Infodemic interviews

As Covid-19 spread around the world, a considerable flow of false and inaccurate information has been circulating – turning the pandemic into an ‘Infodemic’.
The ESMH is tackling disinformation and misinformation on coronavirus with a new devoted section, featuring a series of interviews with European (and international) multidisciplinary researchers, studying and analysing dis & misinformation on coronavirus (and beyond).
Sander van der Linden interview, Folded stack of Newspapers on laptop

Sander van der Linden on how psychological inoculation protects against false news

Sander van der Linden, Ph.D., is Professor of Social Psychology in Society and Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. Professor van der Linden, we have seen many attempts to debunk climate and health disinformation. How well do fact checks fare? Sander van der Linden: ...

Dr Ed Pertwee infodemic interview. Folded stack of Newspapers on laptop

Interview with Dr. Ed Pertwee: vaccine hesitancy and lessons learnt

Rumors, conspiracy theories and misinformation during a health crisis: "The problem seems to be informational reliance on social media, not social media usage per se," says expert Dr. Ed Pertwee. With possible new Covid-19 waves in the back of our mind and in order to save lives, understanding communication during a health emergency is critically ...

Frank Kelly interview, The concept of news. Folded stack of Newspapers on laptop

Interview with Frank Kelly: How to effectively communicate uncertainty?

We spoke with chair of the report Frank Kelly, Emeritus Professor of the Mathematics of Systems at the University of Cambridge. The world's oldest independent scientific academy, the Royal Society, dedicated to promoting excellence in science, has published a new report on the challenge of scientific misinformation: how can we foster a healthier online information ...

Ciara Greene interview, The concept of news. Folded stack of Newspapers on laptop

Ciara Greene: “How false news and memories change readers’ behaviour”

Cognitive psychologist Ciara Greene studies attention and memory at University College Dublin. Greene recently published a study on how pandemic-related false news changes people’s behaviour. In this interview, she talks about their psychological experiments to demonstrate our susceptibility to false news and how misinformation creates false memories. What prompted you to conduct a study on ...

Dan Larhammar interview, The concept of news. Folded stack of Newspapers on laptop

Interview with Dan Larhammar: “Disinformation can have severe consequences for human health and our economies”

A group of European scientists (including Dan Larhammar) has made it their mission to raise awareness about disinformation, its mechanisms and its dangers. They belong to ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities. This organisation brings researchers from all over Europe together; in various working groups and projects they explore topics of ...

Walter Quattrociocchi interview, The concept of news. Folded stack of Newspapers on laptop

Walter Quattrociocchi on the Infodemic and how disinformation spreads on different social media

Associate Professor Walter Quattrociocchi of the Sapienza University of Rome recently published a study called ‘The COVID-19 social media infodemic’. By analysing massive amounts of data on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit and Gab, Quattrociocchi and his team assessed the global evolution of discourse for each platform and its users. For him understanding the social dynamics ...

Bernardo Mateiro Gomes The concept of news. Folded stack of Newspapers on laptop

Dr. Bernardo Mateiro Gomes: “Don’t trust anyone who says that he or she knows everything and has no doubt”

Interview with Dr. Bernardo Mateiro Gomes, Public Health Doctor and Public Health Specific Training Advisor with an interest in Infectious Diseases, Mental Health and One Health. When you counter science or health misinformation, do you see yourself as a fact checker or more as a promoter of quality information? Bernardo Mateiro Gomes: I prefer to ...

Joana Gonçalves de Sá interview, The concept of news. Folded stack of Newspapers on laptop

Joana Gonçalves de Sá: “Mitigate the misinformation pandemic by ‘vaccinating’ the susceptible individuals first.”

Joana Gonçalves de Sá is an Invited Associate Professor at the Physics Department of Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, and was the recipient of an ERC Starting Grant to study human behaviour using the online spread of ’fake news’ as a model system. Disinformation and misinformation are not a new problem, so why did ...