Digital Mis/Disinformation and Public Engagement with Health and Science Controversies: Fresh Perspectives from Covid-19

Digital media, while opening a vast array of avenues for lay people to effectively engage with news, information and debates about important science and health issues, have become a fertile land for various stakeholders to spread misinformation and disinformation, stimulate uncivil discussions and e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Media and communication (Lisboa) 2020-01, Vol.8 (2), p.323-328
Main Authors: Nguyen, An, Catalan-Matamoros, Daniel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
anti-5g
anti-vaccination
Climate change
Conspiracy theories
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Denialism
Digital media
Disinformation
False information
healh controversies
Health aspects
Immunization
infodemic
Journalists
Lay people
Medical personnel
Misinformation
News
Policy making
Public participation
Science
science controversies
Scientists
Social networks
Vaccination
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Summary:Digital media, while opening a vast array of avenues for lay people to effectively engage with news, information and debates about important science and health issues, have become a fertile land for various stakeholders to spread misinformation and disinformation, stimulate uncivil discussions and engender ill-informed, dangerous public decisions. Recent developments of the Covid-19 infodemic might just be the tipping point of a process that has been long simmering in controversial areas of health and science (e.g., climate-change denial, anti-vaccination, anti-5G, Flat Earth doctrines). We bring together a wide range of fresh data and perspectives from four continents to help media scholars, journalists, science communicators, scientists, health professionals and policy-makers to better undersand these developments and what can be done to mitigate their impacts on public engagement with health and science controversies.
ISSN:2183-2439
2183-2439
DOI:10.17645/mac.v8i2.3352