scholarly journals STUDY OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF FAKE NEWS (HOAX) THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA RELATED TO THE COVID-19 VACCINE AND PREVENTION EFFORTS TO SUPPORT MASS EXECUTION VACCINE IN INDONESIA

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (24) ◽  
pp. 18-29
Author(s):  
Gideon Satria Putra Sugiyanto ◽  
Annisa Sabrina Nur Arrasy ◽  
Sweeta Melanie

The COVID-19 pandemic has been going on in Indonesia for more than a year since the beginning of 2020. This pandemic has certainly had many negative impacts, both macro, and micro. The Indonesian government has made a lot of efforts to tackle this pandemic both operationally and in socialization to reduce the further spread of vaccine efforts throughout Indonesia. But unfortunately, there is the challenge of spreading fake news related to the COVID-19 vaccine that is troubling the public. The spread of fake news happened quite quickly with digital communication using social media. Research using qualitative methods examines the condition of socialization communication related to the COVID-19 vaccine, fake news, and efforts to overcome it through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The results of the study show that there has been a lot of communication and socialization carried out by the government regarding the COVID-19 vaccine but it has not been structured in one source and there is still minimal anticipation of fake news. As a result, a lot of fake news has spread widely in the community regarding COVID-19, starting from issues related to health and beyond health or safety. Efforts that can be made to minimize the spread of fake news and its dangers include collaboration with various stakeholders, mass and periodic socialization and education on various social media channels, strict penalties for spreading fake news, providing social media platforms or channels to file complaints, create educational content and creative counter-narrative.

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-289
Author(s):  
Dedeh Fardiah ◽  
Rini Rinawati ◽  
Ferry Darmawan ◽  
Rifqi Abdul ◽  
Kurnia Lucky

Information technology nowadays results in spreading information rapidly. Everyone can easily produce information quickly through several social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or mobile phone messages, such as WhatsApp, Telegram, etc. It is alarming if the information conveyed is inaccurate such as a hoax with a highly provocative title, leading the reader and recipient to obtain a negative opinion. For fighting hoaxes and preventing their negative impacts, the government has adequate legal protection named ITE Law. Apart from the legal product, the government also forms the National Cyber Institution. For example, in West Java, the government has formed West Java Clean Sweep Team (Saber) for Hoaxes, in charge of verifying information distribution in public. The team is built as proactive efforts of the West Java Provincial Government to secure the residents of West Java from disseminating fake news. This article examines how the West Java Saber Hoaxes Team carried out a strategy to minimize the dissemination of fake news (hoaxes) on social media. The research used descriptive studies through in-depth interviews on West Java Saber Hoaxes Team. The result of the research showed that strategies conducted by this team are monitoring, receiving complaints, and educating the public.


Author(s):  
Max Z. Li ◽  
Megan S. Ryerson

Community outreach and engagement efforts are critical to an airport’s role as an ever-evolving transportation infrastructure and regional economic driver. As online social media platforms continue to grow in both popularity and influence, a new engagement channel between airports and the public is emerging. However, the motivations behind and effectiveness of these social media channels remain unclear. In this work, we address this knowledge gap by better understanding the advantages, impact, and best practices of this newly emerging engagement channel available to airports. Focusing specifically on airport YouTube channels, we first document quantitative viewership metrics, and examine common content characteristics within airport YouTube videos. We then conduct interviews and site visits with relevant airport stakeholders to identify the motivations and workflow behind these videos. Finally, we facilitate sample focus groups designed to survey public perceptions of the effectiveness and value of these videos. From our four project phases, to maximize content effectiveness and community engagement potential, we synthesize the following framework of action items, recommendations, and best practices: (C) Consistency and community; (O) Organizational structure; (M) Momentum; (B) Branding and buy-in; (A) Activity; (T) Two-way engagement; (E) Enthusiasm; and (D) Depth, or as a convenient initialism, our COMBATED framework.


2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
xiaoling Hao ◽  
Daqing Zheng ◽  
Qingfeng Zeng ◽  
Weiguo Fan

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how to use social media in e-government to strengthen interactivity between government and the general public. Design/methodology/approach – Categorizing the determinants to interactivity covering depth and breadth into two aspects that are the structural features and the content features, this study employs general linear model and ANOVA method to analyse 14,910 posts belonged to the top list of the 96 most popular government accounts of Sina, one of the largest social media platforms in China. Findings – The main findings of the research are that both variables of the ratio of multimedia elements, and the ratio of external links have positive effects on the breadth of interactivity, while the ratio of multimedia features, and the ratio of originality have significant effects on the depth of interactivity. Originality/value – The contributions are as follows. First, the authors analyse the properties and the topics of government posts to draw a rich picture of how local governments use the micro-blog as a communications channel to interact with the public. Second, the authors conceptualize the government online interactivity in terms of the breadth and depth. Third, the authors identify factors that will enhance the interactivity from two aspects: structural features and content features. Lastly, the authors offer suggestions to local governments on how to strengthen the e-government interactivity in social media.


Author(s):  
Isa Inuwa-Dutse

Conventional preventive measures during pandemics include social distancing and lockdown. Such measures in the time of social media brought about a new set of challenges – vulnerability to the toxic impact of online misinformation is high. A case in point is COVID-19. As the virus propagates, so does the associated misinformation and fake news about it leading to an infodemic. Since the outbreak, there has been a surge of studies investigating various aspects of the pandemic. Of interest to this chapter are studies centering on datasets from online social media platforms where the bulk of the public discourse happens. The main goal is to support the fight against negative infodemic by (1) contributing a diverse set of curated relevant datasets; (2) offering relevant areas to study using the datasets; and (3) demonstrating how relevant datasets, strategies, and state-of-the-art IT tools can be leveraged in managing the pandemic.


2020 ◽  
Vol V (II) ◽  
pp. 50-58
Author(s):  
Muhammad Shahid ◽  
Muhammad Ibrahim ◽  
Ibrar Ullah

This research focuses on fake news and how journalists understand and counter fake news. The researchers used purposive sampling and collected data through in-depth interviews. Members of Mardan and Nowshera press clubs were interviewed regarding how they counter fake news. All the respondents agreed that fake news must be discouraged and that not only the media persons but the government should also take action against media organizations that publish or onair fake news. Most of them said that social media is the main source of fake news and that there should be some kind of regulations on social media to discourage fake news. Some called for training for journalists on how to counter fake news.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 208-220 ◽  

Fake news is not a new phenomenon. With the mushrooming of smartphone users and the easy access to the internet, fake news is spreading at very high speed from people to people. Why do people flagrantly believe fake news? Why don‟t people fact-check before sharing information with others? etc., are still some of the questions unanswered. The panic created by fake news during the time of the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak is also not less. Hence, this study aims to focus on understanding people‟s perspectives on controlling the spread of fake news on social media. The respective study is based on quantitative data analysis of the responses of 300 social media users across India, collected online in April 2020 during a nationwide lockdown. The study arrived at a conclusion stating that self-regulation may not deliver a proper effect on controlling the spread of fake news. But, organising effective campaigns to build social media literacy can be one of the potential measures that can be implemented in order to control the spread of fake news over social media platforms. The respondents of the study also agree to bring-in a national policy and a national regulatory body control the spread of fake news over social media platforms. Hence, this particular study can support the Government of India to make decisions to roll out regulatory measures to control the spread of fake news through social media, which is still on the red tape.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 111
Author(s):  
Isyaku Hassan ◽  
Mohd Nazri Latiff Azmi ◽  
Akibu Mahmoud Abdullahi

The phenomenon of fake news has become a much contentious issue recently. The controversy regarding this issue has further been intensified by the openness of social media platforms. Via a systematic review, this paper offers a discussion on the spread and detection techniques of fake news on Social Networking Sites (SNSs). A total of 47 articles eventually fulfilled the inclusion criteria and were coded for the literature synthesis. The overall findings from the literature on fake news and social media have been extracted and synthesized to explore the creation, influence and popular techniques and dimensions used for fake news detection on SNSs. The results showed that various entities are involved in the creation and spread of fake news on SNSs, including malicious social and software agents. It was also found that early registered users, old people, female users, delusion-prone persons, dogmatic persons, and religious fundamentalists are more likely to believe in fake news than other groups of individuals. One of the major problems of the existing techniques is their deficiency in datasets. Therefore, future studies on fake news detection should focus on developing an all-inclusive model with comprehensive datasets. Social media users require fake news detection skills especially using linguistic approach. This study provides the public with valuable information about the spread and detection of fake news on SNSs. This is because SNSs are an important avenue for fake news providers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 495-507
Author(s):  
Astha Kumari

It has been observed that social media platforms have had both a positive and negative effect on how India has dealt with the COVID 19 pandemic. As the coronavirus took over the world, many took to social media to learn about how the virus spreads and what it is. Although this helped inform everyone on how to take precautions against this deadly virus, a lot of the information that users were reading was not verified or fact-checked and labeled as "fake news". In the modern world, information is spread very quickly through a variety of social media platforms. Because of this, there was widespread panic even before the COVID-19 virus had even reached India. Many citizens bought an excessive surplus of supplies such as masks, hand sanitizers, and food, which ultimately led to a shortage of these supplies for the 1.3 billion people in this country. The shortage of supplies along with the lockdown process which severely impacted the economy has led to an increase in price to the majority of essential products such as food, hand sanitizers, masks, etc. The most affected were the average day workers. Social media has caused widespread panic and hogging of essential supplies along with false facts of the virus itself, however, there are some things that we have benefited from due to social media. For example, social media has shown us the importance of social distancing and activities that we can do to keep our mental health in check while under lockdown. In short, I believe social media should be regulated and kept under watch by the government in certain aspects when it comes to spreading information about pandemics like covid19. If regulated properly we can avoid mass panic and anarchy and will be able to survive this pandemic as one.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 123-134
Author(s):  
Hanane Aboulghazi

COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by a massive ‘infodemic’ and an over-abundance of disinformation that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it. Young Moroccan internet users resort to social media for their news, and easily fall prey to the misinformation and fake news they encounter online. When it concerns public health, disinformation can turn into a lethal weapon. This is further exacerbated at the time of COVID-19 pandemic. To tackle this, the present research paper answers the research questions using a qualitative method, particularly semi-structured interviews preferable  in exploratory  research where the purpose is to gain an understanding of spreading online misinformation in the age of COVID-19. Semi-structured Interviews are conducted via “Google Meet” and “Zoom” using video-conferencing among 12 young Moroccan social media activists and professionals. The main research findings have shown that young Moroccan social media users have been consuming fake news about the Coronavirus, which has been especially prevalent on the most popular platforms, Facebook, Whats App and YouTube. Other results have shown that the mainstream media failed to debunk misinformation by subjecting them to rigorous fact checking experiments, lack of Media Information Literacy research in the form of crisis audits and crisis planning, Moroccan social media are ill prepared for crisis manual and conducting crisis training. These ensure that media regulators are not better equipped to handle any  misinformation in health crisis situations. Therefore, media literacy is not only about how to use the computer and do an internet search, it also involves helping young Moroccan people to deal with disinformation in crisis situations, and realize that anyone anywhere can put up a very official-looking websites. These websites masquerade as high-credibility sources that have been spreading misinformation about COVID-19. Therefore, the government needs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-64
Author(s):  
Seifu Mutuma

Purpose: Globally, effective political engagement requires candid communication between the government and its citizens. More so, citizens have the right to express how they need to be governed. On government’s part, the need to develop trust among the public should be paramount. Government should always inform citizens what it is continually doing. Furthermore, public domains ought to reflect integrity and transparency. Such is achievable through communication on many of its activities. In the recent past, government utilized traditional media to convey information to the public. Popular avenues used included television, newspapers and radio. The general objective of the study was to establish the role of social media on community mobilization Methodology: The paper used a desk study review methodology where relevant empirical literature was reviewed to identify main themes and to extract knowledge gaps. Findings: The study found out that the adoption of social media as a means of communication between the government official’s community members has an enormous impact on community mobilization for security matters and other issues. Social media platforms have enabled quick sharing of information on Barraza. The social media platforms enable this community mobilization in a cost-efficient manner Although social media use offers enormous value in public relations, there is little evidence that social networking sites are used to inform and involve governmental public opinion agencies such as the public sector. Recommendations: The study recommends that public administrators to embrace social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp due to their responsiveness and lower costs in interacting with the public administrators and amongst themselves. The respective government agencies should create awareness among the public on the importance of using digital platforms to pass or receive information on security issues


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