The Role of Social Media in Health Misinformation and Disinformation During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Bibliometric Analysis

• DOI: 10.2196/48620
• Publication Date: 2023-08-11T17:52:10Z
• Authors: Funmi Adebesin; Hanlie Smuts; Tendani Mawela; George Maramba; Marie Hattingh
• Keywords: Disinformation; Misinformation; Pandemic; Microblogging; Information Dissemination

Background The use of social media platforms to seek information continues increase. Social can be used disseminate important people worldwide instantaneously. However, their viral nature also makes it easy share misinformation, disinformation, unverified information, and fake news. unprecedented reliance on during the COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by increased incidents misinformation disinformation. Consequently, there an increase in number scientific publications related role disseminating health disinformation at height pandemic. Health especially periods global public disasters, lead erosion trust policy makers best fatal consequences worst. Objective This paper reports a bibliometric analysis aimed investigating evolution research as driver since start Additionally, this study identify top trending keywords, niche topics, authors, publishers for publishing papers current research, well collaboration between authors topics Methods Scopus database accessed June 8, 2023, using combination Medical Subject Heading author-defined terms create following search phrases that targeted title, abstract, keyword fields: (“Health*” OR “Medical”) AND (“Misinformation” “Disinformation” “Fake News”) (“Social media” “Twitter” “Facebook” “YouTube” “WhatsApp” “Instagram” “TikTok”) (“Pandemic*” “Corona*” “Covid*”). A total 943 published 2020 2023 were analyzed Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Corporation), VOSviewer (Centre Science Technology Studies, Leiden University), Biblioshiny package Bibliometrix (K-Synth Srl) RStudio (Posit, PBC). Results highest from 2022 (387/943, 41%). Most (725/943, 76.9%) articles. JMIR most (54/943, 5.7%). Authors United States collaborated most, with 311 coauthored papers. keywords “Covid-19,” “social media,” “misinformation” 3 whereas “learning systems,” models,” algorithms” revealed outbreak. Conclusions Collaborations productivity citation counts. Niche such could exploited researchers future studies analyze influence emergencies.