Pulido, C. M., Villarejo-Carballido, B., Redondo-Sama, G., & Gómez, A. (2020). COVID-19 infodemic: More retweets for science-based information on coronavirus than for false information. International Sociology, 35(4), 377-392. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0268580920914755?casa_token=IG-CmhJH_9kAAAAA%3AzoDioyG9jfM7EeZOC6owMzR5m_RbOPC3AnKko0EReNN9AI9dHo6ykibO-7p3yiK_ZS32OmNOYDiRpw

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Although there are definitely more tweets containing misinformation about COVID-19 than tweets containing factual information, scientific information, and tweets that were posted in response to the false information spreading, tweets sending false information were found to be less likely to be retweeted. 

COVID-19 infodemic: More retweets for science-based information on coronavirus than for false information

- Utilized Communicative Content Analysis 
- Obtained a total of 17,988 Tweets that each had at least 1000 retweets, contained the keyword “coronavirus,” and was published between February 6-7, 2020 using the NVivo software for extraction 
- Each Tweet was studied beyond just the text; links to further information, the number of retweets, and user profiles were all crucial information 
- Categorized each Tweet into one of the 7 groups – false information, science-based evidence, fact-checking tweets, mixed information, facts, other, and not valid 
- 58 of the tweets were excluded due to difficulty in placing them into one of the 7 groups

COVID-19 infodemic: More retweets for science-based information on coronavirus than for false information data collection

- Ways to promote reader and user engagement in debunking false information by citing and referring to scientific literature 
- How social media has contributed or hindered the control of COVID-19 outbreaks

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