SOCIAL MEDIA AND COVID-19 CONSPIRACY THEORIES’ AMPLIFICATION OF MISLEADING INFORMATION B
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Date
2022
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Evans Brothers (Nigeria Publishers) Limited
Abstract
The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has attracted academic discourse in different respects.
These studies range from role of social media in information dissemination to effects of COVID 19 outbreak on society. Despite attempts made to investigate the emerging conspiracy theories in
relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, rarely does literature underscores how social media serve as
platform to amplify COVID-19-related conspiracy theories that find social media as platform to
viralise the misleading information embedded in the theories. Premised on this, this study was
carried out to articulate the place of the conspiracy theories as misleading information pertaining
to COVID-19 pandemic on social media platforms. Anchored on public sphere theory, the study
argues that misleading information on social media as encapsulated in the theories have negative
consequences including non-adherence to scientific measures to address the menace of COVID 19, stereotype of groups or countries, and erosion of trust and confidence in governments and
other agencies, and spiraling infections and deaths mainly due to media illiteracy. The study
recommends among other things the need for people to discountenance misleading information
through media literacy as well as strictly adhere to non-pharmaceutical and scientific measures
meant to reduce the rate of infections and deaths worldwide. It also recommends that developers
of social media platforms should strengthen effort in deploying fact-checkers to dispel
misleading information and make available and easily visible authoritative COVID-19- related
content.
Description
Keywords
anti-vaxxers, coronavirus, misinformation/disinformation, public sphere, social media