Unpacking Misinformation Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mixed Methods Study

Abstract

Misinformation knows no bounds, but its impacts are particularly prominent in low-income countries, such as Pakistan, where social media usage is widespread, and health and media literacy levels are too low to navigate pitfalls when consuming COVID-19-related misinformation. This mixed methods study deploys a researcher-administered survey $(N=380)$(N=380) and semistructured interviews $(N=30)$(N=30) to assess how exposure to social media affects people’s perceptions of the COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan against the backdrop of sociocultural nuances and an “infodemic” of COVID-19 misinformation. In addition, we show that the triad of social media usage, COVID-19 misinformation, and sociocultural aspects affect sociodemographic groups differentially. Nearly 80% of the total respondents were social media users. The survey results indicate that belief in COVID-19-related misinformation was higher among low-income and poorly educated respondents in comparison to respondents from relatively high-income and educated backgrounds, whereas the interviewees were increasingly susceptible to political-, scientific-, and religious-sounding misinformation about COVID-19.