by Fatih Yilmaz, Annalotta Järvinen, Mert Serhan Arslan, Iqbal Alibhai
- We Have Heard of a Pandemic, but What is an Infodemic?
“Infodemic”, as a term, started to circulate with the spread of Covid-19, although it was first used by David J. Rothkopf in 2003 during the SARS outbreak[5] to describe the negative and chaotic effect of spreading fake news via the media on the SARS crisis overall. “Infodemic” was widely used during Covid-19 pandemic in the early 2020, even by WHO[6] and the UN[7]. By definition, the term “infodemic” means “a situation in which a lot of false information is being spread in a way that is harmful.[8]”
False information is information in the form of content, whether digital or otherwise, that is false. Either the facts are misconstrued, misunderstood, or outright fabricated.
Related terms are defined below.
- Fake news[9] - "purposefully crafted, sensational, emotionally charged, misleading or totally fabricated information that mimics the form of mainstream news".
- Misinformation[10] - false information unintentionally or unknowingly disseminated.
- Disinformation[11] - false information intentionally disseminated with the intent to deceive, discredit, or harm.
Mis- and disinformation are distinct forms of false information, however, due to the realities of how we perceive information, it might be difficult to immediately distinguish between the two when presented with examples in the real world. Even an increase in the circulation of information, which is crucial to ensuring the right to information, may also cause the spread of an infodemic.
Although the term rose in popularity during the pandemic due to the high number of mis- and disinformation about the vaccination and the number of cases, an infodemic is seen as a larger concept and cannot be limited to the field of health. All possible fields from politics and society to culture etc., can be affected.
During the U.S. elections, Wardle claimed that there were seven types of mis- and disinformation: satire and parody, false connection, misleading content, false context, imposter content, manipulated content and fabricated content (see figure 1).[12] These archetypes can be applied to any field.