This study examined the influence of fake news online on how social media users viewed and reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. Analyses of an online survey (N = 254) and contents from Twitter users in Nigeria from the hashtags: ‘#coronavirusNigeria’ and ‘#covid19Nigeria’ (N = 10,408), reveal that social media users in Nigeria used Twitter to inform and educate Twitter users as well as debunking fake news stories about the virus to prevent purveyors of fake news from misleading Twitter users in Nigeria. Findings further indicate that those who use social media platforms and national television as main sources of news and are less educated, are statistically more likely to believe fake news about the virus than those who are educated and used newspapers as main sources of news. Consequently, the study recommends that Nigerian political leaders enact policies that they can observe as their inability to adhere to their own lockdowns powered fake news about COVID-19 in Nigeria.
AllcottHGentzkowM (2017) Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Journal of Economic Perspectives31(2): 211–236.
2.
ApukeODOmarB (2020a) Fake News and COVID-19: Modelling the Predictors of Fake News Sharing Among Social Media Users. Telematics and Informatics 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2020.101475
3.
ApukeODOmarB (2020b) Fake news proliferation in the social media era: combating the menace in Nigeria through awareness strategies. Humanities & Social Sciences Review8(2): 318–327.
4.
BakirVMcStayA (2018) Fake news and the economy of emotions: problems, causes, solutions. Digital Journalism6(2): 154–175.
5.
BoschT (2017) Twitter activism and youth in South Africa: the case of# RhodesMustFall. Information, Communication & Society20(2): 221–232.
BrunsAHarringtonSHurcombeE (2020) ‘Corona? 5G? Or both?’: the dynamics of COVID-19/5G conspiracy theories on Facebook. Media International Australia177(1): 12–29.
8.
BrymanA (2016) Social research methods. 5th ed.Oxford, UK: Oxford university press.
9.
CarlsonM (2020) Fake news as an informational moral panic: the symbolic deviancy of social media during the 2016 US presidential election.Information, Communication Society23(3): 374–388.
10.
ChariTAkpojiviU (2021) Media and global pandemics: continuities and discontinuities. Journal of African Media Studies13(3): 305–315.
11.
DerakhshanHWardleC (2017) Information disorder: definitions. Understanding addressing the disinformation ecosystem Philadelphia.
HariSI (2014) The evolution of social protest in Nigeria: the role of social media in the “# OccupyNigeria” protest. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention3(9): 33–39.
14.
HouZDuFJiangH, et al. (2020) Assessment of public attention, risk perception, emotional and behavioural responses to the COVID-19 outbreak: social media surveillance in China Risk Perception, Emotional Behavioural Responses to the COVID-19 Outbreak: Social Media Surveillance in China.
15.
HumprechtE (2019) Where ‘fake news’ flourishes: a comparison across four western democracies. Information. Communication & Society22(13): 1973–1988.
16.
HuynhTL (2020) The COVID-19 risk perception: a survey on socioeconomics and media attention. Economics Bulletin40(1): 758–764.
17.
IretonCPosettiJ (2018) Journalism, Fake News & Disinformation: Handbook for Journalism Education and Training. Paris: UNESCO Publishing.
18.
JensenMSNeumayerCRossiL (2020) ‘Brussels will land on its feet like a cat’: motivations for memefying# brusselslockdown. Information, Communication & Society23(1): 59–75.
19.
KumarN (2020) Mob lynching in India: a new crime emerging in Indian culture. UGC CARE Journal31(25): 54–61.
20.
LamposVMouraSYom-TovE, et al. (2020) Tracking COVID-19 using online search. Arxiv.org. https://doi.org/%JarXivpreprintarXiv:08086
21.
LazerDMBaumMABenklerY, et al. (2018) The science of fake news. Science (New York, N.Y.)359(6380): 1094–1096.
22.
LeeCSMaL (2012) News sharing in social media: the effect of gratifications and prior experience. Computers in Human Behavior28(2): 331–339.
23.
LiteratIMarkusS (2019) ‘Crafting a way forward’: online participation, craftivism and civic engagement in Ravelry’s Pussyhat project group. Information, Communication & Society: 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1573910
24.
MarwickABoydD (2014) ‘It’s just drama’: teen perspectives on conflict and aggression in a networked era. Journal of Youth Studies17(9): 1187–1204.
25.
MeeseJFrithJWilkenR (2020) COVID-19, 5G conspiracies and infrastructural futures. Media International Australia177(1): 30–46.
26.
MeeseJFrithJWilkenR (2020) COVID-19, 5G conspiracies and infrastructural futures. Media International Australia177(1): 30–46.
27.
MutsvairoBBebawiS (2019) Journalism educators, regulatory realities, and pedagogical predicaments of the “fake news” era: a comparative perspective on the Middle East and Africa. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator74(2): 143–157.
28.
OlapegbaPOAyandeleOKolawoleSO, et al. (2020) A preliminary assessment of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) knowledge and perceptions in Nigeria. MedRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.11.20061408
29.
PennycookGMcPhetresJZhangY, et al. (2020) Fighting COVID-19 misinformation on social media: experimental evidence for a scalable accuracy-nudge intervention. Psychological Science31(7): 770–780.
30.
RafailP (2018) Nonprobability sampling and Twitter: strategies for semibounded and bounded populations. Social Science Computer Review36(2): 195–211.
31.
RampersadGAlthiyabiT (2020) Fake news: acceptance by demographics and culture on social media. Journal of Information Technology17(1): 1–11.
32.
RodriguesUMXuJ (2020) Regulation of COVID-19 fake news infodemic in China and India. Media International Australia177(1): 125–131.
33.
TandocECLimDLingR (2020) Diffusion of disinformation: how social media users respond to fake news and why. Journalism21(3): 381–398.
34.
TandocECLimZWLingR (2018) Defining “fake news” A typology of scholarly definitions. Digital Journalism6(2): 137–153.
35.
UwalakaT (2020) Leadership in digital activism: An example of Techno-Enthusiasts in Nigeria. Communication Research and Practice6(3): 229–244.
36.
UwalakaT (2021) Exploring the Believability Profile of Social Media Fake News Headlines on Covid-19 in Nigeria. Covenant Journal of Communication8(2).
37.
UwalakaTNwalaBAmadiC (2021) Social media, fake news and fake COVID-19 cures in Nigeria. Journal of African Media Studies13(3): 145–154.
38.
UwalakaTRickardSWatkinsJ (2018) Mobile social networking applications and the 2012 Occupy Nigeria protest. Journal of African Media Studies10(1): 3–19.
39.
UwalakaTWatkinsJ (2018) Social media as the fifth estate in Nigeria: An analysis of the 2012 Occupy Nigeria protest. African Journalism Studies39(4): 22–41.
40.
WangYMcKeeMTorbicaA, et al. (2019) Systematic literature review on the spread of health-related misinformation on social media. Social Science Medicine240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112552
41.
WassermanHMadrid-MoralesD (2019) An exploratory study of “fake news” and media trust in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. Journal: African Journalism Studies40(1): 107–123.
42.
WaszakPKasprzyckaWKubanekA (2018) The spread of medical fake news in social media—the pilot quantitative study. Health Policy Technology7(2): 115–118.
ZhouWWangAXiaF, et al. (2020) Effects of media reporting on mitigating spread of COVID-19 in the early phase of the outbreak. Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering17(3): 2693–2707.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
