Misinformation

On July 15, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued his first public health advisory warning that misinformation about COVID-19 is an “urgent threat” to public health. He called for individuals, particularly social media users, and tech companies to fight against Read More

Not only are people dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, but because of social media, they are also dealing with the COVID-19 infodemic. Two studies this week explore Twitter to assess topics, sentiments, and misinformation on the social media platform. In Read More

This week’s review focuses on the strategies, channels, and messengers to use for effective COVID-19 prevention messages. This study found that the channel from which people get their information about COVID-19 and vaccinations likely influences their level of vaccine hesitancy. Read More

Combatting Misinformation COVID-19 has triggered two parallel pandemics – a biological one with the spread of the virus and a social one with the spread of misinformation and disinformation. In a national survey of 840 respondents, users of conservative media, Read More

Social media has shown to be an essential form of communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. This editorial focuses on both the positives and negatives of using social media, for both the public and for health care providers (and the authors Read More

This week’s review of research addressing communication and COVID-19 focuses on social media, with many studies focusing specifically on Twitter. Here is what we know: Public’s Views of Social Media Social media is widely used by nearly all segments of Read More

COVID-19 Vaccine Communication This week, The Atlantic reported how public health messaging about the COVID-19 vaccine has backfired. Instead of presenting a balanced optimism since the vaccines have been launched in the United States, the focus has been on negativity Read More

Characteristics of COVID-19 Spokespersons In this study, scholars studied the COVID-19 communication from 20 heads of government from around the world. Understanding the language used is important because it has been shown to affect compliance for public health recommendations. Particularly Read More

Strategies to Continue Encouraging COVID-19 Mitigation Behaviors Even with the availability of COVID-19 vaccines, a group of international scholars are urging health experts and government officials to not relent on persuading people to continue recommended safety precautions such as mask-wearing Read More

Combatting COVID-19 Misinformation The majority of communication-related articles this week focus on the effects of COVID-19 misinformation and offer recommendations for addressing it. Research has demonstrated that excessive information, especially misinformation, has a negative psychological effect on people. In a Read More