Coursera as the World Economic Forum’s Ideological (Trans-)State Apparatus towards a Global COVID-19 Vaccination Hegemony

The study looked into the Coursera courses that cover COVID-19, vaccine, and COVID-19 vaccine, and their links to the World Economic Forum (WEF). Guided by Althusser's ‘ideological state apparatus' concept, the study ideated the concept of the ‘ideological trans-state apparatus' operationalized through WEFlinked universities providing ‘COVID-19-', ‘vaccine-', and ‘COVID-19 vaccine'-related content in Coursera (where the WEF is the trans-state entity seeking Gramsci's hegemony towards global mandatory COVID-19 vaccination). The study implemented a combined data mining and case study approach through a review of online literature, using the WEF website, Coursera website, and Google search engines to purposively sample information related to the WEF, its affiliated universities and their top leaders, and supporting data that can assist in the critical data interpretation. The findings suggest that the universities linked to the WEF serve the interest of the WEF and its partners, including the top 10 pharmaceutical companies of 2021 through their Coursera courses. The top-tier universities, mainly from the US and other developed countries, serve to advance structures of support that manufacture consent to WEF interests during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also showed how a seemingly neutral online learning platform could become an instrument for global hegemony toward mandatory COVID-19 vaccination.