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Understanding patterns of COVID infodemic: A systematic and pragmatic approach to curb fake news

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  • Gupta, Ashish
  • Li, Han
  • Farnoush, Alireza
  • Jiang, Wenting

Abstract

Amid the flood of fake news on Coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19), now referred to as COVID-19 infodemic, it is critical to understand the nature and characteristics of COVID-19 infodemic since it not only results in altered individual perception and behavior shift such as irrational preventative actions but also presents imminent threat to the public safety and health. In this study, we build on First Amendment theory, integrate text and network analytics and deploy a three-pronged approach to develop a deeper understanding of COVID-19 infodemic. The first prong uses Latent Direchlet Allocation (LDA) to identify topics and key themes that emerge in COVID-19 fake and real news. The second prong compares and contrasts different emotions in fake and real news. The third prong uses network analytics to understand various network-oriented characteristics embedded in the COVID-19 real and fake news such as page rank algorithms, betweenness centrality, eccentricity and closeness centrality. This study carries important implications for building next generation trustworthy technology by providing strong guidance for the design and development of fake news detection and recommendation systems for coping with COVID-19 infodemic. Additionally, based on our findings, we provide actionable system focused guidelines for dealing with immediate and long-term threats from COVID-19 infodemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Gupta, Ashish & Li, Han & Farnoush, Alireza & Jiang, Wenting, 2022. "Understanding patterns of COVID infodemic: A systematic and pragmatic approach to curb fake news," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 670-683.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:140:y:2022:i:c:p:670-683
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.11.032
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    1. Anna Kłak & Jolanta Grygielska & Małgorzata Mańczak & Ewelina Ejchman-Pac & Jakub Owoc & Urszula Religioni & Robert Olszewski, 2022. "Online Information of COVID-19: Visibility and Characterization of Highest Positioned Websites by Google between March and April 2020—A Cross-Country Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-26, January.
    2. Abdullah Marish Ali & Fuad A. Ghaleb & Mohammed Sultan Mohammed & Fawaz Jaber Alsolami & Asif Irshad Khan, 2023. "Web-Informed-Augmented Fake News Detection Model Using Stacked Layers of Convolutional Neural Network and Deep Autoencoder," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-21, April.
    3. Isotilia Costa Melo & Paulo Nocera Alves Junior & Geandra Alves Queiroz & Wilfredo Yushimito & Jordi Pereira, 2023. "Do We Consider Sustainability When We Measure Small and Medium Enterprises’ (SMEs’) Performance Passing through Digital Transformation?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-30, March.
    4. Lina Zhou & Jie Tao & Dongsong Zhang, 2023. "Does Fake News in Different Languages Tell the Same Story? An Analysis of Multi-level Thematic and Emotional Characteristics of News about COVID-19," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 493-512, April.

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