The COVID-19 infodemic in social media: Political exaggeration and communicative autonomy

Abstract

This study aims to assess the difficulty of maintaining the interpretative autonomy of communication professionals and citizens, in the face of information about the global pandemic. At the same time, this research analyzes critically the World Health Organization’s accusation of an ’infodemic’; was it confirmed or should it be regarded as political exaggeration? An analysis was made of 15,000 tweets around the world, with more than 1,000 RTs for each one, that circulated from 6 February to 18 March 2020. The results demonstrate that it is not so much possible to speak of infodemic but of a remarkable difficulty in interpreting information, together with a preponderant weight of opinion and emotionality. Academia is responsible for disseminating concepts; corporations, for filtering ethically their content; the political class, for not hiding behind the infodemic to lower the challenge of managing the pandemic.