Media and Information Literacy: A Critical Response to the Challenge of ‘Infodemic’ in the Covid-19 Pandemic Era in Nigeria

Ph.D Elizabeth Titilayo Aduloju
Additional contact information
Ph.D Elizabeth Titilayo Aduloju: Catholic Institute of West Africa, Nigeria

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, 2021, vol. 05, issue 07, 15-24

Abstract: Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa is not left out in the fight against the COVID-19 outbreak that continues to ravage the entire universe. The deadly virus as of 26th June 2021 has infected more than 181.3 million people and killed over 3.9 million people globally. In Nigeria alone, it has infected over 167 thousand people and killed 2,119 people between February 27th, the day the first case was recorded and 26th June 2021. Unfortunately, as the virus continues to spread worldwide, there is also a rapid increase in the rate of infodemic – information overload majority of which are fake, disinformation and misinformation – about the virus, its transmission and cure. Thus, this paper interrogates the present reality of the infodemic in Nigeria, especially in the present COVID-19 pandemic and the vision of media and information literacy. The problem concerned the extent to which infodemic could precariously engineer crisis, disgust, fear, hostility and panic which might degenerate to conflict, insecurity, stigmatisation and eventual death. Combining textual analysis with receptor oriented, the article critically examined the social media platform posts and activities in this domain. Major findings apart from revealing that the free and unlimited access to information on social media platforms have been the active driver of the current experience, also showed that the inability of people to discern the veracity and authenticity of information within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic have made many vulnerable. Thus, the present article concluded that media and information literacy is a necessity in fighting the challenge of infodemic in Nigeria and promoting healthy information in media and technological environments. Therefore, among others, the introduction of media and information literacy to both literate and illiterate sectors of society is recommended.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.rsisinternational.org/journals/ijriss/ ... -5-issue-7/15-24.pdf (application/pdf)
https://rsisinternational.org/virtual-library/pape ... emic-era-in-nigeria/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bcp:journl:v:5:y:2021:i:07:p:15-24

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science is currently edited by Dr. Nidhi Malhan

More articles in International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science from International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Dr. Pawan Verma ().