Özet:

With the digital age social media has become increasingly ahead of traditional media among news sources, resulting in new problems in the field of information and news reliability. The problem of fake news and misinformation is recognized as an important information problem focusing on governments, media and civil society all over the world. The outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19), a pandemic that has affected the whole world has given a new dimension to the problem of fake news. The fake news produced during the epidemic period which caused a great crisis in human health, spread just like a virus and a “Misinformation Epidemic” which the World Health Organization defined as “Infodemic” emerged. This outbreak also caused significant damage to human and community health as did the virus and many medical, psychological and sociological problems were experienced due to fake news. In many countries around the world fact checking organizations that work to combat fake news have analyzed thousands of suspicious content and informed their readers by verifying this information particularly from social media. In this study the analysis of fact check analysis published by the three fact checking organizations in Turkey during the first 5 months of the outbreak were examined and their characteristics such as density, source, type and subjects of misinformation were determined. After content analysis it was observed that reader interest in fact checking organizations in Turkey increased significantly during the epidemic period and that hundreds of claims were refuted after fact checkings. It has been determined that the misinformation mostly emerges about the properties, effects and treatment of the virus and the practices of decision makers and that interest in conspiracy theories and prophetic claims has increased.

Anahtar Kelimeler: