Disinformation in Times of Disaster and Crisis

Abstract

This research is based on 3 consecutive disaster (pandemic, earthquake and flood) in Turkey. During these successive disasters, it has been observed that the traditional and social media handling of similar news has changed. The political stance, in particular, affects the way the news is reflected, causing the elements of disinformation to increase and the target audience to be affected by the views of the news encoder. Although the political stance displayed by the traditional media tools is clear, the political views and goals are not always clear because the news flow in the new media is carried out in the context of personal accounts. Within the scope of the research, 3 examples were selected for each disaster shared by the Turkish people on Twitter, one of the social media tools, during 3 disasters. Similar news in the traditional media was also examined and a comparison was made between the two media channels. The semiotic method was used in the study. The semiotic method was used in the study. One of the possible results of this study is the finding that disinformation elements change according to the way the news is presented in social media and traditional media. On the other hand, despite the fact that the news in social media is produced by people, it has been noticed that sometimes these news are more accurate than traditional media and that the disinformation desired to be created in the traditional media is tried to be prevented.