Role of media in the pandemic situation is very important. It carry information to the masses about the pandemic(print audio and video).As you know initially all media created panic among people about the pandemic. Many people all part of the world were afraid to come out. It was not good. Many were psychologically affected and were living in a fear psychosis. Media should haven been behaved more responsibly it would have helped to save more lives! In the initial stage of the pandemic we are not knowing much about the virus and its effect on humans. that has costed us heavily! The lessons learned from this is that dont create havoc without knowing about the issue. Now media behaviour is much more responsible

thank you very much Dr PE Rajasekharan sir

You are welcome!

Well Dr. Brij,

I think, people demand more knowledge not less, they need the reliable sources of the information. This is the first time we ever confronted a global pandemic like this with the strength of social media. People sharing the stories, rumors and posts is really outpacing without any of the efforts. So there is a lot of bad information. And, I personally think that, all the media consumers really have the right to decide that, what is right and what is wrong and not just click the share button before we actually read the full and the exact information behind the conflict.

Dear Dr. Upreti!

You spotted an important issue. So I searched for articles dealing with this problem:

1) Cinelli, M., Quattrociocchi, W., Galeazzi, A. et al. The COVID-19 social media infodemic. Sci Rep 10, 16598 (2020). Open Access:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73510-5

2) Nan Zhao, Guangyu Zhou (2020). Social Media Use and Mental Health during the COVID‐19 Pandemic: Moderator Role of Disaster Stressor and Mediator Role of Negative Affect, Applied Psychology, Health and Well-Being, Open Access:

Article Social Media Use and Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pande...

3) A case-study:

Xuefang Xie et al. (2020). The information impact of network media, the psychological reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, and online knowledge acquisition: Evidence from Chinese college students, Journal of Innovation & Knowledge Volume 5, Issue 4, October–December 2020, Pages 297-305, Open Access:

Article The information impact of network media, the psychological r...

4) Yiran Li et al. (2020). Crisis Coordination and the Role of Social Media in Response to COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, The American Review of Public Administration, Volume 50, Issue 6-7, Open Access:

Article Crisis Coordination and the Role of Social Media in Response...

Yours sincerely, Bulcsu Szekely

thank you dr Bulcsu Szekely sir

thank you dr M.K. Tripathi

Media must follow the ethics and covey the truth to society.

thank you dr Praneeth Silva sir

thank you dr Sourbh Garg

Welcome @ Dr Brij

The media played a worldwide role in COVID-19 tracking and updates through live updates dashboard. The media allowed for timely interventions by the Center For Disease Control And Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), enabling a rapid and widespread reach of public health communications. Media reinforced illness-preventing guidelines daily, and people were encouraged to use telehealth to meet their healthcare needs. Media also played important role in promoting emotional stability among people.

Article Role of Mass Media and Public Health Communications in the C...

Media made people without isolation, Maida made the world as one home

Social media had the main impact on delivering informative tips for people and make sure people know what’s happening in their premises, local, national and international level.

Dear Brij M Upreti, you may have a look at the following link for a better understanding on the said topic.

Research Role of Social Media in the coverage of Coronavirus (COVID 1...

In my opinion, Social media are markets for selling news; at least half of them are fake!

Visual data is used increasingly to demonstrate the distribution, transmission, and trend of this coronavirus outbreak. The unprecedented pandemic has brought an enormous amount of real time data, and many online media platforms adopted visual graphs to release COVID-19 statistics, which were rarely used during the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak. Data visualization can help people easily and efficiently process a large volume of information on disease transmission to understand the patterns of epidemics. An example of this is the interactive dashboard developed by Johns Hopkins University based on the crowdsourcing data. This dashboard provides data-driven visuals (eg, global cases map, critical data trends, latest news, and COVID-19 basics) to illustrate the situations of pandemics around the world, enabling the public and researchers to understand and monitor the outbreak timely. Similarly, a popular messaging app (WeChat) in China offered a location-based feature, “Cases Nearby,” to show the location of the confirmed cases around the users and the places the cases have been without disclosing any personal information. This visual footprint keeps users informed of the outbreak and advises them to take targeted measures to avoid high-risk areas. In addition, in the Prince of Wales Hospital of Hong Kong, an infographic on the principles of airway management was developed in 17 languages and disseminated through online social network platforms, benefiting other medical units to incorporate infection control procedures to reduce the transmission of COVID-19. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7532458/

Social media platforms are applied to educate people to take public health measures. As one of the first countries hit by COVID-19, Singapore’s successful response has benefited from the early action taken by the country via social media. A national WhatsApp channel was immediately created to inform people living in Singapore about government updates and initiatives on COVID-19. There have been over 635,000 people subscribed to the channel to receive updated messages. In China, the government has partnered with mobile phone operators to send automated text messages at various times throughout the day to keep people informed and alert them to keep a social distance. Additionally, in partnership with the health ministry, a Vietnamese music artist wrote a song, and a local dancer choreographed a dance on how to wash hands carefully and started a dance challenge on TikTok (a popular video-sharing app). The dance challenge video has gone viral and invited millions of people to learn about the essential steps of hand washing, playing a critical role in fighting against the spread of COVID-19. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7532458/

The media have been following every step of this journey – with multiple stories, incessant headlines and continuous updates across the past few weeks. Here, I take a look at some of the challenges that have faced journalists during the COVID-19 outbreak and how the media can play a role in containing COVID-19 and, potentially, saving lives. https://www.id-hub.com/2020/03/05/role-can-media-play-managing-covid-19-outbreak/

COVID-19 and the media: The role of journalism in a global pandemic https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/05/06/covid-19-and-the-media-the-role-of-journalism-in-a-global-pandemic/

thank you Dr Chinaza Godswill Awuchi

thank you Dr Nidhal Kamel Taha El-Omari

thank you Dr Harasit Kumar Paul

thank you dr Hermann Gruenwald sir

Media should avoid to create threat among the people by give wrong information about covid -19

Media can play a vital role regarding awareness for adoptation of precautionary measures but unfortunately media has adopted materialistic nature in this regards

Dear Brij M Upreti ,

I have contributed with my opinion in another discussion almost the same question. Here is what I have contributed.

"Social network platforms play a vital and effective role not only in spreading misleading information related to COVID-19 but in all matters of our daily lives as well as the various crises and conflicts around the world. With the presence of a new virus whose characteristics and details are not fully known yet, and with a state of fear and panic among the general public, the spread and circulation of misleading information about this virus and its impact are ubiquitous.

The misleading information may be intended to disrupt the economy of countries, reduce people’s confidence in their governments, or promote a specific product to achieve enormous profits. This has already happened with COVID-19. The shared misleading information about lockdowns, vaccinations, and death statistic, have fueled the panic of purchasing groceries, sanitizers, masks, and paper products. This led to shortages that disrupted the supply chain and exacerbated demand-supply gaps and food insecurity. Moreover, it has caused a sharp decline in the international economy, severe losses in the value of crude oil, and the collapse of the world’s stock markets. Additionally, some people have lost faith in their governments as in Italy and Iran, due to the spread of COVID-19 and the shortage of medical protection products all over the world. All these are leading the world into an economic recession."

I recommend you to take a look at:

Article Detecting misleading information on COVID-19

Data Detecting Misleading Information on COVID-19

To inform the public during these uncertain times, newsrooms have made pandemic coverage a priority. But the ever-changing and sometimes unverified nature of COVID-19 data being released has left journalists and researchers with challenges in providing accurate information to the public.

Thank you Dr Muhammad Arshad

Thank you Dr Mohamed Elhadad

Thank you Dr Atiqe Ur Rahman

Thank you Dr Muhammad Ihsan

Thank you Dr Chinaza Godswill Awuchi

My pleasure dear Brij M Upreti

It has a great role. It has actually done majority of the work in spreading knowledge and awareness about the disease in the public and also in providing information to the public about the new modalities of diagnosis and treatment of this deadly virus.

thank you Dr. Aroop Mohanty

Brij M Upreti Most welcome ...

During this pandemic time, only the media has provided us the information, current situation, and stats worldwide.

thank you Dr Munish Sharma

Dear Brij M Upreti The media significantly contributed to the COVID-19 infodemics. Please have a look at the below mentioned link:

Article Role of Mass Media and Public Health Communications in the C...

Thanks!

Dear Dr Brij M Upreti , My take on this is 1. During the initial stage of pandemic, media played the role of fear monger. 2. Second stage - rhetoric, 3. Third stage - Allaying fear 4. Forth stage - Media forgot this pandemic - taken new issues. I am not criticizing instead, I agree with their progress. At every stage they have played an effective role. But, they have given lot of scientific information to the society. Warm regards Yoganandan G

Thank you Dr Yoganandan G sir

Thank you Dr Arbind K. Choudhary sir

Media played a significant role of threatening people. All panic was created my media.

thank you dr Mubashir Ali Rather

Agree Mubashir Ali Rather ,

But the media have positive aspect as well. Like a coin has two sides...

Thank You Dr Sourbh Garg