The massive spread of hoaxes and misinformation is marking the emergency caused by DANA, which finds in social networks the perfect vehicle for rapid and effective spread. These messages, which are even amplified on web portals or television programs, as Iker Jiménez has done in Horizonare usually accompanied by a speech about an alleged intentional concealment of information, for example, about the numbers of dead or missing people. It is no coincidence that many of these hoaxes are headed with the classic “we tell you what they don’t want you to know” or “this is what no one tells you” despite the fact that dozens of media outlets broadcast what is happening on the ground.
The paradigmatic case has been that of the parking lot of the Bonaire shopping center, in Aldaia, where no bodies have been found despite the fact that the idea that there were “hundreds” or “thousands” of them had been circulating for days. The tunnel between Alfafar-Benetússer has also become the subject of the hoax that claims that “45 dead people” have been found there. There are also falsehoods about the destruction of dams, the fall of 112 or the claim that the radar that monitors rain in Valencia did not work, among others. Extreme right-wing sectors, speakers of conspiracy theories and climate change deniers join forces in the dissemination of uncontrasted messages that also have their echo among some influencers or content creators with thousands of followers.
But, beyond the issuer, why do these hoaxes end up getting through? The professor of Social Psychology at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) Guillermo Fouce explains that in the face of a crisis like the current one “there is a very relevant human need” which is to “know what is happening and give it meaning.” “And when there is no information or it is not immediate, alternative answers arise that do not matter if they are true or not, but they cover this space, they make us feel calmer and believe that we are apparently knowing what is happening,” adds the also president of Psychology Without Borders. .
For the expert, it is also key to point out how the effectiveness of these messages “is related” to how the discourse that surrounds them “enters the realm of the emotional.” “In social psychology we know that the best way to influence is emotions, which move at a much faster pace, and not arguments. In this case, uncertainty is appealed to and instrumentalized to contrast ‘I’ll tell you the truth’. That ends up giving certainty, which is what is missing right now, even if it is through falsehoods or elements that simplify reality,” says Fouce.
The psychopedagogue and professor at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) Sylvie Pérez reflects in the same sense and explains that these messages usually connect “with the pain, suffering and the closeness of what is happening” so that “there is no analysis of information” but rather “it arrives and is irrationally assumed to be true.” This, moreover, in a context in which criticism of the authorities is intensifying and discontent is expanding among the victims of the tragedy themselves. “There is a feeling of improvisation and, when in doubt, that increases the chances of hoaxes circulating,” adds the expert.
It is not something exceptional about this crisis, although it is now taking on new nuances, believes Fouce. “In emergencies this has always happened to us. In 11M, for example, false lists of missing or dead people were being sent to the victims,” says the psychologist, who highlights two elements that differentiate the current situation: “On the one hand, the speed of the networks and the ability of these people to generate own dissemination mechanisms; on the other, that there are interests behind it with a clear political intention to destabilize and look for a scapegoat, which in this case would be Pedro Sánchez,” adds the expert about the strategy deployed by the extreme right to capitalize on the disaster.
“Disorganized” communication
But, furthermore, on the other side “there is no effective communication strategy that counteracts misinformation and leaves it less space,” according to the specialists consulted. “It has failed from minute zero,” responds forcefully Carles Pont, one of the main researchers of the Crisis and Emergency Communication in Social Media project at the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF). The specialist believes that “risk communication failed” by the Valencian Generalitat by reacting “late” and now “there is no control and coordination of it” in the midst of the crisis.
It is not that there have not been appearances – the president of the Valencian Community Carlos Mazón has done so and on behalf of Moncloa Pedro Sánchez, the general head of the UME or this Tuesday the general directors of the National Police, Civil Guard and Public Health, for example – but for specialists “it is a mistake” not to have “clear spokesperson planning” and specific scheduled times to go out and speak. “If it is necessary morning and afternoon or once a day, it will depend, it is something that has to be decided,” says Pont, who gives the example of the press conferences that the Technical Management Committee gave every morning during Covid.
Guillem Suau, specialist in crisis communication at the University of Lleida, shares the thesis: “Communication is disorganized and there are no univocal messages. Sometimes you have to go out and simply say that there is no news regarding the previous appearance because that reassures the public, but it is essential that the information is conveyed, is constant and, above all, there is a point of reference for people, so that they know that “That or those are the people who are going to tell you how the situation is, that is, they should not be a spokesperson every time.”
If not, not only does it “add greater anxiety and stress” to the population in general and the victims in particular, but “it allows for a lot of noise around the emergency and gives more room for speculation” at a time when which in addition “we are seeing that there is a growing distrust in public institutions and in the media,” explains Suau, who thinks that hoaxes and misinformation would also circulate if institutional communication “was effective” but “surely “It would prevent them from going viral so much and that a part of the population would believe them.”
The case of the numbers of dead – 215 according to the latest official data – and missing persons, who are being the object of the concealment theory, is paradigmatic for experts. “In this we have to be very careful, you cannot give information without having it closed because it also depends on a technical process – as several forensic experts have explained these days – but this has to go out and explain it and people would understand it perfectly,” believes Pont, for whom “it is not a good idea” to give information of this type on the fly and without scheduling, as happened this Tuesday with the body found in Letur (Albacete) to which an identity has initially been attributed that later it has been questioned.
The discourse of the ‘non-state’
Specialists are aware that talking about addressing the communication strategy in moments of overflow “is very easy to say and very difficult to do” due to the magnitude and unpredictability of a disaster “but the reality is that there are success stories,” they admit. . Guillermo Fouce, for his part, doubts the idea that these types of messages “that instrumentalize pain” to “construct an interested political message” are easily neutralized by institutional communication. “Surely there have been errors, but in this case we are not talking about objective information that can be refuted but rather emotional and loaded with values.”
Beyond the hoaxes about specific data or information, the professor of Social Psychology refers to the discourse that spreads these days of “everything is going wrong, it is permanent chaos, we are alone and abandoned” that is sustained by the belief of the “State failed” and that would connect with the allegation that defends the theory of concealment by the media or the authorities. A message that, in his opinion, “is dangerous”: “Extreme polarization is sought and in this sense to affirm that there is no State and that nothing works is practically to legitimize a coup d’état, which in some way can intervene from “He knows what forces,” he analyzes.
Guillem Suau expresses himself along the same lines and reflects on how in times of crisis like this “this type of discourse emerges” that “feed the feeling of panic and reinforce the ideas that defend strong leadership and orderly commands, which is very good.” to the most authoritarian and conservative sectors of politics.”
The expert, however, qualifies and gives importance to the “small basis of reality” on which, in his opinion, these messages are built at specific times: “There has been a lack of coordination and there has been incompetence, at least when it came to inform clearly and precisely, which creates a favorable environment so that the extreme right can easily spread the idea that the Government only wants your taxes and abandons us in a simple way. An idea that also reinforces people’s previous beliefs and that what they are doing is instrumentalizing pain with the aim of political damage.”
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