Closing the Barn Door? Fact-Checkers as Retroactive Gatekeepers of the COVID-19 “Infodemic”

Abstract

Based on a study of U.S.-tagged items in a global database of fact-checked statements about the novel coronavirus throughout the first year of the pandemic, this article explores the nature of fact-checkers’ “retroactive gatekeeping.” This term is introduced here to describe the process of assessing the veracity of information after it has entered the public domain rather than before. Although an overwhelming majority of statements across 16 thematic categories were deemed false and debunked, often repeatedly, misinformation continued to circulate freely and widely.

Fact-Checking: Journalistic Strategies and Audience Outcomes in Diverse National Contexts

“…Because fact-checking is not a one-nation phenomenon, a number of research studies offer nuanced insights into the nature and practices of fact-checkers in diverse national contexts. Singer (2023) focuses on the United States and examines fact-checking related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Following Hermida (2020), her work finds connections with classic media theories and frames fact-checkers as retroactive gatekeepers .…”

Post-publication gatekeeping practices: Exploring conversational and visual gatekeeping on Finnish newspapers’ Instagram accounts

“…Overall, post-publication gatekeeping theory has not often been applied empirically (cf. Ai et al, 2022;Salonen et al, 2022Salonen et al, , 2023 and is in need of future studies (Singer, 2023). Furthermore, there is a lack of studies that cover post-publication practices related to visual gatekeeping.…”

Forced change: Pandemic pedagogy and journalism education

“…The World Health Organization's (WHO) director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned the international community that "We're not just fighting a pandemic; we're fighting an infodemic" (The Lancet, 2020, para 1). The term "infodemic" quickly found its way into the vernacular and the literature (Singer, 2023), though some authors revised the term slightly to "disinfodemic" (see Posetti et al, n.d.), and "misinfodemic" (see Chou, Gaysynsky, & Vanderpool, 2021) to describe the relentless waves of falsehoods, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience and propaganda spreading (like a disease) on social media. As the world-leading medical journal, The Lancet, advised, "A state of affairs cannot continue where, for example, the very existence of the COVID-19 pandemic is denied" (The Lancet, 2020, para 5).…”

“…Other studies through the pandemic also recognized the value of fact-checking as a corrective force against misinformation and disinformation (See Krause et. al., 2020;Chou et al, 2021;Singer, 2023).…”

“…Research on dis-and misinformation in the pandemic seems less ambiguous. Singer (2023) points out that "once a falsehood has entered today's unfettered and interconnected information sphere, attempts to 'correct' it yields effects that can be positive" (p. 336), while Krause et. al.…”