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Research Paper
© University of Tehran
Managing Infodemic on COVID-19 Related Issues:
‘Building Resilience to Misinformation’ in IRNA and
FARS News Agencies Instagram Pages
Hamideh Molaei1
1. Assistant Professor of South/East Asian and Oceania Studies, University of Tehran,
Tehran, Iran (hmolaei@ut.ac.ir)
(Received: Dec. 13, 2020 Revised: Jan. 14, 2021 Accepted: Mar. 17, 2021)
Abstract1
The present article aims to investigate the modality of coverage and infodemic
management regarding COVID 19 by the two Iranian mainstream media i.e.,
IRNA and Fars News Agency. To investigate the modality of infodemic
management, the article specifically examines ‘building resilience to
misinformation’. To reach this aim, content analysis has been used. Data for this
study were selected from the Instagram pages of Fars News Agency
(@fras_news) and Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) (Irna_1313) from
February 19, 2019, the day of the official announcement regarding the first
Corona virus case in Iran, until October 25, 2021. In total 218 items were
collected, out of which 64 cases were from IRNA and 154 were from Fars News
Agency. Both news agencies were examined in terms of infodemic type,
Infodemic themes and infodemic sources. The results of the study indicated that
in terms of infodemic type, Fars mainly focused on fake news; while IRNA
concentrated on prevalent public questions and concerns regarding the Corona
virus. In terms of infodemic themes, both news agencies focused on Corona
phobia and vaccination. The results of the study indicate that social networking
sites are the main sources of spreading infodemic regarding COVID-19.
Keywords: COVID-19, Fake news, Infodemic management, Instagram,
Mainstream media, Misinformation
Journal of World Sociopolitical Studies| Vol. 5| No. 2| Spring 2021| pp. 367-398
Web Page: https://wsps.ut.ac.ir//Email: wsps@ut.ac.ir
eISSN: 2588-3127 PrintISSN: 2588-3119
DOI: 10.22059/WSPS.2022.335534.1255
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1. Introduction
The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO),
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus finishes his speech at the gathering
of foreign policy and security experts held in Germany on February
15, 2020, with the three following statements: “This is a time for
facts, not fear, this is a time for rationality, not rumors and this is a
time for solidarity, not stigma” (WHO, 2020). He particularly puts
a special attention to the second statement by mentioning “we’re
not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic” (WHO,
2020). The term ‘infodemic’ which is a combination of information
and epidemic has been defined by WHO (2021) as “too much
information including false or misleading information in digital and
physical environments during a disease outbreak”. It has also been
defined as “a contagious disease infecting our information culture”
(Solomon, 2020, p. 1806). Infodemic is frequently associated with
fake news, false claims and misinformation (Broniatowski, et al,
2021, p. 4). According to Cinelli, et al. (2020, p. 1) “The term
infodemic has been coined to outline the perils of misinformation
phenomena during the management of disease outbreaks, since it
could even speed up the epidemic process by influencing and
fragmenting social response”. The concerns over infodemic have
intensified with the rise of social media. Social media have
provided a great opportunity for spreading fast and vast news and
information during crisis. At the same time, they have the potential
to spread fake news and false information. The consequences of
infodemic can be serious. As maintained by WHO (2021), it causes
confusion among citizens and makes them adopt risky behaviors
that could harm their health. As an illustration, taking Alcohol as a
cure for Coronavirus led to serious injuries and death of several
Iranians at the early stages of spreading the disease (Karimi &
Managing Infodemic on COVID-19 Related Issues: ‘Buliding Resilience to
Misinformation’ in IRNA and FARS News Agencies Instagram Pages
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369
Gambrell, 2020, in Patwa et al., 2020, p. 1). Other consequences
include mistrusts to authorities which leads to reducing people’s
commitment to health advises (Broniatowski, et al., 2021, p. 4;
WHO, 2021). In addition, “an infodemic can intensify or lengthen
outbreaks when people are unsure about what they need to do to
protect their health and the health of people around them” (WHO,
2021).
Infodemic is a global issue; almost all countries are, in some
ways, dealing with the issue. Evidence widely shows that
authorities and media have tried to tackle this issue. As an
illustration, the government of India, in its official website, which
has been allocated to information and education provision for the
citizens regarding COVID 19, put two specific sections as
MyGovMythBuster and MyGovFactCheck, in which explanations
and responses to questions were constantly provided regarding
false information and fake news, prevalent in different social media
in India. Iran is not an exception in this regard. In parallel with the
public announcement regarding the first identified Coronavirus
case in Iran on February 19, 2020 by the Ministry of Health and
Medicine Education (MOHME), a wave of misleading and fake
news spread in different Iranian social media.
In such situation, infodemic management is crucial; Infodemic
management is “the systematic use of risk- and evidence-based
analysis and approaches to manage the infodemic and reduce its
impact on health behaviors during health emergencies” (WHO,
2021). According to WHO (2021), infodemic management includes
the following four activities: (1) listening to community concerns
and questions; (2) promoting an understanding of the risk, as well
as health experts’ advice; (3) building resilience to misinformation;
and, (4) engaging and empowering communities to take positive
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action. In this process, tackling to spread misinformation is a
significant factor, and as Patwa et al. (2020, p.1) maintain “the first
step towards tackling the fake news is to identify it”. Mainstream
media can play an important role in introducing infodemic to the
society; they can also play an important role in tackling
misinformation. They can provide facts from reliable resources and
offer them to the audiences, who are surrounded by different fake
news and false information. The present study therefore aims to
investigate the function of two Iranian mainstream media i.e Fars
News Agency and Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) to
manage infodemic that has spread in social media platforms in Iran
from the first days of the disease outbreak in the country.
The article first reviews previous studies regarding infodemic
management. It will then elaborate the details of the qualitative
content analysis that has been employed as the main research
method. The research findings and discussion will then be
presented. Finally, the paper concludes with some remarks on the
role of mainstream media in managing infodemic during the
pandemic in Iran.
2. Literature Review
Reviewing previous studies on managing infodemic and in
particular combating fake news regarding COVID 19 depicts two
general categories in this regard:
1. Studies on infodemic management from the healthcare
perspective (Scott, 2021; Tangcharoensathien, et al. 2020),
2. Studies on the role and engagement of media in the formation
and management of infodemic (Cinelli, et al., 2020).
Managing Infodemic on COVID-19 Related Issues: ‘Buliding Resilience to
Misinformation’ in IRNA and FARS News Agencies Instagram Pages
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Eysenbach (2020) in an article titled ‘How to Fight an
Infodemic: The four Pillars of Infodemic Management' proposes
for major principles of infodemic management including "(1)
information monitoring; (2) building e-Health literacy and science
literacy capacity; (3) encouraging knowledge refinement and
quality improvement processes; and (4) accurate and timely
knowledge translation, minimizing distorting factors such as
political or commercial influences" (p. 1). In another article titled
‘COVID-19 Pandemic, infodemic and the role of eHealth literacy’,
Chong, et al. (2020) suggested improving eHealth literacy on
COVID 19 as an important factor to reduce the challenges of
infodemic. In a more practical sense, Mheidly & Fares (2020)
proposed a particular health communication strategy called
‘Infodemic Response Checklist’ to overcome the COVID 19
infodemic.
The second group of studies have focused on the role of media
and in particular social media in both the formation and the
management of infodemic. Zhang, et al., (2021) investigated the
COVID-19 infodemic on Chinese social media; they employed a
content analysis on the posts related to the COVID-19 false
information in the most important and influential social media
platforms in China. They came to the conclusion that “the COVID-
19 infodemic on Chinese social media was characterized by
gradual progress, videoization, and repeated fluctuations”. In
addition, their study indicated that “the COVID-19 infodemic is
paralleled to the propagation of the COVID-19 epidemic” (p. 1).
Characterizing COVID 19 misinformation has been at the core
attention of other scholars in other countries. A very practical
example of this type of study was conducted by Al-Zaman (2021)
on the characterization of the COVID-19-related social media fake
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news in India. He investigated five issues vis-à-vis fake news. The
five items include fake news themes, types, sources, platforms and
orientations. Analyzing 125 fake news items, the results of Al-
Zaman’s study indicated that the seven main themes of the fake
news include “health, religiopolitical, political, crime,
entertainment, religious, and miscellaneous” (p. 100). In addition,
the results indicated that text and video were the prevalent types of
fake news in the sample. Interestingly, based on the results of the
article, most fake news came from different social media platforms
including Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, and YouTube and the
very small portion of them i.e., almost 5%, originated from
mainstream media. Finally, the study illustrated that the orientation
of more than half of the selected sample i.e., 56% of the items,
were negative that could potentially affect the general public
health.
Other studies, such as the one conducted by Rodrigues and Xu
(2020) in an article titled ‘Regulation of COVID-19 Fake News
Infodemic in China and India,’ focused on infodemic management
strategies and in particular the government responses to fake news
both in India and China. The authors maintained that each country
has its own regulations and policies to respond to and manage this
issue.
Understanding the motivations behind sharing and
disseminating fake news by social media users is an important
issue, investigated by Apuke and Omer (2021). Employing use and
gratification theory, the authors concluded that the most important
motivations include “information sharing, socialization,
information seeking and pass time. In contrast, no significant
association was found for entertainment motivation” (p. 1). Lee et
al., (2021) focused on the role of online news and social media in
Managing Infodemic on COVID-19 Related Issues: ‘Buliding Resilience to
Misinformation’ in IRNA and FARS News Agencies Instagram Pages
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prevention action during the COVID 19 pandemic in South Korea.
The results of their study indicated that “online news and social
media influence preventive actions through the trust in citizens or
in government”. The results of their study also showed that “while
online news media enhances trust in both the citizens and the
government, social media only influences trust in citizens” (p.1).
Olagoke, et al. (2020, p. 865) investigated “the association between
the coronavirus news on mainstream media, risk perceptions, and
depressive symptoms,” and Wang (2021) compared the Chinese
people’s motivations to mainstream media and social media to
receive news during the COVID-19 lockdown in China. He
concluded that motivations to use mainstream media to gain and
seek news and information were stronger, compared to alternative
media.
Each of the above article concentrated on an important issue vis
a vis the formation and the management of the COVID 19
infodemic. However, as observed, there is a lack of studies
regarding the role of mainstream media in infodemic management.
Accordingly, the present study aims to fill the gap in the existing
literature by investigating the role of two Iranian mainstream media
i.e. IRNA and Fars News Agency to manage infodemic during the
pandemic. The study therefore aims to answer the following
research questions:
RQ1. What are the most prevalent types of infodemic that are
recognized and responded by IRNA and Fars Instagram pages?
RQ2. What are the most important infodemic themes that are
recognized by IRNA and Fars Instagram pages?
RQ3. What are the main sources of infodemic used by IRNA
and Fars in their Instagram pages?
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RQ4. What are the most widely-used types of IRNA and Fars
Instagram selected posts?
3. Research Method
This study employed a qualitative content analysis to answer the
raised questions. “Qualitative content analysis is one of many
qualitative methods used to analyze textual data” (Forman &
Damschroder, 2007, p. 39). It is a method that has extensively been
used for analyzing different types of media content.
3. 1. Sampling and Data Collection
Data for this study were selected from the Instagram pages of Fars
News Agency (@fras_news) and Islamic Republic News Agency
(IRNA) (Irna_1313). There are three reasons for this selection.
First, as aforementioned, both of news agencies are mainstream
media and for the aim of this paper, it is important to see how
mainstream media manage infodemic. Second, both of them have a
significant number of followers: Fras has 1.5 million followers and
IRNA has 400 thousand followers. Third, both news agencies have
taken a considerable attention to prevalent fake news and false
information regarding the COVID-19. As an illustration, only one
day after the official announcement regarding the identification of
the first Corona case to Iran, Fars published a post titled "rumor is
more dangerous than Corona," and tried to inform the readers
regarding the potential threats of false news. Following that, both
Fars and IRNA posted regular updates about the rumors that were
spreading in the online sphere, in particular in different social
media, and tried to provide clarification and fact checks for them.
Data were collected from the aforementioned Instagram pages from
Managing Infodemic on COVID-19 Related Issues: ‘Buliding Resilience to
Misinformation’ in IRNA and FARS News Agencies Instagram Pages
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February 19, 2019, the first day of the official announcement of
discovering the first Corona case in Iran, until October 25, 2021.
During this period, among the news related to the different aspects
of COVID 19, only posts related to fake news, false information or
contained concerns or questions of people vis-à-vis the pandemic
were investigated. Taking the notion of infodemic management i.e.
‘building resilience to misinformation’ (WHO, 2021) into
consideration for data collection, 154 items were selected from Fars
and 64 items were selected from IRNA. In sum, 218 items were
analyzed. It is important to mention that most of these news items
were specified with false news hashtag1 and were recognized as
Corona rumors.
3. 2. Themes and Categories
To analyze the typology of infodemic contents covered by Fars and
IRNA Instagram pages during the pandemic, four categories are
recognized: 1) infodemic types, 2) Infodemic themes, 3) Infodemic
sources, and 4) types of Instagram posts. Each of them has some
subcategories that will be explained in the subsequent parts of the
paper.
3. 2.1. Infodemic Type
For this category, six items were recognized: 1) fake news, 2)
misconceptions, 3) prevalent public questions and concerns
regarding Corona, 4) warnings, 5) negative frame explanations, and
6) distorted information.
In this study, fake news refers to any incorrect information
presented as news. As an illustration, the ‘contamination of red
1. # زﻮﻴﻧ ﺲﻟﺎﻓ
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meat with the Corona virus’ is an example of a fake news.
Misconceptions refer to wrong and inaccurate idea regarding the
virus. ‘Hot weather can destroy the Corona virus’ is an example of
misconception. The questions and concerns of the society regarding
the side effects of the Corona vaccine’ is an instance of the third
category i.e., prevalent public questions and concerns regarding
Corona. Answering these questions and concentrating on these
issues by news agencies are important because if they are no
appropriately answered, particularly by experts in the related fields,
they have the potential to be the sources of fake news and
misconceptions. Accordingly, this paper investigated how and to
what extent Fars and IRNA focused on these issues. The fourth
item, ‘warning’ refers to the posts that inform people about the
possible scams and defrauds conducted by some groups that are
mainly advertised in social media. For example, warnings on the
activity of groups who do rapid Corona tests at homes is
categorized in this section. Negative frame explanations refer to the
posts that are not necessarily fake news or false information, but
they include explanations regarding the negative frames that anti-
Iranian media spread regarding different aspects of Corona in Iran.
Finally, ‘distorted information’ refers to the contents that are not
totally incorrect like fake news, but some parts of the correct
information are cut or distorted. A prevalent type of that is cutting
specific parts of a video to deviate it from its original message.
3. 2. 2. Infodemic Themes
This category is allocated to infodemic themes, because one of the
key objectives of the paper was to investigate the main themes and
topics of widespread fake news and false information regarding the
Corona virus in Iran. To this end, eight categories are identified: 1)
different government activities including government policies and
Managing Infodemic on COVID-19 Related Issues: ‘Buliding Resilience to
Misinformation’ in IRNA and FARS News Agencies Instagram Pages
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functions to control and manage the pandemic, 2) health care
activities, 3) offering governmental or non-governmental services
to people, such as allocating free internet services, 4) health-
religion dichotomy, which is mainly offered by anti-Iranian media,
5) Corona virus prevention and treatment methods, 6) Corona
phobia, 7) vaccination, and 8) Miscellaneous. It is important to
mention that Corona phobia has four subcategories and vaccination
has also three subcategories. Corona phobia categories include 6.1)
exaggerated and false statistics of infected people or victims, 6.2)
strange and dangerous consequences caused by Corona virus such
as blackening of the skin, 6.3) unusual ways of spreading Corona
virus, 6.4) reporting fake news on death or infecting of famous
people. This is categorized under Corona phobia because
frequently hearing about the death or infecting famous people can
frighten people that the situation is very critical and dangerous. The
three categories of vaccination include: 7.1) general issues
regarding vaccination, 7.2) efficiency and side effects of
vaccination, and 7.3) specific government activities and functions
regarding vaccination. In this regard, this category does not overlap
with the first category of government activities and policies to
manage Corona crisis. In the findings section, the statistics will be
explained and offered separately.
3. 2. 3. Infodemic Sources
This study also investigated the prevalent of infodemic sources by
identifying four categories: 1) Social networking sites, 2) anti
Iranian media, 3) Governmental and official websites and
authorities and 4) ambiguous, which refers to the sources that were
not clear.
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3. 2. 4. Type of Instagram Posts
For the first category, five types of Instagram posts were
recognized: 1) text, 2) photo & text, 3) video, 4) motion graphic
and 5) infographic.
4. Findings
In this section, the most important findings of the paper regarding
managing infodemic by IRNA and Fars news will be revealed and
discussed. Accordingly, as an important part of the process,
research questions will be reviewed.
RQ1. What are the most prevalent infodemic types that are
recognized and responded by IRNA and Fars News Agency
Instagram pages?
To answer this question, six types of infodemic were identified.
As illustrated in Table 1, the most dominant type of infodemic that
were concentrated by IRNA was ‘prevalent public questions and
concerns regarding the Corona virus’ and by Fars was ‘fake news’.
Other priorities by IRNA include: misconceptions, fake news,
warnings and distorted information. As can be seen, IRNA mainly
focused on prevalent public questions and concerns and
misconceptions regarding the Corona virus. Notably, three forth of
its items i.e., 75% were situated in these two categories. Fake news
is the third priority with almost 20% of the items. There are only 3
items allocated to warnings and distorted information, and as can
be seen, IRNA did not allocate any items to negative frame
explanations. Other priorities by Fars include: prevalent public
questions and concerns regarding the Corona virus, negative frame
explanations, misconceptions, warnings, and distorted information.
Managing Infodemic on COVID-19 Related Issues: ‘Buliding Resilience to
Misinformation’ in IRNA and FARS News Agencies Instagram Pages
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In sum, the most prevalent types of infodemic recognized by
both of the selected news agencies were 1) fake news, 2) prevalent
public questions and concerns regarding the Corona virus, 3)
misconceptions, 4) negative frame explanations, 5) warnings, and
6) distorted information. Table 1 summarizes the information.
Table 1. The most prevalent types of infodemic recognized by IRNA and Fars
Instagram pages
News agency
Types of infodemic
IRNA Fars IRNA & Fars
Frequency
Percent
Frequency
Percent
Frequency
Percent
Fake news 13 20.3 102 66.2 115 52.7
Misconceptions 19 29.7 7 4.5 26 11.9
Prevalent public
questions and
concerns regarding
Corona
29 45.3 20 13 49 22.5
Warnings 2 3.1 4 2.6 6 2.8
Negative frame
explanations 0 0 17 11 17 7.8
Distorted
information 1 1.6 4 2.6 5 2.3
Total 64 100 154 100 164 100
Source: Author
RQ2. What are the most important infodemic themes that are
recognized by IRNA and Fars New Agency Instagram pages?
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The analysis of the findings in Table 2 indicates that the most
important infodemic themes highlighted by IRNA consist of
vaccination and Corona phobia. Out of 64 news items related to
infodemic, IRNA allocated 24 items to vaccination and 23 items to
different topics vis-à-vis Corona phobia.
The individual categories in Table 2 illustrate that items related
to ‘unusual ways of spreading Corona virus’ is the first widespread
infodemic theme that is covered by IRNA. Furthermore,
approximately 30% of the IRNA Instagram posts are allocated to
this topic. The second and third most prevalent topics are ‘general
issues regarding vaccination’ and ‘efficiency and side effects of
vaccination,’ which constitute 15.6% and 12.5%, of the entire
IRNA Instagram posts, respectively. Other themes covered by
IRNA include ‘Corona virus prevention and treatment” (10.9%),
government activities in general (9.4%) and government activities
and functions regarding vaccination, in particular (9.4%), ‘offering
governmental or non-governmental services’ (4.7%), ‘exaggerated
and false statistics of infected or victims (4.7%) and both ‘strange
and dangerous consequences caused by Corona virus’ and ‘health
care activities’ with 1.6% at the end of the list.
Table 2 also indicates the most important infodemic themes
covered by Fars News Agency. As illustrated in Table 2, the
themes related to Corona phobia constitute the top priority of Fars
(32.3%), followed by items related to vaccination (20.7%). The
analysis of the individual categories of themes indicates that the
most important infodemic themes that are covered by Fars are as
follow: ‘government activities’ (18.2%), ‘general issues regarding
vaccination’(12.3%), ‘exaggerated and false statistics of infected or
victims’(11%), ‘fake news on death or infecting of famous
people’(9.7%), ‘health-religion dichotomy’ (9.1%), ‘specific
Managing Infodemic on COVID-19 Related Issues: ‘Buliding Resilience to
Misinformation’ in IRNA and FARS News Agencies Instagram Pages
Journal of WORLD SOCIOPOLITICAL STUDIES | Vol. 5 | No. 2 | Spring 2021
381
government activities and functions regarding vaccination’ (8.4%),
‘strange and dangerous consequences caused by the Corona virus’,
(5.8%), ‘unusual ways of spreading the Corona virus’ (5.8%),
‘health care activities’(3.9%), ‘offering governmental or non-
governmental services’(3.2%) and ‘Corona virus prevention and
treatment (3.2%).
It is also important to see how both news agencies concentrated
on infodemic themes. Except the two main categories i.e., Corona
phobia and vaccination, which come on the top with 33.5% and
25.7%, respectively, the analysis of other individual items are as
follow: fake news on ‘government activities’ regarding the
management of corona virus with 15.6% comes first. ‘General
issues regarding vaccination’ with 13.3% is the second important
theme. ‘Unusual ways of spreading the Corona virus’ with 12.8% is
the third important theme. Other important themes include
‘exaggerated and false statistics of infected or victims’(9.2%),
‘specific government activities and functions regarding
vaccination’ (8.7%), ‘fake news on death or infecting of famous
people’(6.9%), ‘health-religion dichotomy’ (6.4%), ‘Corona virus
prevention and treatment (5.5%), ‘strange and dangerous
consequences caused by the Corona virus’, (4.6%), ‘offering
governmental or non-governmental services’(3.7%), ‘efficiency
and side effects of vaccination’ (3.7%) and ‘health care
activities’(3.2%).
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Table 2. The most important infodemic themes recognized by IRNA and Fars
Instagram pages
News agency
Infodemic themes
IRNA Fars IRNA &
Fars
Frequen
c
y
Per cent
Frequenc
y
Per cent
Frequenc
y
Per cent
Government activities 6 9.4 28 18.2 34 15.6
Health care activities 1 1.6 6 3.9 7 3.2
Offering governmental or non-
governmental services 3 4.7 5 3.2 8 3.7
Health-religion dichotomy 0 0 14 9.1 14 6.4
Corona virus prevention and treatment
ways 7 10.9 5 3.2 12 5.5
Corona
phobia
IRNA
(F*= 23)
(P*= 36)
Fars
(F= 50)
(P= 32.3)
IRNA &
Fars
(F= 73)
(P= 33.5)
Exaggerated and false
statistics of infected or
victims
3 4.7 17 11 20 9.2
Strange and dangerous
consequences caused by
Corona virus
1 1.6 9 5.8 10 4.6
Unusual ways of spreading
Corona virus 19 29.7 9 5.8 28 12.8
Reporting fake news on
death or infecting of famous
people
0 0 15 9.7 15 6.9
Vaccination
IRNA
(F= 24)
(P= 37.5)
Fars
(F= 32)
(P= 20.7)
IRNA &
Fars
(F= 56)
(P= 25.7)
General issues regarding
vaccination 10 15.6 19 12.3 29 13.3
Efficiency and side effects
of vaccination 8 12.5 0 0 8 3.7
Specific government
activities and functions
regarding vaccination
6 9.4 13 8.4 19 8.7
Miscellaneous 0 0 14 9.1 14 6.4
Total 64 100 154 100 218 100
Source: Author
Managing Infodemic on COVID-19 Related Issues: ‘Buliding Resilience to
Misinformation’ in IRNA and FARS News Agencies Instagram Pages
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RQ3. What are the main sources of infodemics that IRNA and
Fars referred to in their Instagram pages?
As depicted in Table 3, the main sources of infodemics covered
by IRNA and Fars consist of social networking sites. While IRNA
only referred to one news from anti-Iranian sources, Fars, provided
clarifications on 44 news items that were spreading fake news
regarding different aspects of the Corona virus by anti-Iranian
media. It is also important to mention that governmental and
official websites and authorities were in some cases the sources of
infodemic; though with a low rate. There were also some items
whose main sources were not clear: 53% of the IRNA items and
13.9% of Fars items belonged to this category.
Table 3. The main sources of infodemic that IRNA and Fars referred to in their
Instagram pages
News agency
Infodemic sources
IRNA Fars IRNA & Fars
Frequency
Per cent
Frequency
Per cent
Frequency
Per cent
Social networking sites 28 43.8 83 53.2 110 50.5
Anti-Iranian media 1 1.6 44 28.6 45 20.6
Governmental and official
websites and authorities 1 1.6 7 4.5 8 3.7
Ambiguous 34 53.1 21 13.6 55 25.2
Total 64 100 154 100 164 100
Source: Author
RQ4. What are the most widely-used types of IRNA and Fars
Instagram selected posts?
As the illustrated in Table 4, the most widely-used types of posts
used by IRNA to inform people about the Corona infodemic are
text (32.8%), video (35.9%) and infographic (21.9%), while the
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most widely-used types of posts used by Fras include photo and
text (71.4%), video (20%) and text (6.5%). As can be seen, the rate
of using infographic and motion graphic by Fars is rather low.
Table 4. The most widely-used types of IRNA and Fars Instagram selected posts
News agency
Type of Instagram posts
IRNA Fars IRNA & Fars
Frequency
Per cent
Frequency
Per cent
Frequency
Per cent
Text 21 32.8 10 6.5 31 14.2
Photo & text 3 4.7 110 71.4 113 51.8
Video 23 35.9 31 20.1 54 25.3
Motion graphic 3 4.7 1 0.6 4 1.8
Infographic 14 21.9 1 0.6 15 6.9
Total 64 100 154 100 164 100
Source: Author
Finally, analyzing IRNA and Fars Instagram posts indicated that
Fars has used false news hashtag under 72% of its posts, while
IRNA only used the mentioned hashtag in 20% of its posts. (See
Table 5).
Table 5. Rate of using false news hashtag in IRNA and Fars Instagram posts
News agency
Fake news tags
IRNA Fars IRNA & Fars
Frequency
Per cent
Frequency
Per cent
Frequency
Per cent
Yes 13 20.3 112 72.7 125 57.6
No 51 79.7 42 27.3 93 42.7
Total 64 100 154 100 164 100
Source: Author
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5. Discussion
As aforementioned, one of the most important objectives of this
research is to examine the way in which Iranian mainstream media
manage and encounter spreading infodemic in the society in
general, and on the Internet and on social networking sites, in
particular. To this end, the first research question aimed to examine
the most important types of infodemic that were covered by the
Instagram pages of IRNA and Fars New Agency, as the two
leading Iranian mainstream news agencies.
5. 1. Infodemic Types
The results of the study indicate that in managing infodemic, IRNA
mainly focused on the prevalent public questions and concerns
regarding the Corona virus. In this regard, by referencing to and
interviewing with the original sources, it made a logical attempt for
clarification regarding the issues. Interestingly, the second IRNA's
propriety was explaining misconceptions regarding the different
aspects of the Corona virus. In particular, in the early days of
spreading the virus, mainly because it was unknown to the public,
there were a great range of misconceptions vis-à-vis the various
ways of spreading the virus and the different modes of prevention
and treatment of the COVID-19 disease. Furthermore, there was a
significant number of misconceptions regarding the dangerous
nature of the Corona virus and the COVID-19 disease, which had
the potential to provide stress and other psychological disorders to
the citizens. As seen in the results of this article, by mainly
concentrating on the 'prevalent concerns and questions of the
society, as well as the main misconceptions about the virus, IRNA
made an attempt to perform its social responsibility in managing
the Corona-related infodemic. Other analysis indicate that in
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addition to the two previous items, IRNA also directly concentrated
on fake news. For this purpose, the news agency followed
published and widespread news in other sources, in particular on
the Internet and on social media, and provided a correct response to
them. Normally these posts were distinguished from other posts by
adding the hashtag Corona rumors. As indicated in Table 1, these
three categories constitute more than 95% of the types of infodemic
covered and explained by IRNA.
The result of the same issue for the Fars is significant . More
than 66% of the infodemic items published on Fars News
Instagram page is dedicated to fake news. As indicated in Table 5,
the majority of these posts are labeled by false news hashtag. The
strategy of Fars News Agency in response to fake news was similar
to that of IRNA. At first, the specific fake news was explained with
details to the readers. Then the explanations and clarifications of
Fars regarding the false news were provided. Mainly, Fars did these
elaborations by referring to original sources and informants, such
as authorities in charge. This strategy was used as an effective
strategy, since it could make trust among citizens. As the second
priority, Fars concentrated on 'prevalent public questions and
concerns regarding the Corona virus'. The main distinguishing
point regarding Fars, was its coverage of and responding to the fake
news and negative frames that were made by anti-Iranian media.
The aim of these negative frames was twofold: to show that the
situation of Iran was very critical and dangerous on the one hand,
and to induce the weak capacity of the Iranian government to
manage the pandemic, on the other. As an illustration, one
prevalent frame at the early days of the pandemic in Iran,
frequently repeated by the BBC Persian was to show Iran as the
center of Corona virus in the world. In this regard, anti-Iranian
Managing Infodemic on COVID-19 Related Issues: ‘Buliding Resilience to
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news agencies tried to diffuse a specific type of Corona phobia
among Iranians, which was part of their larger Iran-phobia agenda.
The results of a recent study conducted by Kharazmi and
Mohammadi (2020), titled 'Persian-Language Media Overseas as
the Western Tools of Public Diplomacy: Framing COVID-19
Pandemic in Iran by VOA and BBC' provides evidences in this
regard. According to the study, BBC and VOA framed “Iran at
crisis, Iran as the source of regional and international threatening
virus, lack of determination and confidence in decision making in
Iran, Iran’s incompetence and disqualification as an ill-equipped
system” (Kharazmi & Mohammadi, 2020, p. 1). Accordingly, the
concentration of Fars on these types of items as part its infodemic
management project is worth mentioning.
In addition to the four types of infodemic mentioned above,
there two other important types that received less priority. Among
the whole sample of both news agencies, 6 posts contained
warnings and 5 items focused on distorted information. Warnings
are important, as they show the social responsibility of media to
inform citizens regarding the fake services that are advertised and
offered by non-authoritative and non-eligible agents. In the
stressful situation of a critical pandemic, people may be persuaded
and defrauded by offering fake services, such as free medical tests
that may be harmful to them. Distorted information is also greatly
misleading, which is the reason for which it received attention by
the two news agencies studied in this paper. Altogether, it should
be mentioned that both news agencies mainly concentrated on fake
news, misconceptions and prevalent public questions and concerns
regarding the Corona virus and less on warnings and distorted
information. In addition, only Fars provided explanations about the
negative frames of anti-Iranian media.
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5. 2. Infodemic Themes
As observed in the findings section, the most important infodemic
themes that were concentrated by IRNA and Fars were Corona
phobia and vaccination. This issue seems logical. The reason for
the existence of the great number of posts pertaining to Corona
phobia is that, particularly in the early days of the virus spread in
Iran, the phenomenon was unknown to the public and the
probability for spreading fake news around what is unknown, is
rather high. Among the sub categories of Corona phobia, IRNA
covered contents discussing ‘unusual ways of spreading the Corona
virus, which indicates that the main concern of people was being
infected by the virus in different ways. Rumors around this topic
have been prevalent, and IRNA, as part of its information and
education responsibility, provided appropriate responses to this
concern. Another subcategory of Corona phobia, which is mostly
focused by Fars, was ‘exaggerated and false statistics of infected
victims’. This was also another important concern among people,
as they feared the dangerous nature of the virus and the increasing
number of victims. In many cases, false statistics i.e., those that
were in contrast with the statistics of WHO and the Ministry of
Health and Medicine Education of Iran, were spreading in various
social media. In this situation, different mainstream media,
including Fars provided clarifications regarding the disease. Paying
attention to the Corona phobia theme in general and its
subcategories in particular, illustrates the significance of
vaccination among people. Perhaps this is one reason for which we
see ‘vaccination’ as the second important theme that provoked
rumors in society. These rumors, as observed in the Instagram
pages of IRNA and Fars, included different topics such as the
successes of different countries to make the vaccine and the
Managing Infodemic on COVID-19 Related Issues: ‘Buliding Resilience to
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efficiency and side effects of vaccination for different groups in the
society, such as children, pregnant women, etc. In addition, one
part of the news was about the government activities to supply
vaccine for the whole society. The analysis of the IRNA and Fars
Instagram posts indicated that they managed this infodemic theme
by providing accurate information from the authorities, while
warning people not to be defrauded by groups that offer free and
fast vaccination.
Another important theme, prioritized by IRNA concerns
‘Corona virus prevention and treatment. Emphasizing the above-
mentioned point vis-à-vis the concern of people regarding the
infection by virus, it is expected to see that people follow the news
and information regarding the prohibition or treatment of the
disease. In particular, there were widespread misconceptions and
unreliable information regarding the efficiency of certain
traditional treatments. It is also important to mention that almost
from the early days of the virus spread in Iran, there were
controversial debates among the society, as well as the health care
system regarding the efficiency and reliability of traditional
medicine. The issue has its proponents and opponents. The analysis
of IRNA Instagram posts indicates that this news agency managed
this infodemic theme by referring to reliable and scientific sources
and informants. However, as illustrated by the statistics revealed in
Table 2, Fars, did not widely focus on this issue.
The other important theme that is prioritized by both IRNA and
Fars, consists of government activities and capacities /
responsibilities in managing the Corona virus. Table 2 indicates
that IRNA allocated almost 19% of its infodemic items to explain
the rumors that exist about the efficiency of the government. It is
important to mention that out of these 19%, 9.4% relate to the
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general functions of the government and the rest (9.4%) relate to
the specific functions regarding vaccination. Similar findings are
observed in Fars: 18.2% regarding the general activities of the
government and 8.4% regarding the specific functions for
vaccination. It can be deduced that one of the main themes of fake
news regarding the Corona crisis was government activities as the
government is the main agent responsible for managing such cases.
It is therefore expected that there would be news and attributions
regarding the shortcomings and inadequacies of the government
and authorities in efficiently handling the situation. Both Fars and
IRNA therefore offered explanations regarding the rumors around
the government activities.
A comparison of the themes prioritized by IRNA and Fars
illustrates that two themes that were significantly highlighted by
Fars, were not discussed by IRNA. The items include: ‘fake news
on death or infecting of famous people’ and ‘health-religion
dichotomy’. As aforementioned, one type of infodemic on which
Fars seriously concentrated was ‘negative frame explanations,’
made by anti-Iranian media. For instance, by attributing fake
quotations to religious figures or distorting their speeches, anti-
Iranian media attempted to induce the idea that religion is in
contrast with modern health standards. Fars greatly concentrated on
this issue and provided the original quotations and references made
by religious figures. Moreover, there were widespread rumors
regarding the death or infection of famous people, in particular,
politicians and religious figures. These issues were undertaken by
Fars, which, again, attempted to provide its followers with reliable
information from authentic sources. Finally, it should be mentioned
that among the studied items, the theme that was significantly
addressed by both IRNA and Fars concerned ‘general issues
regarding vaccination’.
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5. 3. Infodemic Sources
One of the most important issues in analyzing infodemic is
discovering the source of the infodemic as well as the
correct/authentic source of the original news. It is interesting to
observe the extent to which such infodemic came from unknown
resources. Table 3 indicates that a great amount of infodemic
addressed by both IRNA and Fars originates in social networking
sites. In social media, people see various news or other
information, for which that they do not necessarily have a clear
reference; yet, without thinking about this issue, they easily share it
in other groups or channels. Accordingly, within a short period of
time, fake news spreads in different channels and people believe
them as reality. In this regard, it is the duty of mainstream media to
detect, explain and clarify fake news through reliable sources.
For the case of Fars news agency, almost 28% of the published
infodemic were disseminated in anti-Iranian media. In addition to
responding the infodemic originating from social networking sites,
Fars, reported fake news and negative frames that were published
in anti-Iranian media such as BBC Persian, Iran International,
Radio Farda, etc. IRNA, however, did not concentrate on these
sources. Another source of infodemic is governmental and official
websites and authorities. This type of source was not highly used
by any of the news agencies. In IRNA, there is only one news and
in Fars there are 7 news that fall into this type of source. This
indicates that in the situation of crisis, even the official sources
make mistake and confusion. Accordingly, it is worthwhile that
both Fars and IRNA consider these types of infodemic sources. The
situation of spreading infodemic is somehow complicated and in
many cases, the original sources of the fake news is not clear. As
illustrated in Table 3, the rate of ambiguines sources is rather high.
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5. 4. Types of IRNA and Fars Instagram Posts
As indicated in Table 4, most of the items that were posted by Fars
were a combination of text and photo (71.4%). However, IRNA
mainly used the combination of video, infographic and motion
graphic. As indicated in Table 1, most of the infodemic covered by
IRNA concerned misconceptions about the Corona virus. In this
regard, to educate and inform people about these misconceptions,
IRNA mainly used infographic and motion graphic as well as
videos, including interviews with the informants, which is rather
consistent with the visual affordances of Instagram. Finally, it
should be mentioned that the majority (72.7%) of infodemic posts
that were published by Fars, had the false news hashtag, while only
1/5 of the IRNA news contained this hashtag.
6. Conclusion
This study investigated the modality of coverage and the
management of infodemic spreading around the Corona virus in
Iran from the early stages of the pandemic in the Instagram pages
of two mainstream media i.e., IRNA and Fars News Agency. The
two media were selected because they were significantly active in
responding to fake news, misconceptions and the prevalent
questions and concerns that people had regarding the Corona virus.
As observed, both news agencies considered spreading fake news
as a serious and challenging issue and through different strategies,
they attempted to enlighten the society regarding them. A
comparison of IRNA and Fars News Agency’s infodemic
management illustrates that Fars mainly concentrated on fake news
and IRNA focused on the public questions and concerns regarding
the COVID-19 disease. In addition to responding to fake news,
Managing Infodemic on COVID-19 Related Issues: ‘Buliding Resilience to
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which are mainly spreading in different social media, Fars,
managed infodemic by explaining the negative frames that were
made by anti-Iranian media such as BBC Persian, Iran
International, Radio Farda, etc. .
Paying attention to the main themes and topics of infodemic is
very important, as they can tell us what issues make people more
concerned. The results of this study illustrated that the two
common themes that are covered by both IRNA and Fars are issues
related to 'Corona phobia' and 'vaccination'. 'Corona phobia,' which
covers subcategories such as the unusual ways of spreading the
Corona virus, the strange and dangerous complications caused by
the Corona virus, exaggerated and false statistics of infected
victims and reporting fake news on death or the infection of famous
people has the great potential to attract fake news and rumors. In
particular, in the early stage of the pandemic, neither people, nor
even certain experts, had complete information regarding the
disease. In this regard, both IRNA and Fars provided responses to
the fake news. Furthermore, they provided informative contents in
the form of video, infographic and motion graphics to educate
people regarding their misconceptions about the disease and its
possible complications. Similar scenarios happened for the other
discussed themes and issues, such as vaccination and Corona
prevention and treatment. Vaccination was also an important issue,
raised and discussed by both news agencies, as it was considered as
one of the ways through which the disease could be prevented. In
addition, people have concerns regarding its efficiencies, probable
side effects, the government’s supply of enough doses, and their
allocation to the people. As discussed in the findings section, both
IRNA and Fars concentrated on vaccination related issues. The
other similarity between Fars and IRNA is covering fake news
regarding the government activities to manage the Corona crisis.
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There were also some differences between the two news
agencies in covering Fake news regarding COVID-19 disease. As
an example, IRNA put a special attention on Corona virus
prevention and treatment, but Fars concentrated on heath-religious
dichotomy frames that were made by anti-Iranian media.
As discussed in this paper’s findings, the origins of most of the
fake news and rumors that were covered and responded by IRNA
and Fars were social networking sites, in which people can easily
produce content without consequences. One concerning issue
regarding the anonymous nature of social media is that it is not
clear whether these fake news and rumors are distributed
unintentionally by ordinary people who are really concerned about
the disease, or intentionally by groups that aim to impose pressure
and stress to the society. Interestingly, there were frequent
warnings by the Iranian Cyber Police regarding the intentional
spread of fake news regarding the COVID-19 disease.
In general, the findings of the paper can be summarized as follow:
In terms of infodemic type, Fars and IRNA mainly focused on:
Fake news
The prevalent public questions and concerns regarding the
Corona virus/COVID-19 disease
Misconceptions regarding different aspects of the Corona
virus
In terms of infodemic themes, IRNA and Fars mainly focused on:
Corona phobia
Vaccination
In terms of infodemic sources, IRNA and Fars mainly reported fake
news from
Social media
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Finally, it should be mentioned that managing infodemic, in
particular during a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, is
significantly crucial. In addition to the mainstream media making
attempt to provide clarifications and elaborations on the rumors
that are intentionally or unintentionally spread in the society,
people need to increase their media literacy to be able to identify
fake news and false information. The results of this study helped
understand the ways in which Iranian mainstream media
contributed to the management of infodemic during the Corona
virus crisis through “building resilience to misinformation,’ and in
this regard, they mainly focused on the content analysis of their
Instagram pages. Due to the interactive nature of their Instagram
pages, it is suggested that further studies focus on the typology of
responses and comments that they received from their followers.
Conducting the issue is worthwhile, as it can help gain an insight
into the extent to which people agree or disagree with the
explanations that are provided by the mainstream media.
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