Communication in the Time of Uncertainty and Misinformation

IF 1.5 Q2 COMMUNICATION

Journal of Creative Communications Pub Date : 2023-07-01 DOI:10.1177/09732586231173129

Yangsun Hong, Rajat Roy

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic presents many challenges for public communication, including widespread misinformation and political polarisation of SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 vaccine. However, public communication has played a vital role in addressing the challenges (Mani et al., In press; Paek & Hove, 2021; Torres et al., 2021). Since the health emergency was declared, fake news, conspiracy theories and misleading information have been broadly circulated. In the current digital environment, misinformation spreads quickly and widely at unprecedented levels. COVID-19 misinformation has caused mistrust in governmental and health authorities, resulting in undesirable health outcomes such as rejection of preventive measures and vaccine hesitancy. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN) have declared the widespread dissemination of COVID-19 misinformation an ‘infodemic’. This is not a new phenomenon; Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, misinformation about health, risk, science and environmental issues persisted in mediated and interpersonal communication channels. The current special issue provides insights into the phenomenon of misinformation based on evidence from around the world and discusses potential communication strategies to reduce the spread of misinformation and to combat its effects. The first article, titled ‘COVID-19: Examining the Roles of Traditional and Social Media Attention in the Amplification of Risk’ by Kinnally, examines attention to media channels as a source of COVID-19 news and perceived risk of COVID-19 in the United States. Using a nationally representative sample, the study finds that attention to traditional news media was positively associated with perceived risk, while attention to social media as a news source was not associated with risk perception. The study demonstrates that the relationship between attention to social media for COVID-19 information and perceived risk was contingent on one’s political party affiliation, which presents implications regarding political polarisation of COVID-19 information and social media misinformation. Potential communication research avenues around misinformation are offered in the article titled ‘Bibliometric

查看原文本刊更多论文

不确定和错误信息时代的沟通

新冠肺炎大流行给公共传播带来了许多挑战，包括广泛的错误信息和严重急性呼吸系统综合征冠状病毒2型和新冠肺炎疫苗的政治两极分化。然而，公共沟通在应对挑战方面发挥了至关重要的作用（Mani等人，出版中；Paek和Hove，2021；Torres等人，2021）。自宣布卫生紧急状态以来，假新闻、阴谋论和误导性信息广为流传。在当前的数字环境中，错误信息以前所未有的水平迅速而广泛地传播。新冠肺炎错误信息导致了对政府和卫生当局的不信任，导致了不良的健康结果，如拒绝预防措施和疫苗犹豫。世界卫生组织（世界卫生组织）和联合国（UN）宣布，新冠肺炎错误信息的广泛传播是一种“信息传播”。这不是一个新现象；甚至在新冠肺炎大流行之前，关于健康、风险、科学和环境问题的错误信息就一直存在于调解和人际沟通渠道中。本期特刊根据世界各地的证据深入了解了错误信息现象，并讨论了减少错误信息传播和消除其影响的潜在沟通策略。Kinnally的第一篇文章题为《新冠肺炎：审视传统和社交媒体关注在风险放大中的作用》，探讨了媒体渠道作为新冠肺炎新闻来源的关注以及美国新冠肺炎的感知风险。使用具有全国代表性的样本，该研究发现，对传统新闻媒体的关注与感知风险呈正相关，而对社交媒体作为新闻来源的关注与风险感知无关。研究表明，对社交媒体新冠肺炎信息的关注与感知风险之间的关系取决于一个人的政党归属，这对新冠肺炎信息和社交媒体错误信息的政治两极分化产生了影响。这篇题为“文献计量学”的文章提供了围绕错误信息的潜在传播研究途径

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来源期刊

Journal of Creative Communications COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

2.70

自引率

26.70%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Journal of Creative Communications promotes inquiry into contemporary communication issues within wider social, economic, marketing, cultural, technological and management contexts, and provides a forum for the discussion of theoretical and practical insights emerging from such inquiry. The journal encourages a new language of analysis for contemporary communications research and publishes articles dealing with innovative and alternate ways of doing research that push the frontiers of conceptual dialogue in communication theory and practice. The journal engages with a wide range of issues and themes in the areas of cultural studies, digital media, media studies, technoculture, marketing communication, organizational communication, communication management, mass and new media, and development communication, among others. JOCC is a double blind peer reviewed journal.