Is media being rightly used to disseminate information regarding COVID 19? Justify.
Answers
Answer:
Social media have been providing news from early outbreak zones across the globe, as users widely disseminate stories from foreign news outlets, statements from foreign leaders, and first-hand accounts from residents of affected areas abroad.
Explanation:
as many school districts across the nation close to prevent the spread of COVID-19, social media groups and comments sections are becoming ground zero for intense arguments over whether such measures are warranted. “Classic overreaction,” wrote one Facebook user, remarking on a March 4 decision by Washington State’s Northshore School District to close their facilities for 14 days. Others in the thread of more than 250 comments supported the move, congratulating administrators for their rapid response. Still others brought up practical concerns on many a parent’s mind this week. “This great and all, but I still need to go to work,” wrote one.
Such conversations are just one way that social media is both offering a window into our collective response to the coronavirus outbreak, as well as shaping our reaction in the first place — for good and for ill. As COVID-19 spreads in the U.S., social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which didn’t exist or barely existed during past major outbreaks, are facilitating important conversations about the virus, while at the same time allowing sensationalism and misinformation to spread. Furthermore, the unprecedented level of real-time information at our fingertips can both give us the tools we need to make smart decisions, but also make us more anxious about what’s to come, experts say.
The optimistic view is that social media could prove useful at a time when many of us are otherwise isolated from one another. Conversations around the coronavirus, especially those at the community level, can help us navigate this crisis, says Jeff Hancock, a professor of communication at Stanford University and the director of the Stanford Social Media Lab. Those discussions are “reflecting how society is thinking and reacting to the crisis,” Hancock says. “They’re allowing society to sort of talk its way through what is an unprecedented kind of threat.” Scientists and other public health experts are also using social media to more directly engage with the public or discuss emerging research, while community leaders are using it to form ad-hoc volunteer networks to help vulnerable neighbors.
But for every expert trying to share accurate information or community leader organizing a grocery run, there are thousands of users spreading rumors, sensationalism, and other forms of disinformation. “It pulls everyone out of the woodwork,” says Daniel Rogers, an assistant professor at New York University and co-founder of the nonprofit Global Disinformation Index, which works to counter false information sources on the internet. “Every scam artist, every bunk cure peddler … every conspirator, every internet troll.”
With contradictory information about COVID-19 emerging from the highest levels of government, disinformation experts say it’s more important than ever for those with accurate information to be sure they’re being heard. That’s easier said than done. The algorithms that shape what we see on social media typically promote content that garners the most engagement; posts that draw the most eyeballs get spread farthest. Researchers say that model is partially responsible for the spread of misinformation and sensationalism online, since shocking or emotionally-charged content is especially good at getting people’s attention.
Rogers says that social media platforms have generally taken an aggressive stance toward countering coronavirus misinformation. In part, that’s because moderating such content runs less risk of angering users than acting as referee on more politically sensitive disinformation. But even these efforts are a game of “whack-a-mole,” he says, as misleading content spreads faster than these platforms can fight it. More effective efforts to police false content would require a much greater investment of resources on the part of social media companies.
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