February 28, 2020, by Sissel McCarthy, News Literacy Matters
While public health officials warn of a pandemic, the internet’s frenzied coverage of the coronavirus has already triggered an “infodemic.” The word infodemic is a relatively new term blending information with epidemic.
It describes the overwhelming amount of information about the coronavirus now populating the internet and social media platforms. Some of it is accurate, but even more is misleading or outright wrong. The situation is so dire that the World Health Organization says that false information is spreading faster than the virus. READ MORE.