A preference for evidence-based decisionmaking opens public health officials up to criticism, as they are reluctant to stake claims concretely if insufficient evidence is available to back up a position. Social media has made it easier for almost anyone to contribute their opinions. Questioning the messenger: The ease with which a diverse chorus of voices can now criticize the messaging put out by public health officials is a common challenge.12 While there are clearly many challenges facing public health officials as they jostle for public attention, three core issues stand out: questioning the messenger, politicizing the messenger, and mistrusting the messenger. To understand the challenges public health officials face in such a crisis, it makes sense to analyze their official communications with the public, media coverage mentioning them, and more broadly, media coverage about the coronavirus during the first three months of the crisis. If truth can triumph over disinformation, then public health officials appear well-placed for the battle. According to Ipsos polling data, 11 citizens in twenty-two countries around the world, including in the three countries studied, rated scientists (60 percent) and doctors (56 percent) to be the most trusted professions in the world, while politicians were considered to be the least trusted (9 percent). They include Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the United States Theresa Tam, the chief public health officer of Canada and Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, in the United Kingdom (UK), who is advising the prime minister and other leading UK officials. This study examines how three key public health experts are communicating in this challenging environment. If a public health official loses credibility, winning it back can be all but impossible if disinformation is debunked, one narrative dies, only to be replaced by countless others. While the messages of public health officials reflect current scientific understanding and change slowly over time, disinformation comes and goes at high speeds. However, these officials often find themselves at a disadvantage when it comes to those spreading disinformation. To successfully influence public behavior, public health officials must project their message above the noise to establish and maintain credibility. Victoria Smith was a nonresident senior research analyst at the Partnership for Countering Influence Operations at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 10 This information environment is not just noisy but dangerous. using the coronavirus,” 9 and scams selling fake cures. 6Īdd to this cacophony additional dangers like increased cyber threats-attacks on healthcare system computers, 7 spoofed government websites, 8 a “667 percent increase in malicious phishing emails. The interconnected nature of the web allows disinformation, including conspiracy theories, 5 to spread rapidly around the world. 4 Competitors for attention, like propagandists, use the opportunity to shift the narrative or win media coverage given the sensation that discovery of their activities causes. In mapping online discourse around the coronavirus month after month, the media monitoring company Graphika found that the share of scientific and medical voices dropped as other actors joined in the discussion. This includes actors with both good and bad intentions, and myriad bystanders who take up and spread content not so much with a motive in mind, but as a quick response to the information they consume. Many actors attempt to be heard in a crisis. In this market, attention rather than valid information is the most valuable commodity. Communicating the truth nowadays is a lot like hollering into a sprawling, open bazaar where some people might be straining to hear, but the vast majority are making noise and going about their own business. Today’s digitally connected information space is an extremely challenging operating environment. The coronavirus pandemic offers a unique opportunity to analyze this approach. If truth is preferable to lies, then educating people to easily identify the difference between accurate information and disinformation would lead them to shun untruthful alternatives. 2 On the surface, this truth-focused approach seems simple. And disinformation, or the intentional spreading of misleading or untrue information, is a common tactic in such operations. 1 Influence operations are organized activities used to affect an audience or outcome. A common refrain among those worried about influence operations is that the amplification of truth will triumph over disinformation.
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