Disseminating Information Through Social Media During Covid-19 Pandemic Among University Students
Abstract
The current rate of technological innovation makes it easier to convey data from one person to another. As technology progresses, it becomes easier for everyone to access social media, to the point where some news organisations seek to exploit it as a news source. Meanwhile, in order to avoid public panic, it is critical to educate society at a young age about the impact of fake news on social media. The purpose of this study is to explain the purpose of social media usage and to investigate whether the use of social media platforms to disseminate information has increased the spread of fake news in Malaysia, as well as the effect of information disseminated among university students during the COVID pandemic. Social media is well-known for its ease of use, particularly among young people, in sharing and expressing their opinions on domestic and international topics. Using social media has become second nature to us, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the strength of social media, the public's opinion of finding information during a lockdown is quite positive. The study was carried out in a qualitative manner. The researcher gathered all of the data by asking the participants general research questions. The method employed to obtain the results was an in-depth interview. The findings revealed that information disseminated via social media was successful in raising awareness during the pandemic, particularly among university students. According to the findings, certain scientific and technical advancements should benefit the global community rather than be manipulated in order to obtain accurate and true knowledge; society must be astute. False knowledge would have negative repercussions, and society would inevitably exist in a state of deception. Obtaining reliable information during the COVID-19 pandemic is critical to ensuring that individuals become social media literate in the future.
Keywords: Social media, fake news, effectiveness of information, university students, COVID-19.
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Ahmad, A. R., & Murad, H. R. (2020). The impact of social media on panic during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iraqi Kurdistan: Online questionnaire study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(5), e19556.
Al-Garadi, M. A., Varathan, K. D., & Ravana, S. D. (2016). Cybercrime detection in online communications: The experimental case of cyberbullying detection in the Twitter network. Computers in Human Behavior, 63, 433-443.
American Press Institute. (2015, March 16). How Millennials Get News: Inside the habits of America’s first digital generation.
https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/survey-research/millennials-news/
Auer, R., Cornelli, G., & Frost, J. (2020). Covid-19, cash, and the future of payments (No. 3). Bank for International Settlements. https://www.bis.org/publ/bisbull03.pdf
Awidi, I. T., Paynter, M., & Vujosevic, T. (2019). Facebook group in the learning design of a higher education course: An analysis of factors influencing positive learning experience for students. Computers & Education, 129, 106-121.
Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (1985). The origins of individual media-system dependency: A sociological framework. Communication Research, 12(4), 485-510.
Battaglia, M. (2008). Purposive sample. In P. J. Lavrakas (Ed.), Encyclopedia of survey research methods (pp. 645-647). Sage Publications, Inc.
https://methods.sagepub.com/reference/encyclopedia-of-survey-research-methods/n419.xml
Belk, R. (2010). Sharing. Journal of Consumer Research, 36(5), 715-734.
Boyce, C., & Neale, P. (2006). Conducting in-depth interviews: A guide for designing and conducting in-depth interviews for evaluation input (Vol. 2). Watertown, MA: Pathfinder International.
Boyd, D. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 13(1), 210-230.
Caufield, J. (2019, June 9). How to do thematic analysis?: A step-by-step guide & examples. Scribbr. https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/thematic-analysis/
Crolic, C., Stephen, A. T., Zubcsek, P. P., & Brooks, G. (2019). Staying connected: The positive effect of social media consumption on psychological well-being [Working Paper].
Dixon, S. (2022). Facebook: Number of monthly active users worldwide 2008-2022. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/
DeFleur, M., & Ball-Rokeach, S. (1990). Theories of mass communication. New York: Longman.
Dyson, B., Vickers, K., Turtle, J., Cowan, S., & Tassone, A. (2015). Evaluating the use of Facebook to increase student engagement and understanding in lecture-based classes. Higher Education, 69(2), 303-313.
Frenkel, S., Alba, D., & Zhong, R. (2020, March 8). Surge of virus misinformation stumps Facebook and Twitter. NY Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/08/technology/coronavirus-misinformation-social-media.html
Gao, J., Zheng, P., Jia, Y., Chen, H., Mao, Y., Chen, S., ... & Dai, J. (2020). Mental health problems and social media exposure during COVID-19 outbreak. Plos One, 15(4), e0231924.
Gesser-Edelsburg, A., Diamant, A., Hijazi, R., & Mesch, G. S. (2018). Correcting misinformation by health organizations during measles outbreaks: A controlled experiment. PloS One, 13(12), e0209505.
Han, X., Wang, J., Zhang, M., & Wang, X. (2020). Using social media to mine and analyze public opinion related to COVID-19 in China. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(8), 2788.
Hartley, K., & Vu, M. K. (2020). Fighting fake news in the COVID-19 era: Policy insights from an equilibrium model. Policy Sciences, 53(4), 735-758.
Hermida, A. (2010). Twittering the news: The emergence of ambient journalism. Journalism Practice, 4(3), 297-308.
John, N. A. (2013). Sharing and web 2.0: The emergence of a keyword. New Media & Society, 15(2), 167-182.
Kaplan, A., & Haenlein, M. (2020). Rulers of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence. Business Horizons, 63(1), 37-50.
Katz, E., Blumler, J. G., & Gurevitch, M. (1973). Uses and gratifications research. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 37(4), 509-523.
Kim, A. J., & Johnson, K. K. (2016). Power of consumers using social media: Examining the influences of brand-related user-generated content on Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 58, 98-108.
Kim, Y. C., & Shin, I. (2013). Effects of “smartphone dependency” on traditional media use and talking with others: Applying media system dependency theory. Journal of Korea Association for Broadcasting & Telecommunication Studies, 27, 115-156.
Klein, A. Z., Junior, J. C. D. S. F., Barbosa, J. L. V., & Baldasso, L. (2018). The educational affordances of mobile instant messaging (MIM): Results of WhatsApp® used in higher education. International Journal of Distance Education Technologies (IJDET), 16(2), 51-64.
Krueger, R. A. (2014). Focus groups: A practical guide for applied research. Sage publications.
Lariscy, R. W., Tinkham, S. F., & Sweetser, K. D. (2011). Kids these days: Examining differences in political uses and gratifications, internet political participation, political information efficacy, and cynicism on the basis of age. American Behavioral Scientist, 55(6), 749-764.
Lewis, W. (2009, April 7). Social journalism: Past, present, and future. Mashable. https://mashable.com/archive/social-journalism
Manca, S. (2020). Snapping, pinning, liking or texting: Investigating social media in higher education beyond Facebook. The Internet and Higher Education, 44, 100707.
Merchant, R. M., & Lurie, N. (2020). Social media and emergency preparedness in response to novel coronavirus. JAMA, 323(20), 2011-2012.
Merriam, S. B., & Tisdell, E. J. (2015). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. John Wiley & Sons.
Oh, S. H., Lee, S. Y., & Han, C. (2020). The effects of social media use on preventive behaviors during infectious disease outbreaks: The mediating role of self-relevant emotions and public risk perception. Health Communication, 36(8), 972-981.
Park, H. W., Park, S., & Chong, M. (2020). Conversations and medical news frames on Twitter: Infodemiological study on COVID-19 in South Korea. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(5), e18897.
Ruggiero, T. E. (2000). Uses and gratifications theory in the 21st century. Mass Communication & Society, 3(1), 3-37. https://doi.org/cnkf55
Valenzuela, S., Park, N., & Kee, K. F. (2009). Is there social capital in a social network site?: Facebook use and college students' life satisfaction, trust, and participation. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 14(4), 875-901.
Wittel, A. (2011). Qualities of sharing and their transformations in the digital age. The International Review of Information Ethics, 15, 3-8.
Yates, D., & Paquette, S. (2011). Emergency knowledge management and social media technologies: A case study of the 2010 Haitian earthquake. International Journal of Information Management, 31(1), 6-13.
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
e-ISSN: 2289-1528