UNS –Public Relations Laboratory, Faculty of Social Studies (FISIP) Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta held an online seminar on Preventing Infodemic with Digital Literacy on Thursday (14/5/2020).
The event invited two expert speakers from the communication field. The first speaker is Monika Sri Yuliarti, M.Si as a lecturer of Communication Studies FISIP UNS and a member of Digital Literacy Activists Network (Jaringan Pegiat Literasi Digital – Japelidi). The second speaker is Niken Satyawati, M.I.Kom, the Presidium of the Indonesian Anti-Defamation Society (Presidium Masyarakat Antifitnah Indonesia – Mafindo) who is also a graduate from Communication Studies FISIP UNS. The online seminar was attended by students and lecturers of both UNS and other universities. Prof. Normah Mustafa, a professor from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) also participated in the discussion.
On the occasion, both speakers agreed that currently the community also faced the infodemic problem aside from the Covid-19 pandemic.
As the first, Monika Sri Yuliarti, M.Si explained that there are criteria to determine infodemic according to WHO. Infodemic can be described as a condition of information abundance but the community experienced confusion because of the difficulty in determining the information that is reliable and can be trusted. This condition causes a challenge from the community because they also need information.
Since the spread of Covid-19, there is a high demand from the community on information concerning Covid-19. One of the impacts of high information searching activities is a sense of worry, anxiety, and fear.
“It is important to understand the digital literacy in facing the infodemic that is occurring,” Monika explained.
The second speaker, Niken Satyawati, M.I.Kom explained the hoax surrounding Covid-19, its Impact, and Mitigations. According to the data collected by Mafindo, there were 384 Hoaxes debunked per 13 May 2020.
The frequently raised themes as Covid-19 hoax are health/nutrition (40%), health disaster (11%), agama (10%), ethnicity/SARA (tribal, religious, racial, and intergroup discrimination) (8%), politic (3%) and others (26%). Then the types of hoaxes are usually misleading content, fake content, wrong content, wrong connection, manipulated content, and so on.
“Currently the targets of hoaxes are the government, foreign party, citizens/public, religious leaders, even God also becomes a target,” Niken said when explaining the data from Mafindo.
The biggest dissemination of hoax information occurs on Facebook. The user of this media is mostly older people with lower digital literacy compared to the young generation. Their intention to provide information should be appreciated, but the majority do not verify and do not understand the danger of delivering fake information. This condition is used by a certain party for personal gain, for example to reach financial benefit.
Responding to this data, the mitigation strategy to prevent Covid-19 hoaxes can be conducted through collaboration. The information from the trusted health authority can be delivered transparently and honestly to increase public trust. “Besides that, a massive and contextual education is also needed. Fact check, more responsible press and law enforcement against hoaxes spreaders must be conducted firmly,” Niken concluded. Humas UNS/Ratri