Abstract
This chapter explores the concept of infodemic, which appeared following the overabundance of information linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. The overabundance of information circulating in the media ecosystem has two main consequences: on the one hand, the selection of relevant information is problematic and therefore it is made complex for public opinion to find the right answers to its questions; on the other, the amount of information that is produced, together with its rapid circulation makes it more complex to distinguish between reliable and unreliable sources, producing the risk of informations “pollution” and increasing the risk of coming across false or misleading information.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Arceneaux, K., & Johnson, M. (2013). Changing minds or changing channels?: Partisan news in an age of choice. University of Chicago Press.
Beam, M. A. (2014). Automating the news: How personalized news recommender system design choices impact news reception. Communication Research, 41(8), 1019–1041.
Bennett, W. L., & Iyengar, S. (2008). A new era of minimal effects? The changing foundations of political communication. Journal of Communication, 58(4), 707–731.
Boccia Artieri, G., Brilli, S., & Zurovac, E. (2021). Below the radar: Private groups, locked platforms, and ephemeral content—Introduction to the special issue. Social Media+ Society, 7(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305121988930.
Bradley, W., Sparks, L., & O’Hair, D. (2013). Health communication in 21st century. Wiley.
Brenan, M. (2020). Americans remain distrustful of mass media. News Gallup. https://news.gallup.com/poll/321116/americans-remain-distrustful-massmedia.aspx
Brennen, J. S., Simon, F. M., Howard, P. N., & Nielsen, R. K. (2020). Types, sources, and claims of COVID-19 misinformation. Doctoral dissertation, University of Oxford.
Chadwick, A. (2013). The hybrid media system: Power and politics. Oxford University Press.
Cohen, E. (2010). The empowered patient: How to get the right diagnosis, buy the cheapest drugs, beat your insurance company, and get the best medical care every time. Ballantine Trade Paperback Original.
Colombo, F. (2022). An ecological approach: The infodemic, pandemic, and COVID-19. In K. Kopecka-Piech & B. Łódzki (Eds.), The Covid-19 pandemic as a challenge for media and communication studies (pp. 35–48). London.
Doctorow, C. (2017). Three kinds of propaganda, and what to do about them. https://boingboing.net/2017/02/25/counternarratives-not-fact-che.html
Ferguson, T. (2007). e-Patients: How they can help us heal healthcare. White Paper. San Francisco, Society of Participatory Medicine. https://whatsthefix.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/e-Patient-White-Paper-with-2013-Afterword-SPM-logo.pdf.
Fletcher, R., & Park, S. (2017). The impact of trust in the news media on online news consumption and participation. Digital Journalism, 5(10), 1–19.
Freelon, D., & Wells, C. (2020). Disinformation as political communication. Political Communication, 37(2), 145–156.
Giglietto, F., Righetti, N., Rossi, L., & Marino, G. (2020). It takes a village to manipulate the media: Coordinated link sharing behavior during 2018 and 2019 Italian elections. Information, Communication & Society, 23(6), 867–891.
Himelein-Wachowiak, M., Giorgi, S., Devoto, A., Rahman, M., Ungar, L., Schwartz, H. A., Epstein, D. H., Leggio, L., & Curtis, B. (2021). Bots and misinformation spread on social media: Implications for COVID-19. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 23(5), e26933. https://doi.org/10.2196/26933
Hodgetts, D., Chamberlain, K., Schammell, M., Karapu, R., & Waimarie Nicora, L. (2008). Constructing health news: Possibilities for a civic-oriented journalism. Health, 12(1), 43–66.
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture. New York Press.
Johnson, N. F., Velásquez, N., Restrepo, N. J., Leahy, R., Gabriel, N., El Oud, S., Zheng, M., Manrique, P., Wuchty, S., & Lupu, Y. (2020). The online competition between pro-and anti-vaccination views. Nature, 582(7811), 230–233. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2281-1
Lee, K., Hoti, K., Hughes, J. D., & Emmerton, L. M. (2015). Consumer use of “Dr Google”: A survey on health information-seeking behaviors and navigational needs. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 17(12), e4345.
Lupton, D. (2016). Toward critical digital health studies: Reflections on two decades of research in health and the way forward. Health, 20(1), 49–61.
Maddalena, G., & Gili, G. (2020). The history and theory of post-truth communication. Springer.
Maksimainen, H. (2017). Improving the quality of health journalism: When reliability meets engagement. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2017-09/Maksimainen%2C Improving the Quality of Health Journalism_0.pdf.
Malone, R., Boyd, E., & Bero, L. (2000). Science in the news: Journalists’ constructions of passive smoking as a social problem. Social Studies of Science, 30(5), 713–734.
Menczer, F., & Hills, T. (2020). Information overload helps fake news spread, and Social Media Knows It. Scientific American, 323(6), 54–61.
Merton, R. K. (1996). On social structure and science. University of Chicago Press.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. (2017). Communicating science effectively: A research agenda (study report). National Academic Press.
OECD. (2020). Combatting COVID-19 disinformation on online platforms. OECD Policy Responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19). OECD Publishing, Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/d854ec48-en.
Papacharissi, Z. (2015). Affective publics. Sentiment, technology, and politics. Oxford University Press.
Phillips, W., & Milner, R. M. (2017). The ambivalent internet: Mischief, oddity, and antagonism online. Polity.
Prior, M. (2005). News vs. entertainment: How increasing media choice widens gaps in political knowledge and turnout. American Journal of Political Science, 49(3), 577–592.
Rothkopf, D. J. (2003). When the buzz bites back. Washington Post, May 11. Retrieved https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/05/11/when-the-buzz-bites-back/bc8cd84f-cab6-4648-bf58-0277261af6cd/
Sacco, P. L., Gallotti, R., Pilati, F., Castaldo, N., & De Domenico, M. (2021). Emergence of knowledge communities and information centralization during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social Science & Medicine, 285(114215), 1–10.
Shelton, T. (2020). A post-truth pandemic? Big Data & Society, 7(2), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951720965612
Shoemaker, P. J., & Vos, T. (2009). Gatekeeping theory. Routledge.
Walsh-Childers, K. (2016). Mass media and health: Examining media impact on individuals and the health environment. Routledge.
Wardle, C., & Derakhshan, H. (2017). Information disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making. Council of Europe Report, 27, 1–107.
World Health Organisation. (2020). Situation Report n. 45. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200305-sitrep-45-Covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=ed2ba78b_4.
Zarocostas, J. (2020). How to fight an infodemic. Lancet, 395, 676.
Zuiderveen Borghesius, F., Trilling, D., Moeller, J., Bodó, B., de Vreese, C. H., & Helberger, N. (2016). Should we worry about filter bubbles? Internet Policy Review, 5(1), 1–16.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Boccia Artieri, G. (2023). Infodemic Disorder: Covid-19 and Post-truth. In: La Rocca, G., Carignan, ME., Boccia Artieri, G. (eds) Infodemic Disorder. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13698-6_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13698-6_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-13697-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-13698-6
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)