Health-related misinformation and public governance of COVID-19 in South Africa
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/DPRG-12-2021-0163 |
| Published date | 20 January 2023 |
| Date | 20 January 2023 |
| Pages | 58-74 |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information policy |
| Author | Paul Kariuki,Lizzy Oluwatoyin Ofusori,Maria Lauda Goyayi,Prabhakar Rontala Subramaniam |
Health-related misinformation and public
governance of COVID-19 in South Africa
Paul Kariuki, Lizzy Oluwatoyin Ofusori, Maria Lauda Goyayi and
Prabhakar Rontala Subramaniam
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper was to examinehealth-related misinformation proliferationduring
COVID-19pandemic and its implications on publicgovernance in South Africa.
Design/methodology/approach –Because of COVID-19 related restrictions, this study conducted a
systematic review. The researchers searched several search engines which include PubMed, Web of Science
and Scopus to identify relevant studies. A total of 252 peer reviewed research papers were identified. These
research papers were furthered filtered, and a total of 44 relevant paper sw ere eventually selected
Findings –There is a relationship between the spread of health-rela ted misinformation and public
governance. Governmentcoordination and institutional coherence across the differentspheres of governance
is affected whenthere are multiple sources of information that are unverified and uncoordinated.
Research limitations/implications –This study was limited to a systematic review because of COVID-19
restrictions, and therefore, actual data could not be collected. Moreover, this study was limited to health-
related communication, and therefore, its findings can only be generalized to the health sector.
Practical implications –Future research in this subjectshould consider actual data collection from the
departments of health and communications to gain an in-depth understandingof misinformation and its
implications on publicgovernance from their perspective as frontline departments as far as government
communicationis concerned.
Social implications –Misinformation is an impedimentto any fight against a public health emergency.
Institutionswhich regulate communications technologyand monitor misinformation should work harderin
enforcing the law to deter information peddlers from their practice. This calls for reviewing existing
regulationso that online spaces are safer for communicatinghealth-related information.
Originality/value –Effective health communication remains a priorityfor the South African Government
during COVID-19.However, with health-related misinformationon the increase, it is imperativeto mitigate
the spread to ensureit does not impede effective public governance.Government departments in South
Africa are yet to develop policies that mitigate the spread of misinformation, and this paper may assist
them in doing so.
Keywords Misinformation, South Africa, COVID-19, Public governance, Health
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The outbreak of coronavirus pandemic has changed the social media landscape as many
platforms is being flooded with a cacophony of opinion, true and false information and an
unprecedented quantity of data about the virus (Swire-Thomp son and Lazer, 2020). The
ubiquitous social media landscape has created an informat ion ecosystem where information
could spread easily and quickly (Chou et al., 2018). According to Mian and Khan (2020),ina
world desperate for information during this pandemic, fake news has be en peddled causing
confusion, anxiety and fear among citizens. Unverified information po ses specific challenges
in the health-care delivery and in some cases threatening the lives of individuals leading to
deaths (Swire-Thompson and Lazer, 2020). Twitter removed two tweets from Bol sonaro as well
as one tweet from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani that contained misinfo rmation
Paul Kariuki,
Lizzy Oluwatoyin Ofusori,
Maria Lauda Goyayi and
Prabhakar Rontala
Subramaniam all are based
at School of Management,
IT and Governance,
University of KwaZulu-
Natal, Durban, South
Africa.
Received 28 January 2022
Revised 24 August 2022
24 December 2022
Accepted 28 December 2022
PAGE 58 jDIGITAL POLICY, REGULATION AND GOVERNANCE jVOL. 25 NO. 1 2023, pp. 58-74, ©EmeraldPublishing Limited, ISSN 2398-5038 DOI 10.1108/DPRG-12-2021-0163
related to COVID-19 (Carmen, 2020). Similarly, Facebook removed a video shared by
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro that claimed that “hydroxych loroquine is working in all
places” to fight COVID-19, despite the fact that the drug is stil l undergoing testing to
determine its effectiveness (Carmen, 2020). Carmen (2020) noted that while WhatsApp has
reached out to various governments to assist with their efforts to provide accur ate information
to the public, several social media platforms have also incorporated a flag that i s flashed to all
users directing them to their countries’ official COVID-19 websit es.
However, policymakers, including public governance, are stillconfronted with the challenge
of curbing the spread of misinformation which includes fake news, incomplete, inaccurate
and false health information (Mian and Khan, 2020). According to Mian and Khan (2020)
institutional governance coherence is affected when there are multiple sources of
information that are uncoordinated. Hence, this study conducted a systematic review to
understand better the influence of health-related misinformation and its implication on
public governance in reference to South Africa. The research question for the study was
how has health-related misinformation influenced public governance of COVID-19 in South
Africa? South Africa is used as a case study because of her COVID-19 case load, leading
Africa with the number of COVID-19 infections. Drawing from the health information
communication literature, the researchers identified the key issues that influence public
health risk communication in a pandemic. Since there are no studies conducted on this
subject in South Africa, this study responds to this knowledge gap thereby improving our
understanding of how misinformation impedes effective management of a public health
emergency such as COVID-19.
2. Background
COVID-19 has reconfigured the global information flows because of its socioeconomic
effects. No country has been spared. According to the Director-General of the World Health
Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that we are not just fighting an
epidemic; we are fighting an infodemic (Baines and Elliott, 2020). Presently, there is no
robust scientific basis to the existingdefinitions of false information used in the fight against
the COVID-19 infodemic. There has been an increase in fake news as the globe seeks to
understand the many aspects of the pandemic. In the process, most people, increasingly
becoming confused and unable to differentiate the true information from the fake one.
According to Naughton (2020), contends that fake news spread faster and moreeasily than
the COVID-19 virus. It should be noted that fake news is a subset of misinformation just like
disinformation is also a subset of misinformation. Therefore, there is a need to define,
“misinformation” to facilitatea better understanding of the concept.
According to Pennycook and Rand (2021, p. 2), misinformation is an umbrella term that r efers
to all information that is false or inaccurate information that is deli berately created and is
intentionally or unintentionally propagated through social media. The key terms associated
with misinformation include disinformation, spam, troll, urban legend, r umors and fake news.
Fake news refers to false information in form of news (Al Khaja et al., 2018); rumors connote
unverified information that can either be true or false,while spam denotes irrelevant information
that is sent to many users (Tasnim et al., 2020). An urban legend refers to intention ally spread
misinformation that is related to fictional stories about local events (Wang et a l., 2019). Troll is
another kind of misinformation intended to provoke an emotion al reaction from unsuspecting
readers leading to tensions, argument or fight (Islam et al.,2021). Spam is unwanted
information that is sent to overwhelm its recipients, normally sent via social media, ema il and
instant messaging (Al Khaja et al., 2018). Disinformation refers to inaccu rate information
usually distinguished from misinformation by the intention of deception ( Bennett and
Livingston, 2018). Detailed examples for each of these key terms are gi ven in Table 1 below.
VOL. 25 NO. 1 2023 jDIGITALPOLICY, REGULATION AND GOVERNANCE jPAGE 59
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