Hoax Virus, A Pandemic in the Digital Era

Afwanda and I interested to discussing a pandemic that as terrible as Covid-19. So enjoy your reading!
Fake news has been discussed everywhere. It started from schools, lectures, offices to house of worship. People were familiar with calling it as hoax. Like a virus, hoaxes always develop, and infect the public. Hoax spread anxiety and panic in the minds of the people. Until now, the hoax is always have a lot of enthusiasts. Some of them consciously produce and consume hoax content. There are also those who are not aware and take part in reproducing hoax content. This article tries to explain some of the reasons that hoax viruses can easily spread and become a pandemic in the society.

Entering the third month of 2020, there were 232 cases of hoax news about corona virus. In early April 2020 the Ministry of Communication and Information of the Republic of Indonesia stated that the spread of hoaxes occurred in various regions of Indonesia. 10 cases of hoax spreading occurred in East Java, 5 cases in Jakarta, 4 cases in West Kalimantan, 4 cases in Lampung and an average of 1 to 3 cases occurred in other areas. Of the various cases, some of the accused claimed to spread hoaxes with a motive to amuse other and just for fun. In addition, some of them felt disappointed with the government which had not minimized the covid-19 case. On the other hand, the act of spreading hoaxes actually increases public anxiety about the corona virus pandemic.

In this digital era, there is a pandemic that is just as frightening as covid-19, it called a hoax virus. This situation required people to stay at home. Moreover, it is not only for doing self-quarantine, but it also makes the most of their work mediated with digital devices. For instance, it can work for interpersonal communication, attending the college, remoting work, or just spending the pastime. At the same time, it become an opportunity for hoaxes spreaders to produce and expand hoax distribution. With this existing technology, they have easy access to reach the society. Unfortunately, people who are not aware of hoax virus will be easily infected and take part in spreading it.

The Internal Aspect

So how exactly does hoax work and influence human's mind and emotion? 

The first reason for answering this question is ability of human's brain to responses hoax. The human brain has a small almond-shaped section called an amygdala. It received the information firstly. It is the most responsive and alert when digesting information. It connecting events captured by the senses with emotions, such as fear. If information considered threatening and triggers anxiety, hoaxes succeed to influence someone. As a result, thinking and processing of facts that occur in other parts of the brain become obstructed.

And secondary, the other reasons that make a hoax influencing people are coming from external factors of the human. The external factors are, credibility of information sources, message content and development communication and information technology. According to credibility of information sources, a person will easily believe in information that comes from the closest person, such as friends, community leaders, or officials. For example, the case of hoaxes by Ratna Sarumpaet shows that even figures considered credible could be a source of hoax content.

The External Aspect

Next is the contents of a hoax message that is touch the emotional and unconscious side of the reader. Usually hoaxes use provocative language and do not contain 5W and 1H in the sentence structure. Hoax messages often asked readers to spread the content as widely as possible through social media. So, recognizing the characteristic of hoax is important.

The last factor is the context that is according to the digital era. Digital era marked by communication and information technology development, where technology accelerates the rate of information distribution. It caused by the algorithm of the social media is able to bring up data that is often sought after and much talked by users in their digital activities. The data displayed in the form of certain symbols, such as keywords. If the traffic of these keywords continues to increase, then it is able to reach out and form a common sense in society at large. If hoaxes are the part of the message and keywords, it was terrifying. Lies that are often and repeatedly conveyed will become a truth (Goebbels in Rifasya, 2018).

How To Anticipate

However, humans can still control influence hoaxes on themselves. In this digital era, there are many ways to anticipate the bad effects of hoaxes. The first is to check the source of information, whether it has credibility or is doubtful. Second, by cross-checking and comparing several sources of information available on the internet. Third, review the contents of information by reading various references. This can also be done by attending focus group discussions, or asking experts. Finally, people can always educating themself with the applicable laws and regulations.

To conclude, in the digital era the hoax virus could be a pandemic that influences human's mind and emotion. This caused by several reasons which include internal and external aspects of humans. Internal aspects seen from the biological performance of the human brain. While the external aspects influenced by 3 factors, those are information sources credibility, content of hoax messages, and digital communication and information technology development.