Misinformation and conspiracy theories can spread as quickly as the COVID-19 pathogen itself. The infodemic, which describes false or misleading information about this recent epidemic on the internet, has become a serious problem all over the world, and has been declared as an "enemy" by the World Health Organization. In this sense, in order to combat the epidemic, it becomes important to reveal the nuances of COVID-19 related infodemic available on the internet. Particularly, internet users in Turkey are increasingly utilizing social media -a platform synonymous with misinformation-to access news coverage regarding the pandemic (World Health Organization, 2020). In this quantitative study focusing on the city of Istanbul (n=399), which is at the epicenter of the outbreak in Turkey, the social media usage of individuals, their trust in these platforms, exposure to misinformation and conspiracy theories, and fact-checking behaviors were examined. Our results indicate that participants tended to believe in misinformation and conspiracy theories rather than confirming information through fact-checking platforms. Nearly half of all participants believed at least one of four widespread conspiracy theories about the virus. Moreover, when fact-checking did identify misinformation, the participants' trust in social media showed a slight decrease. Based on these findings, our study proposes a comprehensive model for pandemic-related trust, misinformation, conspiracy theories, and fact-checking factors on digital platforms.
As we enter a new era marked by changing values, driven by disruptive technologies and leading to the erosion of trust, organizations today are facing crises at greater frequency than in the past. Transformation is a phenomenon that appears to have taken place in each and every period of history, but it has never been as rapid, comprehensive, and unpredictable as we observe it today. There are an increasing number of people who name the era that we currently live in as the post-truth era where the focus is on narratives, their significance, and their abilities of persuasion, rather than focusing on presenting knowledge or the truth. Causality, or the rational paradigm, that was defended by modernism, does not seem to have enough prowess to interpret today's complexity and phenomena. This perspective and transformation are also valid for at organizations that encounter crises. This article gives a theoretical framework for scrutinising how organizations deal with obstacles within post-truth times. It suggests that the value-based and emotionally-driven framework of the narrative paradigm might be the most powerful communication approach adopted by an organization during a corporate crisis in this new era.
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