New Report: The causes and consequences of COVID-19 misperceptions: Understanding the role of news and social media

July 1, 2020

In a new Harvard Misinformation Review paper, Director Taylor Owen, along with Derek Ruths and other researchers of the Media Ecosystem Observatory investigate the way public health misinformation has proliferated on social media. The study traces the relationship between individuals’ exposure to misinformation and their beliefs, in regards to COVID-19 in the Canadian context.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by a so-called ‘infodemic’ — a global spread of misinformation that poses a serious problem for public health. Infodemics are concerning because the spread of false or misleading information has the capacity to change transmission patterns and consequently the scale and lethality of a pandemic.” 

The goal of this research was to understand the prevalence of misinformation about the pandemic in the Canadian context and how it affected people’s behaviours.

• Researchers analyzed data from 2.5 million tweets from Canadian users and 9 thousand articles from nineteen Canadian English-language news sites discussing COVID-19 and compared these findings with information from a nation-wide survey on media consumption. They found comparatively higher levels of misinformation circulating on Twitter. 

• The search covered four instances of misinformation: 

  1. that COVID-19 was no more serious than the flu

  2. that vitamin C or other supplements will prevent contraction of the virus

  3. that the initial animal-to-human transfer of the virus was the direct result of eating bats

  4. that COVID-19 was a hoax or conspiracy.”

• It also looked for two types of health recommendations: 

  1. social distancing including staying at home, staying at least 6 feet or 2 meters away and avoiding gatherings; and

  2. washing hands and not touching any part of your face.

• A national survey on information consumption habits and COVID-19 misperceptions found that “those who self-report exposure to the misinformation-rich social media environment do tend to have more misperceptions regarding COVID-19,” including less compliance with social distancing. However, traditional news exposure was associated with fewer misperceptions and increased social distancing compliance.

There has been a lot of attention paid to the role of misinformation in the U.S. pandemic response, partly because it does seem to have played a much greater role in fomenting mistrust and non-compliance among its citizens. However, this research provides insight on where Canadians encountered misinformation and how it affected their behaviours. 

The findings make an important contribution to help inform future responses to misinformation, and suggest future research should examine the role of Facebook and other social media platforms, in addition to Canadians’ consumption of non-Canadian media.