Risk society online: Zika virus, social media and distrust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While social construction of illness research has examined the redefinition of medically defined illness as non‐illness by laypersons, nothing has considered this process alongside emerging infectious diseases (EIDs). Using Gidden's notion of modern risk society and distrust in expert authority, this paper examines how social media posts construct Zika virus as nonhazardous while displaying a distrust in research and prevention. Using qualitative content analysis, we examine 801 posts on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Facebook page to highlight the interplay between risk, the social construction of Zika and trust in experts. Three themes are discussed, including Zika: (i) as legitimate public health threat; (ii) as product of CDC corruption and (iii) used to question medical expertise. We find the latter two themes supportive of Gidden's focus on risk and distrust in expert authority and discuss the danger of constructing EIDs as products of corrupt expert authority on public health social media platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]