İnfodemik Dünya: Sağlık Habercilerinin Pandemi Sürecinde İnfodemiye İlişkin Tespit ve Önerileri

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has created false and misleading information in the media and media platforms, and has once again clearly revealed the need for reliable systems to reach accurate information through social media and mass media. According to the World Health Organization, during Covid-19 uncontrolled, incomplete and incorrect information spread faster than the virus and also has caused psychological panic, misleading medical advice, and a dramatic structural breakdown in social media. Due to the rapid progress of rumors and false information that have nothing to do with reality in the pandemic process, once again revealed the importance of specializing in important fields such as health in journalism and crisis management. In this context, this article offers an evaluation from the perspective of expert health journalists, focusing on the impact of the infodemic on the epidemic process. The problem that makes this study necessary to determine how the media approaches pandemic reporting is how the crisis affecting the whole world has been effective in easing or escalating the problem through the media and how the ethical criteria of health journalism are handled. Within the scope of this study, which was carried out to analyze the information consumption habits and news production processes of the media, senior health journalists working in the national media were interviewed. According to the journalists, “the posts written by physicians who are non-experts on the topic” and “journalists, politicians and phenomena who share the misleading content given by these physicians on their social media accounts” are most effective in the spread of misinformation. Other social media users who share content irresponsibly are also effective in spreading misinformation. The study highlights that science-based and objective journalism is more important than ever in the era of post-truth , and that misinformation and conspiracy theories should be prevented from reaching large segments of society through the media.