RT Journal Article
T1 Fake News in the Post-COVID-19 Era? The Health Disinformation Agenda in Spain
A1 Costa Sánchez, Carmen
A1 Vizoso García, Ángel Antonio
A1 López García, Xosé
K1 Fact-checking
K1 COVID-19
K1 Health
K1 Crisis
K1 Agenda
K1 Disinformation
K1 Spain
AB Three years after a pandemic that demonstrated the importance of reliable health information in a news agenda dominated by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), we analyze the situation of health disinformation in Spain on the basis of the verifications carried out by its main fact-checking platforms. The results show that COVID-19 shared center stage with other topics in the health area. In addition, a unique agenda is evident in each situation in the study, indicating a fact-checking strategy that is differentiated according to the media outlet and type of specialization (generalist fact-checker or one specialized in health). Vaccination, nutrition, and disease treatment emerge as the most important thematic subfields. Most health hoaxes are manufactured, i.e., created from scratch, rather than being manipulated or reconfigured from real preexisting elements. The format of text and image together predominates, and new social networks (TikTok or Telegram) have appeared as platforms for the circulation of hoaxes. This indicates that providing necessary health literacy to society and giving health issues greater presence in current fact-checking agendas are strategies for combatting disinformation, which can have serious consequences, regardless of whether there is a public health crisis such as the one experienced recently.
PB MDPI
SN 2075-4698
YR 2023
FD 2023-11-15
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10347/38566
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10347/38566
LA eng
NO Costa-Sánchez, C., Vizoso, Á., & López-García, X. (2023). Fake News in the Post-COVID-19 Era? The Health Disinformation Agenda in Spain. Societies, 13(11), 242. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13110242
NO This article is part of the R&D project “Digital Native Media in Spain: Strategies, Competencies, Social Involvement and (Re)Definition of Practices in Journalistic Production and Diffusion” (PID2021-122534OB-C21), funded by MCIN/10.13039/501100011033, and by the “ERDF a Way of Making Europe”.
DS Minerva
RD 28 abr 2026