The Spread of the Pandemic of Social Media Panic during the COVID-19 Outbreak

Eqbal Radwan; Afnan Radwan

doi:10.29333/ejeph/8277

The Spread of the Pandemic of Social Media Panic during the COVID-19 Outbreak

Eqbal Radwan ¹ ² ^* , Afnan Radwan ³

More Detail

¹ Biology department, Islamic University of Gaza, PALESTINE
² Directorate of Education-East Gaza, Ministry of Education and Higher Education, PALESTINE
³ Faculty of Education, Islamic University of Gaza, Gaza Strip, PALESTINE
^* Corresponding Author

Full Text (PDF)

Letter to Editor

European Journal of Environment and Public Health, 2020 - Volume 4 Issue 2, Article No: em0044
https://doi.org/10.29333/ejeph/8277

Published Online: 17 May 2020

Views: 563 | Downloads: 416

Open Access

How to cite this article

APA 6th edition

In-text citation: (Radwan & Radwan, 2020)
Reference: Radwan, E., & Radwan, A. (2020). The Spread of the Pandemic of Social Media Panic during the COVID-19 Outbreak. European Journal of Environment and Public Health, 4(2), em0044. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejeph/8277

Vancouver

In-text citation: (1), (2), (3), etc.
Reference: Radwan E, Radwan A. The Spread of the Pandemic of Social Media Panic during the COVID-19 Outbreak. EUROPEAN J ENV PUBLI. 2020;4(2):em0044. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejeph/8277

AMA 10th edition

In-text citation: (1), (2), (3), etc.
Reference: Radwan E, Radwan A. The Spread of the Pandemic of Social Media Panic during the COVID-19 Outbreak. EUROPEAN J ENV PUBLI. 2020;4(2), em0044. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejeph/8277

Chicago

In-text citation: (Radwan and Radwan, 2020)
Reference: Radwan, Eqbal, and Afnan Radwan. "The Spread of the Pandemic of Social Media Panic during the COVID-19 Outbreak". European Journal of Environment and Public Health 2020 4 no. 2 (2020): em0044. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejeph/8277

Harvard

In-text citation: (Radwan and Radwan, 2020)
Reference: Radwan, E., and Radwan, A. (2020). The Spread of the Pandemic of Social Media Panic during the COVID-19 Outbreak. European Journal of Environment and Public Health, 4(2), em0044. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejeph/8277

MLA

In-text citation: (Radwan and Radwan, 2020)
Reference: Radwan, Eqbal et al. "The Spread of the Pandemic of Social Media Panic during the COVID-19 Outbreak". European Journal of Environment and Public Health, vol. 4, no. 2, 2020, em0044. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejeph/8277

ABSTRACT

The outbreak of novel COVID-19 has opened up different issues for social media including the life-endangering consequences of supposed cures, misleading rumors, and conspiracy theories about the origin of coronavirus. These dangerous rumors circulated the world and thus paired with racism and mass fearmongering all closely linked to the new “Infomedia” systems of the present century characterized by the multiplicity of means of communication between people especially platforms of social media. The sharing of misinformation has an influence beyond the harm of the coronavirus itself. Many posts were seen related to treatments that are not proven, techniques to mitigate exposure, and infection that are either not proven and/or filled with a lot of misleading information, and instruction for individuals to stock up on supplies and food. Taking into account the present situation, there is an important need to consider and assess the awareness of the public towards the dangerous impact of the spread of misinformation in the time of the COVID-19 outbreak.

KEYWORDS

COVID-19 social media panic pandemic misinformation

REFERENCES

Atlani-Duault, L., Ward, J. K., Roy, M., Morin, C. and Wilson, A. (2020). Tracking online heroisation and blame in epidemics. Lancet Public Health, 5(3), e137-e138.‏ https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(20)30033-5
Depoux, A., Martin, S., Karafillakis, E., Preet, R., Wilder-Smith, A. and Larson, H. (2020). The pandemic of social media panic travels faster than the COVID-19 outbreak. Journal of Travel Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taaa031
Ding, H. (2014). Transnational quarantine rhetorics: public mobilization in SARS and in H1N1 flu. J Med Humanit, 35(2), 191-210. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-014-9282-8
King, N. B. (2015). Mediating panic: The iconography of ‘new’infectious threats, 1936–2009. Empires of panic: Epidemics and colonial anxieties, 181-202.‏ https://doi.org/10.5790/hongkong/9789888208449.003.0008
Larson, H. J. (2018). The biggest pandemic risk? Viral misinformation. Nature, 562(7727), 309. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07034-4
McCauley, M., Minsky, S. and Viswanath, K. (2013). The H1N1 pandemic: media frames, stigmatization and coping. BMC Public Health, 13, 1116. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-1116
The Lancet. (2020). COVID-19: fighting panic with information. Lancet, 395(10224), 537. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30379-2
Torales, J., O’Higgins, M., Castaldelli-Maia, J. M. and Ventriglio, A. (2020). The outbreak of COVID-19 coronavirus and its impact on global mental health. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 0020764020915212.‏ https://doi.org/10.1177/0020764020915212
Wilder-Smith, A. and Freedman, D. O. (2020). Isolation, quarantine, social distancing and community containment: pivotal role for old-style public health measures in the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak. J Travel Med. https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taaa020
Wilson, M. E. and Chen, L. H. (2020). Travelers Give Wings to Novel Coronavirus (2019- nCoV). J Travel Med. https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taaa015

LICENSE

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.