Who is Responsible for Stopping the Spread of Misinformation? Examining Audience Perceptions of Responsibilities and Responses in Six Sub-Saharan African Countries
Herman Wasserman and Dani Madrid-Morales co-author a new paper titled “Who is Responsible for Stopping the Spread of Misinformation? Examining Audience Perceptions of Responsibilities and Responses in Six Sub-Saharan African Countries. This paper is authored alongside Melissa Tully, Gregory Gondwe and Kiko Ireri. While research on misinformation in Africa has...
South African government’s handling of COVID-19: study shows declining trust
Some of the first South African COVID-19 vaccine trial volunteers at the Baragwanath hospital in Soweto, in 2020. EPA-EFE/Siphiwe Sibeko (Pool) Herman Wasserman, University of Cape Town and Dani Madrid-Morales, University of Houston The public has been overwhelmed by a surge in misleading and false information during the COVID-19...
Working Paper: Trust in Institutions, COVID-19 Related Information Seeking and Vaccination Messaging in South Africa
Data for this study was collected between May 24 and June 5, 2021. Facebook and Instagram users located in South Africa were invited to participate via paid advertisements. The study consists of two parts. First, we surveyed 1,585 South Africans to understand their general attitudes towards COVID-19, as well...
Herman Wasserman Presents on Emerging Trends and Impacts of Disinformation in Africa to UNDP
Herman Wasserman recently gave a presentation on “Emerging Trends and impacts of Disinformation in Africa” to the Oslo Governance United Nations Development Programme. The presentation provided a general overview of the issue of disinformation in the region, trends emerging from his and Dani Madrid-Morales’ research and possible interventions to counter...
Social media users in Kenya and South Africa trust science, but still share COVID-19 hoaxes
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to widespread disinformationcirculating on social media globally. This includes false information about the virus, its origins and possible cures for the disease it causes. Much of the inaccurate information was related to China, the country where the first cases of an atypical pneumonia were...
Herman Wasserman to Present at Countering Vaccine Hesitancy Conference
Herman Wasserman will give a presentation on how to tackle disinformation around Covid-19 vaccines to an international meeting of Academies of Science. The conference, ‘‘Countering Vaccine Hesitancy’, is hosted by the Interacademy Partnership and will highlight how academies – as trusted and credible voices – can counter vaccine hesitancy,...
Wasserman and Madrid-Morales present research at the Centre for the Study of Contemporary China, University of Pennsylvania
Herman Wasserman and Dani Madrid-Morales will present their paper “What Motivates the Sharing of Misinformation about China and Covid-19? A Study of Social Media Users in Kenya and South Africa” at the international conference “Narratives of COVID-19 in China and the World: Technology, Society, and Nations” hosted by the...
Motivations for Sharing Misinformation: Study explores factors for sharing misinformation in six sub-Saharan African countries
In most African countries, “fake news,” politically motivated disinformation, and misinformation in the media were common occurrences before these became a preoccupation in the Global North. However, with a fast-growing population of mobile users, and the popularization of apps such as WhatsApp, misinformation has become much more pervasive across...
Cultural factors are behind disinformation pandemic: why this matters
To contain and mitigate the virus of misinformation needs multi-levelled, socio-cultural approaches. GettyImages Herman Wasserman, University of Cape Town The prevalence of disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic has prompted Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) to warn that: We’re not just fighting an epidemic;...
Working on a New Book on False News in the Global South
The lead researchers of the Misinformation, Disinformation & False News Research Project, Herman Wasserman and Dani Madridd-Morales, are working on an edited volume titled Rumors, false news and disinformation in the Global South. It will be published by Wiley, and it is expected to come out in early 2021....