Coronavirus in Spain: Fear of ‘Official’ Fake News Boosts WhatsApp and Alternative Sources

Carlos Elías and Daniel Catalan-Matamoros
Additional contact information
Carlos Elías: Department of Communication Studies, Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain
Daniel Catalan-Matamoros: Department of Communication Studies, Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain

Media and Communication, 2020, vol. 8, issue 2, 462-466

Abstract: The communication of the Coronavirus crisis in Spain has two unexpected components: the rise of the information on social networks, especially WhatsApp, and the consolidation of TV programs on mystery and esotericism. Both have emerged to “tell the truth” in opposition to official sources and public media. For a country with a long history of treating science and the media as properties of the state, this very radical development has surprised communication scholars.

Keywords: Coronavirus; Covid-19; fake news; journalism; social media; Spain; WhatsApp; YouTube (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/3217 (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:cog:meanco:v8:y:2020:i:2:p:462-466

DOI: 10.17645/mac.v8i2.3217

Access Statistics for this article

Media and Communication is currently edited by Raquel Silva

More articles in Media and Communication from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().