Understanding fake news during the Covid-19 health crisis from the perspective of information behaviour: The case of Spain

Michela Montesi

doi:10.1177/0961000620949653

Abstract

The health crisis brought about by Covid-19 has generated a heightened need for information as a response to a situation of uncertainty and high emotional load, in which fake news and other informative content have grown dramatically. The aim of this work is to delve into the understanding of fake news from the perspective of information behaviour by analysing a sample of fake news items that were spread in Spain during the Covid-19 health crisis. A sample of 242 fake news items was collected from the Maldita.es website and analysed according to the criteria of cognitive and affective authority, interactivity, themes and potential danger. The results point to a practical absence of indicators of cognitive authority (53.7%), while the affective authority of these news items is built through mechanisms of discrediting people, ideas or movements (40.7%) and, secondarily, the use of offensive or coarse language (17.7%) and comparison or reference to additional information sources (26.6%). Interactivity features allow commenting in 24.3% of the cases. The dominant theme is society (43.1%), followed by politics (26.4%) and science (23.6%). Finally, fake news, for the most part, does not seem to pose any danger to the health or safety of people – the harm it causes is intangible and moral. The author concludes by highlighting the importance of a culture of civic values to combat fake news.

Highlights

The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 is leaving a profound wound in our society, and many think that our lives will never be the same again, with implications at all levels, including for library and information services
The fake news collected from Maldita.es on 6 April 2020 included all 46 false news reports about Covid19, with the exception of three, which the Intelligence Centre against Terrorism and Organized Crime (2020) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs collected in a report that was published on 17 March 2020, providing a certain guarantee of coverage of the main hoaxes that were spread in the course of the 2020 health crisis
Descriptive statistics are presented for authority, interactivity, themes and potential danger

Summary

Introduction

The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 is leaving a profound wound in our society, and many think that our lives will never be the same again, with implications at all levels, including for library and information services. Libraries have responded by reaffirming traditional library values and, as an immediate solution to what has been called an ‘infodemic’ (Marquina, 2020), the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (2020) updated its eight-step ‘How to spot fake news’ checklist on 16 March 2020, recommending the exercise of critical thinking as an essential competence in media literacy The novelty of this new avalanche of fake news goes hand in hand with the novelty of the health crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has converted fake news and information into a matter of social concern. This guide, in the style of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions’ directions, recommends, among other strategies to check the veracity of information, relaunching Google searches, comparing the information found, being suspicious, verifying the author

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