis allowed Duarte to identify three main themes and four types of agnotological strategies in the Twitter and Facebook posts.
“In this context, the Government of El Salvador relies on the following strategies: secrecy; the use of faith; actions that could be considered part of the” Tobacco Strategy “; and misinformation. The so-called “Tobacco Strategy” are the practices implemented by the tobacco industry in the last decades of the twentieth century to sow doubt as to whether smoking is harmful to health, among which are: the distortion of scientific studies, the financing of favorable studies and the discredit or attacks on critics.
These strategies, according to Duarte, have also been used by the Government. An example of this was what happened when thousands of Salvadorans were sent to so-called containment centers after returning to the country or for not respecting the strict quarantine set by the Executive. Some were deprived of their liberty for 40 days or more.
On March 14, President Bukele tweeted: “Most people in quarantine are already in hostels in excellent condition …”. After several protests, three days later, the president added: “Most people are in quarantine in hotel rooms, paid for by the government at a special price.”
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On April 17, with several resolutions from the Constitutional Court, the president tweeted: “Does anyone think we want to have them detained in a 4-star hotel for sports? No, some of them are potential positive cases.” others are positive links. Letting them out would spread the virus. “
That day, a woman prayed for her freedom from a hotel window. He was holding a sign saying he was going crazy after 39 days in jail and 3 negative COVID-19 tests. On May 10, in front of this building, a group of mariachis stopped to sing to the imprisoned mothers. The study notes: “These photos were published (and deleted) in the official account of the Secretariat of Government Communication. Why not better to leave them free? The incubation period was long over, since there are cases of 50 days of captivity “.
“I hope that Nelson Mandela’s spirit of harmony and reconciliation will inspire his actions, that the wisdom of his father, Don Armando Bukele, will guide him in decision-making; and that he will never forget his moral and constitutional calling. of being an instrument of peace and social harmony. It is still in time to resume the energy and mystique with which it began its management, and which was lost on February 9. “
The previous tweets and the image of the mariachis in front of the containment center, which Duarte considers “surreal”, lead him to ask himself: are containment centers a punishment or a demonstration of “hard love”?
He then replies, “Although an American University professor virtually denied the occurrence of human rights violations (Schamis & Chirinos, 2020), the decisions of the Constitutional Chamber tell a different story, and in all case, a more reliable one “.
The narrative around containment centers is not an isolated case. But it has been repeated when the government offered Internet access to a young man who climbed the branches of a tree to get a signal. A necessary action, but one that did not solve the lack of Internet access for thousands of other students.
The study’s findings state: “These acts belong to a unity, a discourse that is created by uniting the thousands of interactions and millions of cases of socialization of these messages that include: insults to the political opposition , discrediting of national and international human rights organizations, indirect censorship of civil society, local harassment of the press, strategic misinformation placed to create chaos and gain power, deliberate decision not to comply with constitutional obligations that emanate from the charge; or simple actions of not assuming responsibility for the errors in the handling of the pandemic “.
In the end, Duarte includes a message for the president: “I hope that Nelson Mandela’s spirit of harmony and reconciliation will inspire his actions, that the wisdom of his father, Don Armando Bukele, will guide him in decision-making; and may he never forget the so-called moral and constitutional nature of being an instrument of peace and social harmony, and he is still in time to regain the energy and mysticism with which he began his administration, and which was lost on February 9. “.
If you would like a 161-page digital copy of the study, please email: [email protected]