COVID-19 Infodemic: A study on the Fragile Five countries

IF 2.7 Q2 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Journal of Public Affairs Pub Date : 2022-11-30 DOI:10.1002/pa.2846

Merve Boyacı Yıldırım

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引用次数: 1

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many rumors and conspiracy theories spread in various media outlets. The purpose of this study is to reveal the nature of the misinformation detected by fact check platforms that spread in the Fragile Five countries. To determine the themes of misinformation about COVID-19 and from which media it is disseminated are a possible way to prevent it. The data of the study were obtained from International Fact-checking Network's CoronaVirusFacts database. One thousand seven hundred thirty-four piece of misinformation collected by web scraping method during the period January 24, 2020 to November 14, 2020 and analyzed with MAXQDA Analytics Pro 2020. As a result of the research, it was found that rumors (96.3%) spread more in the Fragile Five countries than conspiracy theories (3.7%). While the main theme of the rumors is about illness (26.9%) and diagnosis-treatment (25%), conspiracy theories are mostly related to the cause of the disease (68.8%). 53.06% of misinformation was spread through the Facebook platform. 15.32% on Twitter; 13.34% on WhatsApp. Misinformation has been heavily false (85.12%) in both rumor and conspiracy theories. In the second place, misleading (10.09%) news spread.

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COVID-19信息大流行:脆弱五国研究

在新冠肺炎疫情期间，各种媒体上散布着许多谣言和阴谋论。本研究的目的是揭示在脆弱五国传播的事实核查平台检测到的错误信息的性质。确定关于COVID-19的错误信息的主题以及传播这些信息的媒体是预防错误信息的一种可能方法。该研究的数据来自国际事实核查网络的CoronaVirusFacts数据库。在2020年1月24日至2020年11月14日期间，通过网络抓取方法收集了一千七百三十四条错误信息，并使用MAXQDA Analytics Pro 2020进行分析。研究结果显示，在“脆弱五国”中，谣言(96.3%)比阴谋论(3.7%)传播得更多。虽然谣言的主题是疾病(26.9%)和诊断治疗(25%)，但阴谋论大多与疾病的原因有关(68.8%)。53.06%的错误信息是通过Facebook平台传播的。15.32%的用户使用Twitter;13.34%在WhatsApp上。在谣言和阴谋论中，错误信息都是严重错误的(85.12%)。其次，误导性新闻传播(10.09%)。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Public Affairs PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION-

CiteScore

7.10

自引率

3.80%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Journal of Public Affairs provides an international forum for refereed papers, case studies and reviews on the latest developments, practice and thinking in government relations, public affairs, and political marketing. The Journal is guided by the twin objectives of publishing submissions of the utmost relevance to the day-to-day practice of communication specialists, and promoting the highest standards of intellectual rigour.