文章基本信息

标题：The Crisis of Public Health and Infodemic: Analyzing Belief Structure of Fake News about COVID-19 Pandemic
本地全文：下载
作者：Seoyong Kim ; Sunhee Kim
期刊名称：Sustainability
印刷版ISSN：2071-1050
出版年度：2020
卷号：12
期号：23
页码：9904
DOI：10.3390/su12239904
语种：English
出版社：MDPI, Open Access Journal
摘要：False information about COVID-19 is being produced and disseminated on a large scale, impeding efforts to rapidly impose quarantines. Thus, in addition to the COVID-19 pandemic itself, an infodemic related with it is leading to social crises. This study therefore investigates who believes the misinformation that is being produced in the context of COVID-19. We choose two main factors—risk perception factor, so called psychometric paradigm, and communication factor—as independent variables that can affect belief in misinformation related to COVID-19. The results show that, among psychometric variables, perceived risk and stigma positively impact belief in fake news, whereas perceived benefit and trust have negative effects. Among communication factors, source credibility and the quantity of information reduce belief in fake news, whereas the credibility of information sources increases these beliefs. Stigma has the greatest explanatory power among the variables, followed by health status, heuristic information processing, trust, and subjective social class.