Combating the corona virus infodemics

By Olufemi Orunsola

When the Director-General of the World Health Organization(WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus recently submitted at the Munich Security Conference in the wake of declaring the Corona  virus a global pandemic that; “…we ‘re not just fighting an epidemic, we ‘re fighting an infodemic”, he did not just rightly captured the current trend of phenomenal misinformation, he has aptly put the phenomenon in a proper global context capable of spurring the whole wide world to a prompt line of  combat actions.

Little wonder therefore that human lexicon has promptly stretched to accommodate the new word “infodemic” which means, the dissemination of “an  excessive amount of information concerning a problem such that the solution is made more difficult.” (Wiktionary,2020)

According to WHO, the term infodemic refers to (mostly false) information about the COVID-19 outbreak.

If there is ever a time therefore for media practitioners both conventional and new media as well as researchers in the  academia alike to uphold the Developmental Communication (DEVCOM) ideals of the fourth estate of government across the world, the time is now, to collectively combat the COVID-19 pandemic through proper information dissemination, information  management mechanisms, machinery as well as technology.

In today’s world where  the generality of people have evolved as infoholics(people who are naturally addicted to getting more information on a  constant basis, especially through the internet, the media should not be found guilty of the act or practice of presenting a plethora of indigestible or incomprehensible amount of information to the people.

Unfortunately, the new information order across the world is such that the information superhighway is prone to all manners of information manipulations, misinformation and disinformation via the internet and the social media platforms.

As world economies shrink and shiver in response to the vibrations and multiplier effects of the COVID-19 pandemic while entire continents and countries to go tizzy, it is important to emphasize that it is just as important for the media across the globe to prevent  exacerbating the devastating effect of the outbreak on the world via poor information dissemination.

The social media landscape has woken up to different shades and hues of fake news both at the local levels as well as on the international scale.

While such fake news vary in terms of their blend of contents, contexts and degree of collateral damage they pose to society and humanity at large, one common denominator of them all is that they generally blend outright falsehood with a small quantum of known truth related to the outbreak viz a viz corresponding actions of government, corporate bodies, international organizations and individuals in reaction to the COVID-19 epidemic.

Fake news, rather than proffer tangible, provable solutions to the global health problem in question, tend to raise false hopes, intensify confusion, orchestrate   panic actions such as panic purchases, hoarding and other grossly irrational socio-economic actions on the part of individuals around the world.

These stark realities and consequences of fake news drive home the point that in deed, the infodemic may do far more collateral damage to the world than the pandemic itself!

Given the democratization of the new media landscape which makes its regulations and control quite evasive, one cannot but agree with thinkers who believe and strongly recommend that critical stake holder bodies in the international scene such as the World Health Organization(WHO), UNICEF, UNESCO etc, should synergize with high impact technological stakeholders to stem the tide of destructive waves of misinformation about COVID-19 dotting the social media landscape.

No doubt, WHO has taken the lead in this respect by setting up a communication architecture that accommodates experts in risk communication working hand in hand with the major tech companies as well as the conventional  media.

The media in African countries, where the heat of the pandemic has not really been felt should not just go to sleep thinking the day is over.

Collaboration between media institutions and the vital concerned international bodies to constantly keep people abreast of developments on the pandemic remains non negotiable.

To achieve the above stated lofty and noble end therefore, the media should consciously deploy the vital instrumentality of Development Communication tools such as Radio drama, music, cinema and the entire gamut of media entertainment to counter false information peddlers who drive the infodemic that aggravates the already debilitating and devastating effect of the Corona Virus epidemic at this crucially sensitive time in the history of humanity.

In all, all of us as individuals have a collective social responsibility to humanity with our  resolve to be part of the solution  to the COVID-19 global pandemic and not to escalate the trauma and trouble thereof with careless, unconfirmed fake news about the corona virus knowing quite well that the corona “infodemic” is far more destructive than the corona virus itself.

Olufemi Orunsola, Media Consultant & Public Affairs Analyst ,Chairman of Screen Writers Guild of Nigeria(SWGN) Ogun state Chapter writes from Abeokuta, Ogun State Capital, Nigeria..