COVID-19 and Fake News: Knowledge Assessment and Discrepancy of Social Media Users in the UAE.

Almansoori, Azza; Snoussi, Dr. Thouraya

المجلة الجزائرية للاتصال
Volume 24, Numéro 1, Pages 71-79
2022-06-01

Covid-19 And Fake News: Knowledge Assessment And Discrepancy Of Social Media Users In The Uae.

Authors : Almansoori Azza . Snoussi Dr. Thouraya .

Abstract

Fake news and misinformation are everywhere nowadays, including news sources and social media. During the Covid-19 pandemic, people rely on news, especially news coming to them from social media. The study's objective is to understand why and how people rely on social media sources during the Covid-19 pandemic and what they do with misinformation and fake news related to the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition to that, the study aims to determine the essential issues and items related to Covid-19 among social media users. The study will be relying on several mass communication theoretical concepts, such as agenda-setting theory and uses and gratifications theory. The study’s methods will include a structured online survey distributed among social media users to understand the reasons for their consumption of news on Covid-19 and their level of trust in social media news. Data showed that almost 64% of the respondents get their covid-19 news from social media in a daily basis. While in regards of the perception of participants concerning the fake news circulating in social media about Covid-19 pandemic, results showed that almost half (46%) of the respondents think that information shared about the number of infections and death due to covid-19 sometimes were fake and misinformation. In addition to that, data shows that more than half (87%) of the participants claimed that they check for accuracy before sharing any news on social media.