Technology, Culture, and African Societies, 22nd Annual Africa Conference
University of Texas at Austin, 31 March-2 April 2023
The COVID-19 pandemic has become one of the most devastating global health challenges, with its ripple effects permeating every sector of society. One of the effects is its impact on antibiotic resistance, and another is the aggravation of misinformation and disinformation in Northern Nigeria. The digital age of new media and advancement in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) creates a conducive atmosphere for the above practices to become increasingly complicated. This study aims to investigate the causal impact of misinformation and pseudoscience in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic in Northern Nigeria. At the end of this research, we hope to disseminate health communication to help dispel rumours and save people from impending dangers due to harmful beliefs in fake news, myths, and conspiracy theories.
The research, which is both qualitative and quantitative, will rely on data from Key Informant Interviews (KII), Focused Group Discussion(FGDs) and online new media mine text-based interactions of COVID-19 retrieved from Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram and YouTube. The online data samples will be analysed using Kozinets’ (1998) Netnoghraphic approach.
