Egyptian Public's Use of "Television" and "Facebook" to Get Information about the Corona Pandemic and their Attitudes towards Governmental Performance in the Infodemic
, Vol.8
, The special issue (the 29th): Media and the Coronavirus (Covied -19) : Credibility or Crises and Rumors? Part Two
PP:9 - 10
Authors:
Dr. Hagar Mahmoud Mohamed Omar-Assistant Professor of Radio & Television,Radio & Television Department,College of Media and Communication Arts,6th October University
Abstract:
The state of anticipation, panic and mystery that is denominating the entire world scene today at all levels due to Corona crisis has never been witnessed before. Developed and developing countries have been equal in this, and for the first time the people from all over the world got united to confront and follow up on one problem. That caused a lack of a clear and sure vision for the post-Corona crisis scene in all areas, including of course the traditional and new means of media both. Experts and academics started talking about the return of the television role in light of the Corona crisis, with the continuation of social media leading the scene, as the most important sources of news that the public use to obtain information. Therefore, this study aims to identify the Egyptian public's use of traditional media, the television, and the new means of media, Facebook, to obtain information about the Corona crisis. Moreover that study is to identify people’s trends regarding that means of media in covering the Corona pandemic and their attitudes towards governmental performance in dealing with the crisis in light of what was mentioned by World Health Organization about “Informational Epidemic”, which is false news and rumors about COVID-19. The study was applied to a sample of the Egyptian public of 400 individuals. The study concluded that that sample of people spends more time on Facebook than the time they spend in front of the television to obtain the Corona pandemic news. The main reasons for the inclination of that sample of people towards Facebook:
1- The presence of smart phones in our hands all the time with a large rate up to 65%.
2- Because it provides live coverage of the events.
3- While following up the government's official statements about the Corona crisis "is the most important reason for using television”. However, half of that sample believes that "Facebook posts cause a state of panic and panic among the public as false news and wrong information, and rumors are spread between them (Infodemic, Informational Epidemic). That part of the sample also believed that Corona crisis has proved a good reputation for the Egyptian government, which has achieved a high degree of trust and credibility with a rate of 41.5 %.
Key Words:
Corona – infodemic – Facebook- Televsion - Egyptian government performance.
Research Language:
Arabic
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