Challenges in fighting disinformation in the COVID-19 pandemic and initiatives to create observatories

Abstract

The excessive increase in the production of information about Covid-19 and the spread of disinformation through the amplification of social media have brought up difficulties in identifying quality information and reliable sources guided by scientific evidence, causing informational insecurity and an impact on the physical and mental health of the population on a world scale. The general objective of this study is to identify Brazilian initiatives to develop observatories on Covid-19, investigating their relevance in the fight against disinformation. The specific objectives consist of mapping the institutions that used the strategy of building observatories; to identify the purpose used for the creation of these observatories; to correlate the purposes identified with the pillars of combating the infodemic proposed by the World Health Organization. The methodology adopted is exploratory and descriptive, with a qualitative and quantitative approach. We found 36 observatories about Covid-19, which were classified according to the type of institution and its mission. The classification by the type of institution generated ten categories, namely: Teaching and Research Institution, Independent Research Initiative, Non-profit Organization, Class Entity, Foundation, State Institution, Sociocultural Institute, Federal Legislative, Federal Autarchy, Municipal Entity. As for the mission, the proposal by Pacheco & Batista (2016) was used, generating three categories, namely: Monitoring and sectorial follow-up; Analysis study for decision-making; and Communication of Information or strategic knowledge. Based on the four pillars of infodemic management, proposed at the July 2020 Conference promoted by the World Health Organization, an analysis of the initiatives to create observatories was carried out, observing the strategies created to generate and organize information about Covid-19 and, in this way, minimize the challenges of the infodemic and disinformation that have emerged throughout the Pandemic. It is concluded that observatories can be considered instruments used by different institutions for information management to minimize the challenges that the infodemic phenomenon and disinformation brought to the Covid-19 pandemic.