Irrationality, conspiracy theories and anti-science movements – Anti-vaccine mobilisation during COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey

As public irrationality, conspiracy theories, and anti-science movements are gaining momentum we observe what Porpora (2020) refers to as the ‘crisis of truth’. It is a distrust of expertise and scientific knowledge and post-truth populism speeded with fake news. The crisis of truth refers to an era where evidence and objective facts go missing in sentiment, emotion, and personal beliefs. Relying on emotions, creationism, religious beliefs, and common sense over expertise purposefully creates a counter-knowledge referred to as pseudo-science (Dawes 2018), troll-science (Eslen-Ziya 2020), or fake science (Edis 2020). It is projected politically and ideologically charged alternative knowledge and has changed the way science and experts used it to inform political decision-making. As the worth of scientific expertise is devalued, the counter-scientific discourses supported through right-wing political rhetoric help produce a culture of resistance to science. This paper will analyze the tweets shared to invite people to protest COVID-19 vaccination and COVID-19 imposed restrictions in three big cities of Turkey (Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir). I will also study the co-occurrent hashtags to explore how the development of counter knowledge serves as a catalyser of producing and disseminating public sentiments on populist discourses for bringing people together and creating a common identity.