Because It Can Help Us Build an Effective Infodemic Response

The World Health Organization defines an infodemic as the spread of “false or misleading information in digital and physical environments during a disease outbreak. It causes confusion and risk-taking behaviors that can harm health. It also leads to mistrust in health authorities and undermines the public health response.” The U.S. Office of the Surgeon General has declared health misinformation to be a significant public health challenge. In a December 20, 2021, interview on PBS NewsHour, outgoing National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins expressed regret over the U.S. response to COVID-19 misinformation: "Maybe we underinvested in research on human behavior. I never imagined a year ago, when those vaccines were just proving to be fantastically safe and effective, that we would still have 60 million people who had not taken advantage of them because of misinformation and disinformation that somehow dominated all of the ways in which people were getting their answers."

Yet, despite widespread concern about the potential impacts of mis- and disinformation on health outcomes, we know little about the magnitudes of those impacts nor about their differential effects across sociodemographic groups. We also know little about cost-effective interventions that may mitigate those impacts and increase the spread and uptake of accurate health information.

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Because Leaders Need to Know How to Lead with Evidence

Being bad at math can kill people. Even experts who should understand medical science and help us make good health decisions sometimes fail. In December, a doctor—let’s call him Dr. Smith—advised a tweeter’s elderly mom not to get the COVID-19 vaccine because "99% of people fight off COVID, but [the vaccine is] only 93% effective.” This doctor is blatantly wrong. He doesn’t understand the math and is giving life-threatening advice. When even some experts struggle with numbers, it’s easy to see the problem.

2020 thrust a new world of statistics upon us—numbers of cases and deaths, false positive rates, and percentages of open ICU beds. Many of us track these numbers to stay informed and feel secure, but we don’t always understand or use them appropriately. Communicating facts isn’t always enough. But when facts are presented in forms that make sense to us—using the science of science communication—leaders can inform and motivate better choices.

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Because We’re Living Through an “Infodemic”

In February 2020, about a month before COVID-19 became an inescapable reality around the world, the World Health Organization issued a warning about another, related danger: an “infodemic.” As conspiracy theories about the origins of COVID-19, the severity of its threat, and possible treatments circulated on social media, WHO officials cautioned that spreading false and misleading claims would make the work of combating the virus and its spread that much more difficult. They urged Silicon Valley’s Big Tech companies—especially social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok—to remove or flag content about COVID-19 that wasn’t based on science. Many have done so in the months since. However, once disinformation starts spreading online, it quickly takes on a life of its own.

COVID-19 is just one of many recent crises that disinformation campaigners and other digital extremists have taken advantage of to sow chaos, destabilize the news media ecosystem, and mobilize individuals and groups to their causes. From presidential elections, to civil rights movements, to public health programs, extremists look for opportunities to spread inaccurate or outright manufactured information, manipulate media coverage, and further their own agendas. Increasingly, they rely on digital tools like social media, online forums, and “do-it-yourself” image, video, and audio production to accomplish their goals. Following the violence at Charlottesville, Virginia’s “Unite the Right” rally in 2017, UC Irvine’s Office of Inclusive Excellence launched “Confronting Extremism,” an initiative “dedicated to understanding the ideas and behaviors advocated far outside of alignment to the campus values for social justice and equity in today’s society.” As part of that initiative, we have developed a collection of six self-paced teaching modules titled “Confronting Digital Extremism” that we hope will not only raise awareness of extremists’ “digital toolkits,” but also inspire effective means of confronting extremism online.

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Because It Helps Us Identify and Combat Misinformation

To make good decisions, we need good information. Every day, people form opinions on health treatments, political policies, and consumer products. Social sciences help us understand how people can separate accurate information from misinformation—information that is false or misleading. 

Communication researchers, psychologists, and political scientists have all provided valuable research highlighting the dangers of misinformation, the difficulties in correcting it, and the most effective strategies for resisting it. Social scientists are also tackling related topics like conspiracy theories and rumors.  

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