TY - JOUR

T1 - Pandemic and infodemic

T2 - the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 from a cultural evolutionary perspective

AU - Häusler, Lara

AU - Baraghith, Karim

N1 - Funding Information: We are deeply thankful to Alberto Acerbi, Thomas Reydon, Phillipe Huneman, Hugh Desmond and two anonymous referees for help- and thoughtful comments on this draft. We declare that we have no financial or third-party interests whatsoever with this publication.

PY - 2023/10

Y1 - 2023/10

N2 - In this paper, we critically consider the analogy between “infodemic” and “pandemic”, i.e. the spread of fake news about COVID-19 as a medial virus and the infection with the biological virus itself from the perspective of cultural evolutionary theory (CET). After confronting three major shortcomings of the ‘infodemic’ concept, we use CET as a background framework to analyze this phenomenon. To do so, we summarize which bi-ases are crucial for transmission in terms of cultural selection and how transmission is restricted by filter bubbles or echo chambers acting as TRIMS (transmission isolating mechanisms) post “infection”, which isolate false from trustworthy scientific information in the context of the Corona pandemic. This is followed by a demonstration of the threat to biological fitness posed by the effects of an infection with fake news, which leads to a reduced willingness to vaccinate and follow health measures. We identify fake news on Covid as pseudoscience, trying to immunize itself from external influences. We then address the question of how to combat the infodemic. Since debunking strategies, such as warnings by fact-checking, have proven relatively ineffective in combating fake news, the inoculation theory from psychology might offer an alternative solution. Through its underlying ‘prebunking strategy’, which educates individuals about the risks and tactics of fake news prior to a potential infection, they could be ‘immunized’ in advance, similar to a virological vaccination. Although we recognize that the pandemic/infodemic analogy is in fact far from perfect, we believe that CET could provide a theoretical underpinning in order to give much more semantic depth to the concept ‘infodemic’.

AB - In this paper, we critically consider the analogy between “infodemic” and “pandemic”, i.e. the spread of fake news about COVID-19 as a medial virus and the infection with the biological virus itself from the perspective of cultural evolutionary theory (CET). After confronting three major shortcomings of the ‘infodemic’ concept, we use CET as a background framework to analyze this phenomenon. To do so, we summarize which bi-ases are crucial for transmission in terms of cultural selection and how transmission is restricted by filter bubbles or echo chambers acting as TRIMS (transmission isolating mechanisms) post “infection”, which isolate false from trustworthy scientific information in the context of the Corona pandemic. This is followed by a demonstration of the threat to biological fitness posed by the effects of an infection with fake news, which leads to a reduced willingness to vaccinate and follow health measures. We identify fake news on Covid as pseudoscience, trying to immunize itself from external influences. We then address the question of how to combat the infodemic. Since debunking strategies, such as warnings by fact-checking, have proven relatively ineffective in combating fake news, the inoculation theory from psychology might offer an alternative solution. Through its underlying ‘prebunking strategy’, which educates individuals about the risks and tactics of fake news prior to a potential infection, they could be ‘immunized’ in advance, similar to a virological vaccination. Although we recognize that the pandemic/infodemic analogy is in fact far from perfect, we believe that CET could provide a theoretical underpinning in order to give much more semantic depth to the concept ‘infodemic’.

KW - COVID-19

KW - Cultural evolution

KW - Fake news

KW - Infodemic

KW - Inoculation

KW - Pandemic

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85173585562&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s10539-023-09928-8

DO - 10.1007/s10539-023-09928-8

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85173585562

VL - 38

JO - Biology and Philosophy

JF - Biology and Philosophy

SN - 0169-3867

IS - 5

M1 - 42

ER -