Mass media and social media during COVID-19: A review

Abstract

A novel coronavirus named as COVID-19 crop up in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Quickly it spread to other countries worldwide to turn out to be a pandemic. Internationally, governments imposed quarantine and social distancing measures to put off the spread of the infection. Mass media and social media played a vital role in disseminating information regarding the COVID-19. Since little information and knowledge about COVID-19, various fake news, misinformation, and grapevine spread across the social media that scared people to make panic decisions. The swift spread of misinformation and stories through social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube became a crucial concern of the government and public health authorities. Medical misinformation and unverifiable content about the COVID-19 pandemic were spread on social media at an unparalleled pace. Social media as a secondary medium should be utilized to convey important information. Besides, it allows citizens to address their queries directly. Several governments across the world have taken actions against misinformation spreaders. Yet, measures are to be needed to stop misinformation. Mass media especially electronic tried to disseminated information through doctors and scientist and allotted separate columns in newspapers. Due to misinformation about COVID-19, many people stopped subscription to newspapers. The advertisements revenue fall down. As a result, many newspapers reduced pages.