Cultural Variance in Reception and Interpretation of Social Media COVID-19 Disinformation in French-Speaking Regions

Digital communication technology has created a world in which media are capable of crossing national boundaries as never before. As a result, language is increasingly the salient category determining individuals’ media consumption. Today, a single social media post can travel around the world, reaching anyone who speaks its language. This poses significant challenges to combatting the spread of disinformation, as an ever-growing pool of disinformation purveyors reach audiences larger than ever before. This dynamic is complicated, however, by the diversity of audience interpretations of message content within a particular language group. Both across and within national boundaries, a single message may be subject to a variety of interpretations depending on the cultural experiences and identities of its recipients. This study explores that dynamic through analysis of French language anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist disinformation. Using qualitative coding methodology, a team of researchers empirically identify common and far-reaching patterns of Francophone COVID disinformation narratives and rhetoric. These narratives and rhetorics are then subjected to hermeneutic close reading to determine likely variations in their reception across different French-speaking cultures. Data were gathered and analyzed between the dates of 24 March 2021 and 27 April 2021. Results of this study indicate the need for awareness on the part of public health officials combatting COVID disinformation online, for both the transnational reach of disinformation targeting speakers of a single language and for variations in meaning and salience across cultures within that language group.


Introduction
This study seeks to identify and analyze some of the most common narrative tropes and rhetorical strategies found in French-language antivaccine and COVID-denialist social media and user-generated content.

Vaccine Misinformation and Disinformation Online
Misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation refer to varieties of untrue or misleading messages. This study grounds itself in a pragmatic and inclusive theory of the problematic, such as that described by Tucker et al. for the Hewlett Foundation [1]. This perspective stands on several founding principles, namely, that mis-, dis-, and malinformation are detrimental to democratic policymaking [1][2][3]; that key affordances of online media such as low barrier to entry, anonymity, and affective polarization all contribute to a decline in quality of political and other policy discussions and an increase in the quantity of mis-, dis-, and malinformation [1,[4][5][6]; and that a diverse array of actors, from the individual to the grassroots, government to the automated-each with their own methods and motives-contribute to the production of an online ecosystem brimming with misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation [1,4,7]. This study also acknowledges that misinformation and disinformation can be difficult to distinguish, as the difference rests on a question of the purveyors' motive [8,9].
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, misinformation and disinformation can be defined as messages that contradict the best-available expert information and advice relating to public health and its attendant political, economic, and social conditions [10,11]. "Misinformation" is defined by its unintentional inaccuracy, while "disinformation" is knowingly fabricated and shared with the intent to mislead toward some ulterior motive [12,13]. Malinformation is distinguished by being agnostic to issues of facticity; it may or may not be true, yet it is specifically deployed in ways and contexts intended to mislead or harm [14]. All three forms can originate from citizens, governments, and foreign bodies. Their motives can be malign or benign, based in earnest ignorance or a cynical strategic program of harm. Whatever the motive, throughout the COVID-19 disease and pandemic, fabrication and propagation of unsubstantiated claims have steadily increased, creating a parallel public health information crisis, which some have termed the "infodemic" [14][15][16][17].
Mis-, dis-, and malinformation frequently take the form of "fake news," a flexible term that refers to non-factitious or misleadingly factitious communication presented as news [18,19]. The digital age has created a news environment highly conducive to the spread of misinformation and disinformation, particularly as "citizen journalism challenged the link between news and journalists [and] social media offered a wider platform for nonjournalists to engage in journalism" [19] (p. 139). Tadoc et al. point out how digitization, and social media in particular, have changed expectations as to the format and appearance of legitimate news, both in terms of the news message and its means of distribution.
Online fora are demonstrated to be a key contributor to the spread of vaccine hesitancy [20][21][22][23][24]. Access to digital communication technology has spread mis-, dis-, and malinformation through decentralized networks [4]. Social media platforms in particular appear to play a central role, both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic [25][26][27][28]. The digital francophone world comprises a relatively tight network connecting online media between France and other French-speaking countries, particularly in Africa [29]. This has led to vaccine hesitancy content originating in France to permeate networks in Francophone Africa [30]. False information regarding chloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment has similarly diffused from France to other Francophone countries, leading to widespread self-medication with chloroquine as a COVID-19 preventative and treatment, and in turn leading to many cases of overdose [31]. Francophone African countries have served as their own incubators of viral misinformation and disinformation, including popular apocalyptic conspiracy theories [29]. And outlets throughout the French-speaking world act as "info-laundering" devices, translating Russian and U.S. misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, and conspiracy theories relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and disseminating them throughout the francophone digital network [32].

National vs. Linguistic Borders and Online Communication
For the last decade, observers have debated as to the "post-Westphalian" or "Cyber Westphalian" quality of the internet [33][34][35][36], debating the effects of networked digital communication on the salience of national identities and state borders. To date, pronouncements as to the nation-state's digital age obsolescence or its ruthless self-reassertion have proven overstated. National governments increasingly seek to assert sovereignty over digital space [37][38][39], while media industries seek on one hand to cultivate international audiences while protecting their domestic market advantages [40,41]. However, it cannot be denied that despite government interference and the still-prevalent "digital divide," today's audiences have far greater access to foreign media, both commercial and social, than ever before in human history [42][43][44].
So while state control of telecommunication infrastructure remains intact, and in many cases even expanding, digital communication continues to spread across state borders.
If the inner limit of digital communication is access (state censorship and/or the "digital divide"), then the outer limit of online communication is less state regulation than legibility-that is, language [45][46][47]. The internet has been a powerful force for multilingualism, despite early expectations that it would lead to further global "Englishization" [48]. Hafez argues that language represents one of the critical barriers to the emergence of a true, global, public sphere [49]. "Even where media technologies and formats are explicitly transnational, as with satellite and cable TV, considerable adaptation to local and regional languages, cultures, and expectations concerning program genres has been a condition of viability for operating in different countries" [50] (p. 627). As Taneja and Wu succinctly put it: "websites cluster according to language and geography" [39] (p. 297). Yet despite digital media's transnational reach, local circumstances prohibit the cultural flattening predicted by early techno-optimists and cheerleaders of globalization [51]. Perhaps even because of the porousness of national boundaries with respect to communication, national and local identities have stood fast, and in some cases re-entrenched [52,53].
This points to a situation in which (1) communication flows widely (but not unfettered) across state borders, which is (2) limited largely (but not exclusively) by linguistic intelligibility, to (3) audiences that may share a language but do not necessarily share a culture or identity. Under such circumstances the meaning imputed to digital content by its audience can be extremely varied. This phenomenon can perhaps be best modeled using the "encoding/decoding" model of communication first articulated by Stuart Hall [54]. In this model, Hall proposed that a message's intended meaning and its received meaning "may not be perfectly symmetrical" [54] (p. 260). Hall proposed that a message might be understood at the valence of its producer (the "dominant or hegemonic" interpretation), the ideological functionaries of that producer (the "professional" interpretation), critically (a "negotiated" interpretation), or counter-hegemonically (an "oppositional" interpretation) [54] (pp. 272-274). Hall theorized this model prior to the age of social media and the digital prosumer. Today "elite" media production is no longer so evident, as new media forms such as memes, message boards, quote-Tweets etc. represent what Nowak terms "multiparticipant online content" [55]. However, Hall's influential theory offers a ground from which to understand the simultaneous coexistence of many different interpretations and understandings of the same message. This theoretical perspective is useful in analyzing the ways in which a single piece of content might carry with it myriad meanings, some parallel and some contradictory, depending on its audience and their circumstances.

Persuasive Messaging: Targeting Narratives & Rhetoric vs. Targeting Facts
This codebook was developed as part of a toolkit of background materials supporting public health message campaigns in favor of COVID vaccination and against COVIDdenialism and other forms of public health misinformation and disinformation. The field of pro-social persuasion reaches across numerous domains, from public health to preventing violent extremism [56][57][58]. And throughout the literature of these various domains, certain patterns emerge pertaining to the efficacy of fact-and logic-based persuasion campaigns versus campaigns based in emotion, identity, narrative/rhetoric and values. While the literature is not uniform, there appears to be strong evidence suggesting that persuasive campaigns focusing on message form (i.e., emotion, identity, narrative/rhetoric, values, etc.) tend to be more broadly successful than those focusing on logic and fact-based arguments.
To be sure, fact and logic-focused persuasive tactics such as fact-checking are effective in the right conditions. Fact-checking is a proven technique for reducing acceptance of misinformation and disinformation [59][60][61][62] as are preemptive factual approaches, such as "pre-bunking" [63,64]. However, outside of controlled circumstances, fact-checking faces serious scalability challenges associated with widespread inadequate resources and training for digital content moderators [65][66][67]. Furthermore, fact-based approaches have proven asymmetrical, and tend to be least efficacious among the audiences most in need of intervention. Feelings of social ostracism reduce the effectiveness of fact-checking [68].
Low information audiences are less receptive to political fact-checkers, as are conservatives in general [69].
The balance of existing research tends to suggest that audiences are more likely to be persuaded by narrative approaches [70][71][72][73], appeals to values [74][75][76], and rhetorics of personal, lived experience [77][78][79][80]. Perhaps this is due to a dynamic that Maertens et al. term a "broad spectrum" of persuasion [81]. Formal dimensions of a message, such as its narrative structure, rhetorical tone, the values it prescribes, the identities to which it appeals, etc., offer more points of persuasive contact with potential audiences than the narrower logico-factual approach. However, persuasive perspectives should not be overly broad either. Mason and Miller, for example, demonstrate how negative-outcome-focused public health messages are bolstered by specific references to the manipulative strategies of (in their study) junk food marketers and advertisers [82].
Unfortunately, there is as-yet no ironclad set of optimal practices for countering misinformation and disinformation with prosocial persuasive methods. While some methods and their proper applications are more well understood, strategic efficacy still varies across real-world circumstances. A detailed understanding of the narratives and rhetorics of manipulative and damaging health misinformation and disinformation is therefore essential for governments and NGOs to remain agile and dynamic in combating anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist misinformation and disinformation. To that end, this study sought to answer the following questions: RQ1: What are the most frequent and widely found narratives comprising francophone anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist misinformation and disinformation? RQ2: What are the most frequent and widely found rhetorical strategies found in francophone anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist misinformation and disinformation? RQ3: How might reception of these narratives and rhetorics vary depending on the region and culture from which their audiences originate?

Materials and Methods
This study utilizes a qualitative coding methodology to create a "codebook" of twentyfive narrative tropes and twenty-four rhetorical strategies that appeared both frequently and across a wide range of French language platforms trafficking in content deemed detrimental to COVID-related public health measures. That codebook was then analyzed by a team of experts with regional and cultural expertise in key francophone regions, who proposed regionally and culturally specific approaches to interpreting these narratives and rhetorics. This data gathering and analysis occurred between the dates of 24 March 2021 and 27 April 2021. The data sampled, extant literature, and the analysis of the regional experts point to potentially powerful approaches to crafting public health messages for linguistically unified but geographically and culturally disparate audiences.

Qualitative Codebooking Methodology
This study relied on qualitative coding methodology in order to empirically analyze thematic content-specifically, the narrative tropes and rhetorical strategies commonly found in online francophone anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist social media content. The findings derived from this process were then compiled into a "codebook," consisting of codes, definitions, inclusion criteria, and examples of this content [83]. Our analysis of narrative tropes and rhetorical strategies draws from both qualitative content analysis and hermeneutical approaches to textual analysis. As in qualitative content analysis, our study followed a defined process of "selecting material; structuring and generating categories [for coding]; defining categories; revising and expanding the frame [of coding criteria]" as the central component of its analysis [84] (p. 175). Qualitative content analysis is distinct from its quantitative counterparts due to its effectiveness in pulling latent meaning from out of the text [84] In the case of this study, that latent meaning refers to the implicit narratives and manipulative rhetorical tactics that make anti-vaccine and COVID denialist media persuasive in the first place. Because this latent meaning is sometimes well below the surface of that media, our team drew on hermeneutic approaches, too, "systematically to contrast a latent and a manifest level of meaning" [85] (p. 239) and to uncover "the latent meaning of utterances and its relation to the intentions (manifest meaning) of actors" [85] (p. 235). Here, again, our work finds resonance with that of Stuart Hall's theories of encoding/decoding, and the search for asymmetry between a message's intended and overt meaning and its received and latent meaning.
This study uses collaborative analytic methods to ensure a balance of what Cornish et al. term "rich local understandings" alongside inter-coder reliability [86]. Cornish et al. explain that "local experts, as collaborators, may provide the role of a 'guide' or 'educator', explaining to the rest of the team the local context and customs-knowledge that is needed in order to produce a sensitive analysis" [86] (p. 83). Given limitations of time and budget, this rich local understanding was essential to identifying culturally specific message reception. We assembled a team of five researchers, all with full bilingual fluency in French and English, and each with domain-specific expertise in at least one region of the French-speaking world: mainland France, regions of French West Africa, the Caribbean, and North Africa. (Other francophone regions such as Quebec or Mainland Southeast Asia were not incorporated, due to staffing and budget limitations.) These researchers came from professional backgrounds ranging from doctoral studies in political science and communication, professional journalism, and NGO administration to counter-terrorism research. These researchers were supported by a team of scholars from the university who oversaw methodological training and guided the process of data identification, gathering, cleaning, coding, and final analysis.
By the same token, intercoder reliability is necessary to ensure objectivity in this interpretive work [87] (p. 344). To draw on Hall's rubric, it was essential that coders agreed on the fundamental "hegemonic" and "professional" coding of a message, even while identifying the "negotiated" and "oppositional" readings specific to their own region and culture of expertise. Of course, an exact replication of findings is impossible in a qualitative study such as this. Instead, we adopted the standard of "inter-subjective comprehensibility" [88] (p. 187), that is, congruency between researchers' "hegemonic" coding of the narratives and rhetorics they encountered in the dataset. Inter-subjective comprehensibility was determined using a two-step process. First, in a "single-blind" evaluation, the project manager collected researchers' codes and compared them, evaluating similarities and grouping them according to homophily. These homophilous groupings were then named and defined so as to encompass all the codes contained under their definition. These "meta-codes" were then resubmitted to the researchers for critique, evaluation, and where necessary revision.
A more detailed description of this process is now presented below.

Study Design
Our team of coders underwent a three-day, twelve-hour training on the principles and practices of qualitative coding and use of the NVivo qualitative data analysis software. They were then instructed to individually seek out 5 "channels" of French-language COVID mis-, dis-, or malinformation. Channels were restricted to online social media and user generated content platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Telegram, and blogs. To be considered for inclusion, a channel had to meet four criteria: (1) Its content had to have been exclusively or almost exclusively French language, (2) At least 80% of the content had to have been either generally anti-vaccine, provide misinformation about COVID, or oppose common public health tactics (e.g., mask mandates), (3) It must have been updated at least once in the week prior to selection, and (4) There had to have been at least 50 pieces of relevant content posted in the last 9 months. Due to the nature of the content, many of these accounts were effectively anonymous.
Each researcher selected five channels that met this criteria, for a total of 25 possible channels. These channels were analyzed by the project manager and head of the university research team, who is French-literate, who selected three channels for a preliminary round of coding. These channels were selected based on their audience size and diversity of content. As subsequent rounds went on, channels were also selected so as to incorporate a broad range of media (text, video, meme) and platforms. The first round of coding included the Facebook page of Frank Buhler (a self-proclaimed founder of the Gillet Jeune movement), an anonymous but high-traffic Twitter account calling itself "La Croix du Sud," and the Instagram account of Salim Laibi (a dentist who also runs the far right website Libre Penseur). A second round of coding included the Twitter account "Association Victimes COVID-19 France," the Telegram channel "Le Fronte Mediatique," and the Instagram account "La Verité Fait Mal." The 30 most recent vaccine or COVID-specific posts from each account were scraped and coded for the narrative tropes and rhetorical strategies that researchers identified in them.
Following these two rounds of coding, the researchers delivered their codes to the project manager and university research team. These codes were refined and consolidated into a preliminary codebook, consisting of 54 narrative tropes and rhetorical strategies. This codebook was then used for a third round of coding. Channels were identified based on the same criteria as those for rounds 1 and 2; however, they were selected in hopes of finding novel codes. This meant that personal, anonymous, and more marginal sources were considered for inclusion. Round 3 s channels consisted of 10 channels: the Telegram channels "Co-Créons!!!," "Info Vaccins France," and "STOP Masques Vaccins," the blog "COVIDmenace," the Instagram accounts "DNCT.x," and "La Verité Derange," the Facebook account of Evelyne Wermelinger, the Twitter accounts "@Laissonslesprescire" and "Flo" (the latter selected because it appeared to be a personal account with a wide reach, which aggregated popular news stories, memes, and talking points), and a 20-min video entitled Nouvel Ordre Mondial-Crise Coronavirus, which was hosted on the "Hax0r" Facebook group.
Again, each member of the codebooking team separately coded 30 posts per channel, except for "COVIDmenace" (for which they coded 10 blog posts) and Crise Coronavirus (for which they coded the entire video). In total, round two consisted of 241 closely analyzed and coded posts. The posts were assigned to codes from the preliminary codebook created after rounds 1 and 2, and coders were given the discretion to create additional codes as they deemed necessary. After completing their analysis individually, all team members submitted their codebooks to the project manager, who again refined and consolidated their codes. It was determined that saturation had been reached, based on the diminishing number of new codes and these new codes' marginal distinction from those of the preliminary codebook. Codes were analyzed for both the frequency with which they appeared (i.e., how many discrete posts), and the range of their appearance (i.e., across how many distinct channels). The codes with the highest numbers of raw appearances and cross-channel presence were identified. These narrative tropes and rhetorical strategies comprise the content of the final codebook.
Following the creation of the final codebook, each coding team member separately analyzed each code. Based on their cultural domain expertise, they noted which narratives and rhetorics might have culturally specific interpretations depending on the region in which they were received. Each expert offered an interpretation only for their specific region of expertise. These region-and culture-specific interpretations were then added to each code entry. A finalized codebook consisted of 23 rhetorical strategies, of which 14 were observed to yield culturally specific interpretations, and 25 narrative tropes, of which 22 yielded culturally specific interpretations. These codes will be discussed in the next section, with a focus on those culturally specific interpretations.

Narrative Tropes
Within the 25 narrative tropes and their 22 culturally specific variation, four key tropes addressed anger and mistrust in varying cultural contexts (see Table 1, below): (i) "Caged and Enraged" (Cage et Rage), (ii) "The National Conspiracy" (Le Complot National), (iii) "Medical Dictatorship" (Dictature Sanitaire), (iv) "Lies and Mistrust" (Les mensonges et la méfiance). The data in which these narrative tropes were identified are available upon request to the corresponding author. Table 1. Narratives (in English and in French).

#1STWORLDPROBLEMS
The narrative that COVID panic does not exist in countries except for France and/or affluent Western nations. It suggests that concern over COVID is a bit decadent and hysterical, and developing countries are either tougher or simply don't have the spare time to and resources to indulge in this hysteria.
The Caribbean: In Haiti and the Antilles, this code manifests itself with pointing to the fact that the majority of COVID cases have been contracted by people coming back from so-called developed countries and that (at the time of this study) COVID did not have a significant local source of transmission.

Apocalypse!
Claiming that the introduction of public health measures will make a situation catastrophically worse.
West Africa: The vaccine is the mark of the beast. France: The French can have a flair for the dramatic, so this code resonates with them and acts as a call to action. France also has a strong tradition of secular public life. This rhetoric is thus less a literally religious rhetoric than a means of communicating existential nature of the struggle against public health measures.

Caged and Enraged
The narrative that people are being needlessly confined in their houses and that they are absolutely fed up with it.
West Africa: Our countries and economies are not the same as the West's. We cannot simply work from home or follow the same quarantine procedures. If we close our informal markets where the majority of people work, the population will die of hunger. We need African solutions suited to our ways of life. North Africa: Manipulation of the population to impose the vaccine (like the New World Order). Quarantined people and vaccinated people are in a state of distress. For example, a meme depicts Kermit the Frog wearing a mask, sitting in a pot of boiling water. This acts as a metaphor for the growing pressure on anti-maskers to conform, as well as a condemation of people going along with mask mandates, presenting them as the proverbial, insensate "boiling frog." France: The French can have a flair for the dramatic, so this code resonates with them and acts as a call to action.

The National Conspiracy
This narrative suggests that governmental and medical authorities manufactured the COVID crisis in order to control the people and make as much money as possible out of it. Typical tropes include the "Great Reset" conspiracy theory and "New World Order," 5G, microchips in the vaccine, that COVID is a manmade creation, that the vaccine exists to reduce the population, that panic about the pandemic was created to sell more vaccines, that vaccine and vaccine passports and public health measures are conspiracies by invisible forces, that the government is in cahoots with big pharmaceutical companies, and that the vaccine was discovered suspiciously quickly.
West Africa: This narrative suggests that France is strengthening its colonial ties. North Africa: The government is conspiring with Big Pharma in order to sell as many vaccines as possible (vaccines discovered too quickly for them to be safe). Use of new censorship measures for a conspiracy to reduce the world population France: France, like many Western countries, has seen a resurgence in conspiratorial thinking and this is going to resonate with a certain segment of the population. The Caribbean: In Haiti and the Antilles, the perception is that the president is taking advantage of COVID and of the funds allocated for COVID to get rich, as during other crises, given the low rate of COVID in Haiti and the Antilles, broadly speaking.

The Chinese conspiracy
Accusation (sometimes sincere, sometimes ironic) that China is using manipulation to (for example) step on the covidiocy accelerator . . . for COVID in Cambodia. Accusations of lying and conspiracy against Asian countries (the lackeys of Beijing). Directly accuses China of conspiracy and practicing a political dictatorship (the "Pekingese Joker") and putting pressure on neighboring countries. Directly accuses Europe and China of conspiracy for pipelines that rely on the western coast of China.
North Africa: COVID was created in order for China to dominate its neighboring countries. France: These last few years, there has been a certain resistance to international/globalist pressures in France.

Quarantining doesn't work
The argument that quarantining doesn't work and is not necessary to contain the pandemic. No significant regional/cultural variation in audience reception noted by research team.
The Little Guy "Man on the street" images and interviews, to show the human effects of public health measures.
West Africa: The effect of the quarantine measures on market vendors who are having a hard time earning a living. North Africa: A call to resistance and to put a stop to submission.

Medical dictatorship
Medical dictatorship is the concept that the state and doctors are imposing a dictatorship through measures taken against the pandemic. The medical dictatorship deprives the individual of his bodily autonomy.
West Africa: In other words "medical colonialism"-vaccines, aid, etcetera in exchange for neoliberalization. North Africa: The State and doctors are complicit in imposing the dictatorship on the population. The State is finding a reason to impose its authority on the population. The State is going so far as to deprive citizens of their bodily autonomy. Nothing will stop it. France: Dictatorship lives on in the consciousness of the French, and they often bring up the Nazi occupation. This code will trigger emotions on this topic.

They're a bunch of quacks
This suggests that the most authoritative voices in the public health crisis are also the most incompetent and make ridiculous decisions. Regardless of their prominence, importance, or legitimacy, these figures are not trustworthy, and we should stop trusting them. They do whatever they want, as if we were in the Third World.
West Africa: African leaders (including public health officials) amount to Western, and particularly French, puppets. In one meme, for example, a news story about an error in vaccine production in the United States is accompanied by the caption. "And we're supposed to have confidence in them." In West Africa, the "them" in question is multilayered: African public health officials, their French puppetmasters, and even the U.S. pharmaceutical giants who control Western leadership.

Great awakening
This rhetoric suggests that those who resist the public health measures have woken up to the manipulation by the state and others, and that other people will slowly wake up as well. Perhaps, the narrative goes, this is a blessing in disguise; the pandemic is an eye-opening opportunity for people to finally do their own research and discover the longstanding nefariousness of the global elites, allowing them to now spread the truth and disrupt the tyranny formerly and presently inflicted upon them.
North Africa: Part of the population is slowly waking up to the State's manipulation and is joining the other part that refuses to submit to it. People are resisting political leaders' "divide and conquer" strategy of public control. France: France, like many Western countries, has seen a resurgence in conspiratorial thinking and this is going to resonate with a certain segment of the population.

Dictatorial, authoritarian, or abusive government
Governmental measures against COVID-19 are an authoritarian coup. This code presents the governmental measures implemented within the context of the fight against COVID-19 as an opportunity for a group of people to exercise power without regard for laws, customs, institutions, and traditional liberties. Or, the authorities are taking advantage of the pandemic to seize power.
West Africa: Some of the leaders are dictators and they are using the quarantine as a tool to consolidate their tyranny. North Africa: In other words, you don't have to resign yourself to being under the authority of the State. Rise up and take back your freedom. France: France is tired of all behavior perceived to be authoritarian The Caribbean: In Haiti, power is already perceived to be authoritarian and abusive. Furthermore, given the lack of COVID cases, at the time of this study that perception was not necessarily connected with COVID. However, with elections on the horizon, a resurgence in COVID cases accompanied by public health measures will be interpreted as a governmental effort to hinder democracy and install a dictatorship.

The government is making the situation worse
All of the difficult conditions since the beginning of the public health crisis are the fault of the government and not of the coronavirus. No significant regional/cultural variation in audience reception noted by research team.

Narratives
The media is the enemy The narrative here is that the media machine, including social media, are tools of propaganda, fake news, and censorship that push the same agenda as the government, Big Pharma, or another authority figure.
North Africa: The State is announcing an exaggerated number of deaths in order to control the population. The government uses the media and social networks for propaganda and censorship. France: France, like many other Western countries, is currently seeing low levels of trust in the media.

Lies and mistrust
Lies about COVID-19 statistics. You can't trust the media, and you can't trust the government, leaders, multilateral organizations, or doctors. Governments are suppressing information about other COVID-19 treatments. The government is handling the COVID response poorly, doesn't care about us, and will use any tactic to push vaccination. There is falsification at a statistical level.
West Africa: Africa hasn't been hit as hard as Europe, they're making up the numbers because they're too high. North Africa: The doctors, media, and governments are colluding so as not to care for people with effective treatments and to push them to get vaccinated with ineffective vaccines. The Caribbean: In the Antilles, any resurgence in COVID infections will be perceived as a machination of the government and leaders to push either a measure or the vaccine. With regard to the vaccine, residents of the Antilles allow themselves to be led by the hesitations of the rest of the world and generally want to see someone close to them get vaccinated without any side effects before they themselves will get vaccinated. France: The French mistrust forms of authority and will question the official statistics.

Murderers!
The State and the doctors who impose public health restrictions are murderers because they are closing intensive care units or recommending harmful or fatal vaccines-whatever decisions they make are detrimental. A former vice-president of Pfizer has not ruled out the existence of a plan to use the vaccines for "large-scale depopulation." No significant regional/cultural variation in audience reception noted by research team.

Nanny State
Nanny state is a government that doesn't trust its citizens to act in their own best interests.
France: French culture has a deep strain of mistrust for the government. The "nanny state" concept evokes the paternalism of monarchy and clergy, against which there is a long-running opposition in French culture.

Resistance and Liberty
This places the people in direct conflict with the State. The people are supposedly anti-restriction or anti-vax and the State is acting against the knowledge and wishes of the people who elected them. This narrative appeals to a feeling of unity with people who fight against the medical dictatorship; the movement is gaining ground and the dictatorship will tumble soon. This rhetoric suggests that civil disobedience against public health measures is a patriotic duty. This rhetoric deliberately promotes resistance to public health restrictions, showing the supposed popular resistance of the people against quarantines, masks, vaccines, and passes.

North Africa:
The people are against all of the public health measures and they oppose the government. Some are calling for resistance and for freedom. France: Even in normal times, the French protest against their government often. This code will resonate with them. For example, one meme uses art evocative of WWII propaganda posters, in which a man pushes away a syringe saying "No thank-you! I am in la Résistance!"

Defective science
This suggests that the information about the virus, tests, public health measures, vaccines, and the demands of the people are based on scientific methods that are either defective or manipulated, i.e., the tests don't work, masks won't protect you completely, the vaccine creates variants, etc. You shouldn't trust the vaccine for multiple reasons. The argument that the vaccine will not work because it was developed too hastily or else because the RNA technology doesn't work. Either that, or there are side effects (some of which we don't yet know about) and it can kill you.

North Africa:
Here there are a lot of doubts about the defectiveness of the science, as well as about manipulation. The Caribbean: In the Antilles, there are some worries about the science underlying the vaccine. More specifically, the speed with which the vaccine was produced is often pointed out as the reason for this hesitation. Furthermore, the inadequacy of the existing healthcare system is also cited as another reason for the hesitation, as serious negative side effects would amount to death.

It's not that big a deal
The pandemic isn't as serious as the media or government want us to think it is. If you look at the statistics, we can see that cases are low, so nothing justifies the public health restrictions to which we are being subjected.
West Africa: Again, this is to say that Africans/Black people are resistant to the virus-we're stronger than that, we've survived different viral epidemics before. The virus only kills white people. Africa hasn't been hit as hard as Europe, they're making up the numbers because they're too high.

Alternative treatments
The promotion of unapproved treatments to COVID-19 and/or treatment rather than vaccination. Sometimes presents religion as a protection against COVID-19. Presents an argument against vaccination and advocates the argument that everyone should be infected to achieve herd immunity (and the strongest will survive). Recommends vitamin D and zinc to treat COVID and strengthen the immune system for future cases.
West Africa: Turning to traditional medicine. North Africa: Audiences in North Africa might resonate with the axiom that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." That is, alternative (and dangerous/unapproved) preventative treatments like ivermectin may be appealing. The Caribbean: In the Antilles, natural and plant-based remedies are often extolled as a way to strengthen one's immunity against COVID.

Neither vaccines nor masks work
Similar to "Defective Medicine." The argument that the vaccine will not work because it was developed too hastily or else because the RNA technology doesn't work. This narrative suggests that there are doubts about the vaccines. It suggests that people believe vaccines to be ineffective, and that there are negative side effects (some of which we don't yet know about) and they can kill you. Also, masks don't work.
France: At the time of this study, the French were largely tired of incoherent public health policies in response to COVID-19 and have picked up the habit of categorically rejecting any new ones.

Trauma
Interview subjects refer to soaring child abuse and levels of psychiatric trauma in children caused by COVID confinement. One interviewer likens the effects of public health measures to the after-effect of a rape.
North Africa: Having children wear masks is equivalent to abuse and these measures are considered ridiculous and harmful.

Victimhood/Humiliation
A rhetoric that has the tone of being victimized, bossed around and/or humiliated West Africa: Africans are victims of colonialism; they're taking advantage of us, particularly because we're economically/politically vulnerable to the whims of the West. North Africa: Victims have been pushed around, ordered around, and humiliated, and they feel discriminated against.
We Will Not Be Silenced! Populist appeal. The narrative of brave anti-vaxxers or anti-maskers taking great risks to spread the real truth about COVID, even as they are continually censored or threatened by the powers that be. The comparison between a mask and a muzzle suggests that any measure attempting to minimize COVID serves to silence a population that does not want all of these rules.
North Africa: Don't give up your freedom and don't submit to the restrictions of public health measures. Accusation that the government is committing crimes against humanity.

You Can't Stop Living Your Life
The narrative that the world shouldn't stop for COVID and COVID shouldn't stop you for living your life. Often used in conjunction with "It's Not That Big A Deal" and "COVID will never die out" North Africa: A call to find freedom once more and to live a normal life in coexistence with COVID-19, which becomes almost an inevitability. The State is manipulating society to better control it. But don't underestimate the power of the mind. The Caribbean: In the Antilles, the people are living out this story. It will feed the opposition to any public health measure. Notably, the relative low numbers of COVID cases at the time of this study reinforced the narrative that the virus was not that big a deal.
Caraïbes: En Haïti et dans les Antilles, ce code se manifeste en pointant vers le fait que la majorité des cas de COVID ont été contractés par des individus qui sont revenus des pays dits développés et que, à la base, le COVID n'a pas de source de transmission locale.
Afrique du Nord: Division de la population. On constate qu'une partie de la population se réveille lentement à la manipulation de l'état et rejoint l'autre partie qui est insoumise. France: La France, comme de nombreux pays occidentaux, connaît une résurgence de la pensée conspiratrice et cela va résonner avec un certain segment de la population.

Le gouvernement empire la situation
Toutes conditions difficiles depuis le début de la crise sanitaire est la faute du gouvernement et non du coronavirus.
Il faut vivre votre vie! La rhétorique ici est que le monde ne peut pas et en effet ne cessera pas de tourner à cause de la pandémie alors, par conséquent, nous ne devrions pas non-plus cesser de vivre normalement. Souvent utilisé avec des codes qui suggèrent que le virus n'est pas un drame, et des codes qui suggèrent que nous devrions normaliser la coexistence avec le virus parce qu'il ne disparaîtra jamais complètement.

«Le petit gars»
Interviews des personnes dans la rue ou sur la route pour démontrer l'effet humain des mesures sanitaires.

La situation n'est pas si grave
La pandémie n'est pas aussi grave que les médias/le gouvernement voudrat nous le faire croire. Si vous regardez les statistiques, nous pouvons voir que les cas sont faibles, donc rien ne justifie les restrictions sanitaires auxquelles nous sommes soumis.

Traumatisme
Cette rhétorique suggère que les niveaux de maltraitance et de traumatisme chez les enfants en raison des mesures de confinement ont considérablement augmenté. Les conséquences des mesures de santé publique sont aussi comparées au traumatisme vécu après une agression sexuelle. The narrative of "Caged and Enraged" expresses frustration at quarantine measures confining individuals to their homes, which are viewed as meaningless at best and tyrannical at worst. In the North African context, this trope might commonly be interpreted particularly through a framework of government manipulation and control. For French audiences, this code would be expected to elicit strong emotion, outrage, and implicitly encourage direct action against the measures.
The second narrative trope, "The National Conspiracy," directly invokes distrust of government by alluding to conspiracies-both specific and vague-surrounding the vaccine and the virus itself. An example of this is the belief that there are microchips in the vaccine, or that the COVID is manmade and either designed to reduce the population or garner income for pharmaceutical companies. These narratives find footing with the rise in conspiratorial thinking in France. In West Africa, narratives fitting this category are frequently linked to fears of revenant French colonialism. In Haiti and The Antilles, where COVID rates were lower during the period of this study, these narratives corresponded with beliefs that government officials were using funds from COVID for personal gain. The North African interpretation focuses on the conspiring between the government and pharmaceutical companies to sell vaccines and control the population.
The concept of pharmaceutical industry power returns again in the narrative of "Medical Dictatorship." Narratives belonging to this category emphasize the power of medical authority and treat safety protocols as an extension of that power and a deprivation of autonomy. Interpretations of this narrative in France draw on cultural memories of past dictatorships and invoke the Nazi occupation as an example. In North Africa, the government and medical community are viewed as working in tandem to impose control; this is comparable to the idea of "medical colonialism" that West African narratives employ.
The fourth common narrative, "Lies and Mistrust," appeals to mistrust in the press and other official sources as well as government leaders in their reporting of and response to COVID. In France, this narrative is seen to fuel a strong pre-existing mistrust of government officials. West Africa's relatively lower infection rate sustained this mistrust, as individuals questioned the accuracy of infection rates. Interpretations of "Lies and Mistrust" in North Africa intersect with the previously mentioned view of the government and medical community colluding in order to encourage vaccination and treatments, which (so the narrative implies) are ineffective.

Rhetorical Strategies
Of the 24 rhetorical strategy codes listed in this final codebook, 14 yielded culturally specific variation. Of these, four key strategies suggested certain cultural distinctions in interpretation (see Table 2, below): (i) "Concern Trolling" (Concern Trolling), (ii) Indignation (Indignation), (iii) Talking Back to Authority (Pointer les autorités du doigt), (iv) Minimizing/Cure is Worse than Disease (Minimisant/le remède est pire que la maladie). The data in which these rhetorical strategies were identified are available upon request to the corresponding author.

Absurdity & Ridicule
The rhetoric that the response to COVID is absurd, and implicitly, that anyone who follows these absurd public health preventative measures is a naive fool. Making fun of people who take coronavirus seriously. Has the effect of impressing that COVID is not something to take seriously. Also ridicules the "absurdity" of COVID regulations or the French government.
West Africa: "The virus doesn't exist in our country. Only white people/Europeans have it in their own country, so why should we worry?" France: French humor is known for being dry and sharp. For example, one cartoon depicts a busker on a Métro car, announcing that he is about to perform a song. The car is packed with masked riders, who edge away horrified, as one passenger calmly explains: "If you turn this car into a theater, we will all be infected!" The serious, calm tone of the cartoon is used to ridicule what it sees as an arbitrary distinction between theater closings and ongoing Métro operation.

ALL CAPS
Poster writers in all capital letters to indicate how dire the situation is and how vehement he is about it. No significant regional/cultural variation in audience reception noted by research team.

Freethinking authority or expert
This suggests that there are some politicians and doctors who also don't agree with the quarantine and mask rules, and that, with enough support from the people, they could make decisions that go against the main authorities.
West Africa: Often using the language of "decolonization," these "freethinkers" are congratulated for rejecting a model apparently copied from the West. France: The French greatly appreciate their freedom and the spirit of free thought, so they respond positively to the fact that these experts are following their own paths.

Rhetorics Be Afraid . . . Be Very Afraid
This code uses images intended to inspire fear or anxiety in its audience. A camera slow pans in to closeups, usually of faces but sometimes of dramatic graphs, needles or other images intended to frighten, which become larger and larger in the frame and also in the imagination of the viewer.
North Africa: This is a denouncement of the negative authority that the State exerts over its people by relying on the fear and terror of this authority. A call to liberty against the public health measures (masks). For example, one meme shows a fit, broad-shouldered and narrow waisted young man in athletic leisure wear, pictured from the back, his hands bound by a surgical mask, evoking handcuffs. This image might remind its audience of the young men who are frequently the targets of government repression in response to political protest as, for example, during Arab Spring protests.

Cinema Verité
Frequent shots of the camera crew as the camera pans back and forth, frequent inclusion of the mic in the shot, and even a "blooper reel" of sorts at the end. Evokes a sense of realism. Footage of either actors playing scientists or actual scientists fussing with petri dishes and syringes, in aseptically clean labs, masked and gloved; sometimes shown while the narrator asks leading questions about what might be going on in the labs. No significant regional/cultural variation in audience reception noted by research team.

Cattle, sheep, guinea pigs, animals
These comparisons either suggest that people are blindly following without thinking for themselves, and so they are easily manipulated, or that people are being experimented upon. The argument that wearing a mask is a kind of literal and figurative muzzle.
West Africa: Africa is not a testing site, and Africans are not guinea pigs. You are perpetuating racist colonial practices. For example, a seemingly "generic" cartoon shows a herd of sheep stampeding off a cliff. Two black sheep cry "Turn back! Something's wrong!" A white sheep, falling off the cliff scoffs, "Another conspiracy theorist!" To a West African audience, this may evoke the dehumanizing ideology of colonization, and Western indifference to regional perspectives. France: The French are proud of their tradition of liberty, such that the insinuation that they are being treated like animals will resonate with them.

Celebration
The use of emojis or language that celebrates resistance to public health measures, and that encourages others to do the same.

Concern Trolling
Rhetoric of concern for frontline workers (esp. healthcare workers) who, it is implied, are being sacrificed to the negative effects of the anti-COVID public health measures, especially the vaccine. The rhetoric of concern for the negative mental health effects of COVID, which are (it is implied) much more deleterious than the disease itself. Rhetoric of concern for elderly people and how public health measures are supposedly harming them. Tinged with reverence and pity in equal measure, intended to make the poster seem sympathetic. Rhetoric of concern for working people who lost their jobs or closed their businesses due to public health measures, framing the poster as someone sympathetic and full of solidarity for the working man. Rhetoric of concern for the effects of public health measures (particularly vaccination) on women. The narrative that any effort to eliminate COVID is somehow taking away from other, more pressing problems (i.e., AIDS, unemployment, education) Implies selflessness, objectivity, and solidarity if the speaker is a man, and solidarity/sisterhood if the speaker is a woman.
West Africa: Our countries and economies are not the same as the West's. We cannot simply work from home or follow the same quarantine procedures. If we close our informal markets where the majority of people work, the population will die of hunger. We need African solutions suited to our ways of life. North Africa: Pessimistic opinion about the state of society during the pandemic.

Fast-motion/Cityscapes/Ant People
Images of crowded cities full of busy people, usually masked, going quickly about their business, sometimes shown using time-lapse camera work. The impression is of the speed and bustle of people going about their lives, unaware of the big conspiracy going on behind closed doors. No significant regional/cultural variation in audience reception noted by research team.

Haven't We Been Through Enough?
The narrative that curfews, job loss, and stay-at-home orders have already ruined the lives of the people, and that it is egregious to ask for them to tolerate them anymore No significant regional/cultural variation in audience reception noted by research team.

High-Tech
Images of glowing matrices that look like the inside of the computer or perhaps a neural network are used to introduce a profile of each new key figure, accompanied by computer-like sound effects; evocative of a "transhuman" future in which we are all part robot. No significant regional/cultural variation in audience reception noted by research team.

Hijacking Familiar Formats
Using familiar formats to convey one's message, putting the audience at ease and priming them to be more receptive to anti-vaccine rhetoric. No significant regional/cultural variation in audience reception noted by research team.

"I'll Just Leave This Here"
Little or no description of the content posted-sometimes just a link-indicating that the information is so obvious that theposter doesn't need to comment on it; the reader can make up his or her own mind about it. Sometimes, this rhetoric poses a supposedly objective, innocent question-just to inform you-with answers intended to lead you to pseudoscientific conclusions. No significant regional/cultural variation in audience reception noted by research team.

Images of coronavirus
Caricatures, cartoons, photos, etc. Personified, realistic, etc. No significant regional/cultural variation in audience reception noted by research team.

Indignation
The code has a tone of indignation at the behavior of pro-vaxxers/maskers, and directly or indirectly encourages the audience to join in this indignation.
North Africa: The impression of humiliation for the people who want to follow public health measures or vaccination. France: The French are very expressive about their feelings and don't hesitate to let others know how they feel about a situation. This code resonates with them and encourages others to express their indignation.

Leading Questions
The rhetoric of asking questions that lead to a predetermined anti-vax answer, intended to frame the poster as calm, objective, and reasonable, and to make the audience think that they have come to their own conclusion by thinking logically and independently. No significant regional/cultural variation in audience reception noted by research team.

Manipulation
This rhetoric victimizes people and suggests that they are susceptible to the manipulation of the authorities, and so it is imperative to read information from critical voices.
West Africa: Not just the masses, but also our leaders are susceptible to the manipulation of France, and we are doing whatever they say without thinking for ourselves.

Minimizing & "Cure is Worse than Disease"
The narrative that the COVID pandemic is not actually as serious as the media is presenting it to be, particularly in comparison to past epidemics (such as AIDS) or crises. Big Pharma, doctors, public health officials, the government, or all of the above, are exaggerating the numbers of cases and/or deaths and exaggerating the severity of the illness to instill fear and control the people. Exaggerating side effects. A way of delegitimizing the actions taken against the pandemic and complaining about the cost of the pandemic.
West Africa: Africans/Black people are resistant to the virus-we're stronger than that, we've survived different viral epidemics before. The virus only kills white people. Africa hasn't been hit as hard as Europe, they're making up the numbers because they're too high. North Africa: All of the players in the pandemic have exaggerated all the statistics they've given out with the goal of throwing people into a panic and thereby controlling them.

Portmanteaus
Creation of new words, usually by joining together some form of "COVID" and an insult, i.e., "covidémence", "couillonavirus" (in English, "COVIDiocy", "moronavirus"); expresses poster's above-it-all derision for the pandemic, and creating clever new lingo invites the reader to be part of the in-group that speaks it. No significant regional/cultural variation in audience reception noted by research team.

Sound the alarm!
This suggests that the message being relayed is important but also one that the authorities don't want us to hear it. An inspirational, often upbeat rhetoric of the "little guys" taking a heroic stand against "The Man" by uniting together.
North Africa: Questioning the real reasons behind the quarantine, suggesting that the real reasons for the quarantine are political and no longer health-related. A meme in the dataset asks "Are we quarantined against the virus? Or against the future revolt of the people?" This again evokes long-running tensions between autocracy and popular resistance in North Africa. France: Any action against authority will be received well by a certain segment of the French population, as opposing authority is part of their traditional values.

Talking Back to Authority
Messages presented as if they were speaking directly to government, health authority, the media, etc. calling out high-profile individuals by name, tagging or hashtagging them in an implied challenge for that individual to respond and defend themselves. This can have a tone of argument or even defiance. Or, messages directly addressed to authorities, tagging them on social media. Calling them out! The challenge for a reply implies that the OP and the singled-out individual are equal opponents. If the individual does not reply, the audience may interpret their silence as cowardice or a failure to come up with a defense for their actions. Often, this directly or indirectly alludes to President Emmanuel Macron, implying that he is to blame for absurd, ineffective, or intrusive measures.
North Africa: They doubt the transparency of the people in charge and think that they are hiding the truth. West Africa: In other words, African leaders = French puppets. France: The French particularly mistrust authority, and public figures are regularly reprimanded and attacked even in normal times.

Unflattering Photo
The poster chooses a particularly unflattering photo of their pro-vax/pro-mask subject in an effort to make the audience instinctively dislike them.
North Africa: Before imposing strict measures on the population, people in charge need to respect the people imposing them. Unflattering photos promote an easy path to disrespect. France: In France, criticizing authority figures by any means necessary has long been a national practice.

Legitimate voice
This suggests that the person or publication sounding the alarm is trustworthy. Often for publications, one doesn't see the contents of the article, just the title.
West Africa: As with "Freethinking Authority or Expert," this employs the language of "decolonization," and these freethinkers are congratulated for rejecting a model apparently copied from the West. The commentator is often an economist/religious figure.

Rhetorics Victimization
The practice of painting oneself as a victim of a State that abuses coronavirus restrictions.
West Africa: Africans are victims of colonialism; they're taking advantage of us, particularly because we're economically/politically vulnerable to the whims of the West. North Africa: Victims have been pushed around, ordered around, and humiliated, and they feel discriminated against Rhétorique Absurdité et ridicule Insinue que la réponse au COVID est absurde, et implicitement, que ceux qui suivent ces mesures sont des imbéciles et sont naïfs. Le code se moque des gens qui prennent au sérieux le coronavirus et a pour effet de suggérer que la COVID n'est pas quelque chose à prendre au sérieux. Ça ridiculise aussi le gouvernement français.

Manipulation
Cette rhétorique fait une victime du peuple et suggère qu'il est susceptible à la manipulation des autorités alors il est indispensable de lire des informations qui viennent de voix critiques.

Sonne l'alerte
Cela suggère que le message relayé est un message important mais un message que les autorités ne veulent pas que nous ayons.

Tout en majuscules
Des affiches écrites en lettres majuscules pour indiquer le grave niveau de la situation et le point auquel le publicateur est concerné.

Voix Légitime
Cela suggère que la position de la personne/publication qui sonne l'alarme est fiable. Souvent, pour les publications on ne voit pas le contenu de l'article, juste le titre. The rhetorical strategy of "Concern Trolling" (same in French) seeks to provoke sympathy for frontline workers and those deemed significantly affected by COVID, whether financially or mentally. However it does so for the specific purpose of denying vaccine efficacy or minimizing the severity of COVID as a public health menace. The rhetoric positions its message in a frame of selflessness, often expressing concern for those with mental or physical problems, unemployment, or depression. It uses this frame of sympathy to argue that these are problems from which COVID elimination efforts are distracting. The understanding of this strategy in West Africa challenges the Western-centered implementation of quarantine procedures that would threaten the informal markets on which many livelihoods are based and calls for regionally tailored solutions. Conversely, North African interpretations elicit an overall pessimism about society during the pandemic.
A second popular rhetoric of "Indignation" conjugates its messages in a register of annoyance and anger toward those who are pro-vaccine or following COVID protocols. This framing encourages its audience to join in ridicule of the pro-vaccine population. Interpreted in North Africa, it warns that those who follow vaccine protocols will face humiliation. In France, this code resonates with longstanding cultural values that embrace vocal expressions of indignation and outrage.
The strategy "Talking Back to Authority "preframes messages as if they were directly addressed to government officials. Messaging deploying this rhetorical strategy demands that authority reply to individual posts, which are often intoned with a sense of concern or defiance. This is seen in posts that tag government officials and seem to actually expect responses; a lack of response can be viewed as silence on the issue or cowardice on the part of the official. In France, public figures are commonly mistrusted and regularly attacked, so this strategy targets pre-existing mistrust. The West African interpretation of "Talking Back to Authority" interpellates African leaders as French puppets. In North Africa, this strategy fuels popular doubt in the authority of leaders.
A fourth popular rhetorical strategy, "Minimizing/Cure is Worse than the Disease" questions the basic legitimacy of the numbers of cases and deaths as well as the effectiveness of the vaccine. The strategy destabilizes belief in doctors and public health officials by implying that the true effects of COVID are less severe than portrayed by the media. It frames its messages around the assumption that the socio-economic costs of public health measures are underreported and underappreciated, and that these costs actually cause more harm and suffering than COVID itself. Particularly in North Africa, this rhetoric accompanies messages arguing that officials wish to generate fear and thus control the population. West African perceptions consider the fact that Africa has faced fewer cases than Europe; this is internalized by audiences as a chronic sense that official case statistics are too high to be credible.

Discussion
This study contributes to a growing body of research on the specific forms of antivaccine and COVID-denialist media. That body of research contributes to broader efforts at combatting mis-, dis-, and malinformation and reducing vaccine hesitancy. Members of the team responsible for this study have deployed similar study designs in the past, including one that developed an anglophone codebook of anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist narratives and rhetoric [89]. That anglophone codebook formed the basis for a series of prophylactic attitudinal inoculation videos against anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist misinformation and disinformation. These messages were demonstrated to have a significant impact in reducing perceived credibility toward the creators of anti-vaccine and COVIDdenialist content [64]. It was found that fact-based inoculation messages performed equally well to narrative/rhetoric-based messages, and equally well to hybrid methods that used both fact and narrative/rhetorical techniques. It seems possible that a similar approach could be pursued to develop francophone public health messages based on persuading audiences away from anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist viewpoints. This codebook is intended to inform public health measures, from messaging campaigns to better moderation of online platforms.

Implications
This is not to say that the codebook offers no applicability on its own merits. It confirms previous studies that describe the spread of misinformation and disinformation across national boundaries via francophone networks. It demonstrates the extreme adaptability of misinformation and disinformation, even relative to changing developments in the legitimate news cycle. One may see how codes such as "The Little Guy" easily adapt to suit shifts in the population most impacted by the economic and social side-effects of necessary public health measures. Likewise, narratives such as "Medical Dictatorship" and rhetorics such as "Talking Back to Authority" are adaptable to alterations in the spokespeople explaining public health needs, or even changes of political administration. Indeed, this study's findings indicate that facts offer limited power to impact the narratives and rhetoric that form the core of anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist mis-and disinformation. The most prevalent narratives and rhetorics are necessarily the most durable-that is, the most adaptable in responding to changing facts "on the ground." Unfortunately, this points to a very real challenge facing the digital media companies tasked with moderating content on their platforms. While factually incorrect information pertaining to the COVID pandemic is fairly easy to identify and remove, these persuasive narratives and rhetorics are not. Many of the most egregious narratives work via innuendo, or are hard to distinguish from hyperbole, which platforms may be reluctant to police. Rhetorics, likewise, operate in the register of emotion and affect, less concerned with rebutting facts than shaping audiences' feelings toward those facts. To the extent that narrative and rhetoric helps to spread anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist attitudes (and that extent seems significant), they are able to spread through digital channels of news and information with only limited impediment.
This suggests a possible shift in the emphasis of news coverage may help society combat the spread of such misinformation. In addition to important updates on the latest scientific news pertaining to the COVID pandemic, mainstream, legacy, government and advocacy-based news and information sources might devote editorial space to showing how purveyors of misinformation and disinformation are adapting to these developments and incorporating them into their predetermined worldview. This is, after all, news itself in the sense of a changing development in the landscape of the pandemic. It would offer a valuable way for audiences to see anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist media's loose and instrumentalized relationship to science, if not truth itself. While codebook-based communication such as this would not be attitudinal inoculation of the type described above, it nevertheless could play an important role in curbing the appeal of anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist propaganda.

Limitations
While this study takes advantage of its coding team's cultural and regional expertise, it was also limited to those regions and cultures. Other francophone regions such as Quebec and Mainland Southeast Asia remained outside the scope of this study due to budgetary and staffing limitations. Unfortunately, it was also not possible to test the pervasiveness of the narratives' and rhetorics' culturally-specific interpretations. An expanded study might have sampled audiences from each of the regions discussed in the codebook to test the precision of the coding team's interpretations and to identify new regionally and culturally specific interpretations. This study was also unable to perform network analysis on the flow of mis-, dis-, and malinformation through francophone social media. As per Bruns and Dotto and Cubbon, the francophone infodemic is neither one-directional nor selfcontained. Anti-vaccine and COVID denialist narratives and codes presumably originate in every region of the French-speaking world and spread to every other region. Likewise, foreign misinformation and disinformation campaigns target francophone social media for a variety of reasons, from misguided to malign. It would likely have proven highly valuable to track the flow of the narratives and rhetorics listed in this study's codebook, to better determine their origin and flows through the network.

Future Research
By pairing a follow-up francophone inoculation messaging study with the anglophone study mentioned before, we might gain greater insight into the need for audience-tailored approaches to public health messaging. Further research could indicate whether public health messages countering anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist media should be tailored for the specific regions in which they are broadcast, or if language alone is sufficient to positively influence audiences. The present study's codebook might be used to further probe the question of fact-based vs. narrative/rhetoric-based efficacy. Given that the narratives and rhetorics identified in this study lead to different interpretations depending on their cultural reception, is it possible that fact-based prophylactic inoculation would yield overall better outcomes across pan-francophonic audiences? Or, would the so-called "blanket of immunity" effect, by which attitudinal inoculation against one manipulative persuasive technique confers resistance against similar techniques, mitigate that difference? Furthermore, research shows that generational cohort plays a role in receptivity to fake news [18]. Research into this dimension of message reception and interpretation might enrich the depth and accuracy of the study. In a situation such as the COVID pandemic, in which large numbers of people must be convinced to take a COVID vaccine, even a slight difference in message efficacy could mean the difference of many lives saved.
More abstractly, future qualitative and theoretical work might move deeper into questions unearthed by Hall's encoding/decoding model of communication. Deeper analysis into the valences of hegemonic, negotiated, and oppositional interpretative positions across French-speaking cultures might yield important insights into preventative or counter-messaging strategies. Receptive differences between audiences in France versus in former French colonies raise tantalizing questions as to the relation between right-wing populism and the postcolony. Anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist audiences in both milieus appear to participate in oppositional decoding processes, and insofar as anti-vaccine and COVID denialism are concerned, reach similar conclusions in that oppositional decoding. Yet this dynamic seems informed by two contradictory ethos: on one hand, the rightpopulism of the colonizer culture appears motivated by a sense of aggrieved entitlement (resistance toward basic public health expectations) while the former colonized culture appears animated with a sense of "corrective paranoia" born of group grievance (against the perception of Western meddling in domestic affairs). This is no doubt a highly complex and fraught question, but the present study indicates that it is one with more than theoretical importance.

Conclusions
This study has identified twenty-five narrative tropes and twenty-four rhetorical strategies commonly found across a wide range of French-language anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist media. Toward the goal of answering its broad research questions, this study found the following: RQ1: What are the most frequent and widely found narratives comprising francophone anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist misinformation and disinformation? RQ2: What are the most frequent and widely found rhetorical strategies found in francophone anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist misinformation and disinformation?
These narratives and rhetorics represent a wide range of manipulative persuasive tactics. Most commonly, they speak to mistrust in government, social, and media authority and a belief that the costs of addressing COVID-19 as a public health matter outweigh the benefits of doing so.
RQ3: How might reception of these narratives and rhetorics vary depending on the region and culture from which their audiences originate?
Regional and culturally specific variations suggest that the breadth of their persuasive efficacy is wide indeed. These basic narratives and rhetorics often take on different meaning depending on the audience receiving them. These differences are most clearly seen in differing attitudes toward liberty and independence, divided between former colonizing and colonized nations/regions. They are also seen in regional and cultural differences relating to social censure, with different emphases placed on the negative experience of humiliation, ridicule, ostracism etc. Many key narratives and rhetorics did not suggest significant variation in cultural/regional reception, suggesting that some "hegemonic" meanings are more robust than others.
These answers raise promising possibilities as to the efficacy of wide-ranging public health messages targeting misinformation and disinformation related to the pandemic. However, it also raises questions as to underlying impetus behind these regional and cultural differences. While this study may facilitate immediate steps toward countering anti-vaccine misinformation and disinformation, it also points to important future research that ought to be undertaken.