ABSTRACT
In hindsight, 2020 will have been a momentous year to study politics, misinformation, and the media. The four heuristics use examples drawn from the pandemic and other events of 2020 to highlight what the ‘limited effects’ paradigm misses in thinking about how misinformation matters as political discourse. To understand misinformation as a meaning-making resource requires attention to the role of allusive references in political discourse and identity-building. Both the moral panic around misinformation and the research refuting it draw attention to underlying realities of electoral politics that, while long understood, may increasingly be common sense. A tradition of media scholarship has explored how events like congressional hearings are staged for mediated audiences. Understanding how mediated messages inform the decision to wear or not wear a mask means being sensitive to the social and discursive contexts in which people form what social scientists recognise as opinions.
