Abstract
This study examined the impact of social media within the fight against misinformation on coronavirus pandemic. The study therefore assessed the character of coronavirus pandemic information shared on social media sites by undergraduate students in central region of Ghana. Structured questionnaire copies were administered to 355 undergraduate students in University of Education, Winneba, University of Cape Coast, and Cape Coast Technical University. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Result showed that 71.3% of the scholars across the chosen universities were conscious of social media and made used of it. Facebook was the foremost favourite social media platform followed by Instagram and WhatsApp, while Kinschat, LinkedIn, Skype and BBM were least preferred social media sites. Independent samples test result showed there was no significant gender difference within the preference of social media sites (t = 1.039, p>0.05). The result showed that 81.4% of the scholars had encounter coronavirus pandemic information on social media, while only 24.8% had shared coronavirus pandemic information on social media. Prevention methods and general coronavirus pandemic knowledge were the most sorts of information shared. ANOVA result further revealed significant variation within the sort of coronavirus pandemic information shared on social media among the three universities (F = 5.177; p<0.05). The Post Hoc Test of multiple comparison indicated that the type of coronavirus pandemic information shared in Cape Coast Technical University differed significantly from those shared in University of Education, Winneba and University of Cape Coast respectively. Keywords : SOCIAL MEDIA, MISINFORMATION, CORONA VIRUS PANDEMIC DOI: 10.7176/NMMC/95-05 Publication date: February 28 th 2021
Highlights
The wave of coronavirus (COVID-19)-related content has become a high-stakes test for social media platforms’ abilities to fight misinformation
Fake news concerning health on social media represents a risk to global health. the earth Health Organisation warned in February in 2020 that the COVID-19 outbreak had been amid an enormous ‘infodemic’, or an overabundance of information—some of which was accurate and a couple of of which was not—which made it difficult for people to hunt out reliable sources and trustworthy information once they needed it
Research shows that social media information and social media responses are effective strategies to understand feedback on potential public health policy proposals. This positive impact of social media in health has been demonstrated during a recent study about heat protection policy for Australian www.iiste.org schools, which, through the analysis of public comments posted on a national Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) website, identifies the themes to support a national heat protection policy for schools (Economic and Social Research Council - UK, 2020).There is evidence of the negative effects of using social media to spread misinformation, which produces harmful consequences to global health and wellbeing, becoming one of the simplest challenges for public health systems today
Summary
The wave of coronavirus (COVID-19)-related content has become a high-stakes test for social media platforms’ abilities to fight misinformation. According to data from social media analytics platform Sprinklr, there were more than 19 million mentions related to COVID-19 across social media, blogs and online news sites worldwide on March 11, 2020. Many of the COVID-19 mentions likely came from legitimate sources, but given the novelty of the disease and the fast-changing nature of related news, it’s safe to assume that a large portion was inaccurate or outdated. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook were among the earliest sources of accurate COVID-19 information. Social media platforms have taken unprecedented steps to stop the spread of coronavirus-related misinformation. The major social platforms; Facebook, LinkedIn, reddit, Twitter and YouTube along with Google and Microsoft, issued a joint statement announcing that they had banded together to fight COVID-19-related misinformation. What is the general public perception of social media contribution within the fight against fake information on covid-19 in Ghana?
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
