Free Essay. The Dissemination of Information During Covid-19 Crisis and Policy

COVID-19, also known as the Coronavirus, is a health crisis. Today, the disease has spread in all countries outside of China. On March 11th, 2020, Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, declared COVID -19 a global pandemic (Cucinotta & Vanelli, 2020). Scientists have been unable to develop a vaccine for the virus. Due to that, countries have been unable to control its spread because of the high infection rates and scalability. Nevertheless, while the disease continues to spread, the dissemination of information through media outlets and social media have been worrisome. The media, for example, has been termed as biased when spreading information on the pandemic. Due to that, citizens have been unable to draw the line between facts and fiction because there has been speculative news all the time. Additionally, various governments have responded to different policy issues surrounding the dissemination of information during the pandemic. All the aspects of information spread and policy dimensions surrounding COVID-19 will be discussed in the paper. As scientists continue to work towards finding a vaccine for COVID-19, the government should introduce stricter policies of spreading non-empirical and evidence-based information about the pandemic across media outlets and social media.

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The U.S and other countries have different strategies for handling information about COVID-19. Hali and Li (2020) indicated that since the outbreak of the pandemic, news outlets are reporting the latest news of the virus every time. According to the authors, some broadcasts such as live sports have been postponed to provide timely information about the health crisis. Furthermore, Skopeliti and John (2020) affirmed that across the world, social media platforms are working to combat misinformation by introducing software solutions that address the crisis. Despite the strategies of handling information, the media can be seen as biased when handling information on the virus. The style of reporting by the media is what is causing bias. Al-Burai (2020) stated that media outlets such as BBC, The New York Times, and CNN, for example, have previously used images of Turkey in their publishing of Coronavirus. Undoubtedly, fake news is overwhelming on media outlets. The fake news calls the need for stricter policies on communication and information dissemination.

The media is affecting the health and wellbeing of the public by spreading incomplete and inaccurate information about the pandemic. In Africa, for example, a study by GeoPoll in countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya revealed that 94% of the populations are aware of the virus through media coverage (Elliot, 2020). Additionally, GeoPoll found that despite the coverage, social media is the most common form of information and most of the people in the countries refer to the information as “somewhat truthful” (Elliot, 2020). Also, Americans are battling the issue of misinformation. A report by Pazzanese (2020) established the spread of COVID-19 information via social media is creating falsehoods, which make people unable to differentiate between fact from fiction. Furthermore, in America, mainstream media has added to the problem as news reporters with no medical training have been tasked with reporting the pandemic (Pazzanese, 2020). Seemingly, information redundancy is common in the countries mentioned and all over the world. To keep the citizens safe and avoid panic, the media should be proactive in ensuring people deliver the right type of information.

Policy administrators have a huge role to play in controlling the way information about the pandemic is spread to protect the health and safety of the citizens. The United Nations Division for Public Institutions and Digital Government (2020) indicated that there is a need for developing digital government strategies that strengthen policy and enhance government accountability. When the media gives inaccurate information about the pandemic, citizens will not know what to believe and begin shifting blames to the government. Due to that, stricter policies regarding information and communication are needed to enhance accountability.

Overall, there is no doubt that the dissemination of false information and policy issues is the central problem surrounding COVID-19. Inaccurate information is putting the lives of people at risk because they do not know what to believe. The government needs to protect its citizens by creating policies that would prevent media outlets from spreading false information and preserve the health and safety of people during the pandemic.

References

Al-Burai, A. (2020, March 17th). Media bias is politicizing the coronavirus pandemic

coverage. Middle East Monitor. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200317-media-bias-is-politicising-the-coronavirus-pandemic-coverage/Cucinotta, D., & Vanelli, M. (2020). WHO Declares COVID-19 a Pandemic. Acta bio

medica: Atenei Parmensis, 91(1), 157–160. https://doi.org/10.23750/abm.v91i1.9397Elliot, R. (2020, March 26th). Information dissemination in a health crisis. GeoPoll.

https://www.geopoll.com/blog/information-dissemination-health-crisis/Hali, S., & Li, C. (2020). COVID-19 proves that media’s value is growing – but we need to

find better ways to measure it. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/covid-19-media-value/Pazzanese, C. (2020, May 8th). Battling the ‘pandemic of misinformation.’ The Harvard

Gazette. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/social-media-used-to-spread-create-covid-19-falsehoods/Skopeliti, C., & John, B. (2020, March 19th). Coronavirus: How are the social media

platforms responding to the ‘infodemic’? First Draft. https://firstdraftnews.org/latest/how-social-media-platforms-are-responding-to-the-coronavirus-infodemic/The United Nations Division for Public Institutions and Digital Government. (2020).

UN/DESA Policy Brief #61: COVID-19: Embracing digital government during the pandemic and beyond. United Nations. https://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/publication/un-desa-policy-brief-61-covid-19-embracing-digital-government-during-the-pandemic-and-beyond/