May 12, 2020

Misinformation Campaigns During a Global Pandemic: What University

Students Know About this Topic and the Dangers these Narratives
Impose on our Society

Lane Kearney
Elon University School of Communications
Great Ideas 495: Senior Thesis

I. Introduction

Today our world is facing an unprecedented historic event, the global pandemic due to

the outbreak of Covid-19. At the end of December, the World Health Organization was informed

by China of a pneumonia-like disease, taking over the city of Wuhan. From this point on, the

virus spread globally, rapidly taking over countries and then entire continents. The way that it

attacked each location was different, depending on place-specific factors like population density.

As Covid-19 made its way around the world, each country’s media outlets made crucial

decisions on how they would get information out to their public. However, unlike average news

stories, people’s lives were on the line depending on the way local and state media reported on

the outbreak.

While most countries made it their goal to report on the disease as truthfully as possible,

other countries put their own political agendas before their people’s health and safety. Countries

like China, Iran, and Russia decided that during this global pandemic they would use netwar
tactics to push false narratives regarding Covid-19 through the manipulation of local and state

media. This type of conflict, known as netwar, has spread with the development of technology.

Using the internet to create false news stories to push political agendas and threaten the public

safety of other countries is a media-orientated tactic of netwar and has serious consequences.

To understand the scope of these misinformation campaigns put out during the Covid-19

pandemic, research was done to look at what college aged students, 18-24 years old, knew about

these false narratives. Students were asked to answer questions about news consumption habits

to figure out if there was any type of link between how often one consumed news and the way

one perceived these narratives.

II. Literature Review

Netwar

To first understand disinformation campaigns and their purpose, one must grasp the

general concept of “netwar.” The information revolution that took place with the rise of

technological advances in our society brought a new form of conflict that no one had ever seen

before called netwar. Conflict in the U.S. and globally has shifted away from raw power and has

put more focus on “soft power,” or media-orientated measures that keep individuals uninformed

or mislead them about many aspects of their own society (Arquilla & Ronfeldt, 1999). The

general definition of this concept is “an emerging mode of conflict (and crime) at societal levels,

involving measures short of traditional war, in which the protagonists use network forms of

organization and related doctrines, strategies, and technologies attuned to the information age

(Arquilla & Ronfeldt, 1999).”

This type of “war” has only developed recently and can be extremely dangerous to those

involved, especially those who are being shielded from reality and given false information about
their country or politics (Arquilla & Ronfeldt, 2002). To get a better sense of what this concept

looks like, examples of netwar include the formation of radical groups online, the spread of

weapons of mass destruction on the black market, and misleading media stories that skew one’s

perception of their own reality (Arquilla & Ronfeldt, 1999).

Although the aforementioned are all destructive examples of netwar, this term can also be

used for positive change as well. Networks allow us to connect with one another and share

information. While this can sometimes lead to negative scenarios, like the formation of radical

groups, it can also bring people together who seek to create a positive change (Arquilla &

Ronfeldt, 2002). Netwar has been used and will continue to be used to establish activist groups,

or people who are all fighting for a similar cause. Through these networks, like the internet,

people can share what they are passionate about, amass a crowd of like-minded people, and then

host something like a protest or rally. Netwar takes place in cyberspace, however, the true effects

of it are what we see in our own reality (Arquilla & Ronfeldt, 1999).

In this paper, the research will not focus on all types of netwar that we see in our society

and world today; however, it is important to understand the broader picture of this term to fully

grasp the more specific examples that will be presented further on. For the purpose of this

research, the main focus will be on the media-oriented measures of netwar. Information or lack

thereof, coming from local and state media outlets, is used to manipulate what people think in

order to affect how secure a society, a military, or other actor feels about its knowledge of itself

and its adversaries (Arquilla & Ronfeldt, 1999). This type of conflict can be extremely dangerous

for several reasons that this paper will explore further.

Right now, our world is facing an unprecedented historic event, the virus Covid-19.

Because this virus is worldwide, every country needs to decide the best way to report on it.
However, countries like China, Russia, and Iran, have been using their news sources to change

the narrative of the novel Coronavirus, in an attempt to control how other countries, like the

U.S., respond to the pandemic (Wong, Rosenberg, & Barnes, 2020). These disinformation

campaigns are a prime example of netwar today.

Covid-19

Before tying together Covid-19 and specific disinformation campaigns, one must

understand exactly what this virus is. Because of the novelty of the disease, there are still some

unknowns; however, doctors all over the world have been working day and night to try and

understand the nature of Covid-19. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses commonly found

in both humans and a number of different animal species, and Covid-19 is caused by a

coronavirus (CDC, 2020). Only two other strains of coronavirus are known to have been

transmitted between animals and humans, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV, and now SARS-CoV-2

(also known as Covid-19) (CDC, 2020).

The best way to fully comprehend the virus and how it got to where it is today is to start

in the beginning and lead up to where we are today in terms of numbers and spread. On

December 31, 2019, Chinese health authorities were treating dozens of cases of a pneumonia-

like disease, but the causes of it were unknown (Taylor, 2020). That same day, Chinese

authorities first reported the cases to the World Health Organization, but by that point the

number of cases had constituted an outbreak (Brahma et al., 2020). From its original place of

outbreak, Wuhan, China, the virus then spread to other countries quickly. Several factors

determined how fast the virus spread, starting with the initial response and behaviors of each

affected community, total population of the country, and average house-hold size (Brahma et al.,
2020). Due to the fact that the response by each individual country has differed, the spread has

varied greatly, depending on where and when the disease hits a certain place.

Three weeks after China reported its outbreaks to the WHO, Japan, South Korea, and the

United States each reported their first case of the virus (Brahma et al., 2020). As the disease

continued to spread, Chinese officials completely shut down the city of Wuhan by cancelling all

means of transportation (Taylor, 2020). Just short of a month from the first report of the virus by

China, the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency on January 30, 2020

(Taylor, 2020). The next day, President Trump made the decision to restrict any travelers coming

from Wuhan from entering United States (Taylor, 2020). By January 31, 213 people had died of

the virus. By the time the Coronavirus got its official name -- Covid-19--on February 11, there

were 393 cases outside of China in 24 different countries (Taylor, 2020).

As the disease continued to rapidly spread throughout the world, France marked the first

death in Europe from the virus on February 14 (Taylor, 2020). In the weeks that followed,

Covid-19 has continued to infect individuals all over the world. Italy has been hit extremely

hard, forcing the country to lock down many of its towns, close schools and cancel sporting

events. On February 29, the United States recorded its first death from the disease, and by March

11, President Trump had banned all travel to Europe (Taylor, 2020). On that same day, the

World Health Organization declares the outbreak to be a pandemic (CDC, 2020). On March 26,

2020, the United States officially became the epicenter for the disease, reaching the most cases

recorded in the entire world (Taylor, 2020).

The virus has continued to violently tear through the United States and the rest of the

world. Since the outbreak, China, Russia, and Iran, have created false narratives regarding

Covid-19 (Gabrielle, 2020). The netwar tactics surrounding the virus are detrimental to many
countries that are trying to tackle this unprecedented outbreak. Understanding what the disease is

and the general timeline of its rapid spread is crucial when talking about disinformation

campaigns.

News Consumption & Media Literacy

When it comes to disinformation campaigns, the way individuals consume their news is a

huge factor in the consequences of these harmful tactics. These campaigns mainly take place

through social media, and unfortunately today those platforms are the ones many Americans turn

to for their news (Scott, 2020). News consumption on an individual level can massively affect

the way we take in news, especially in terms of what we think to be truthful. In a 2018 study

done by PEW Research, data showed that one in five Americans get their news through social

media (Geiger, 2018). This means that more Americans get their news from social media than a

traditional news outlet.

While these numbers may seem alarming in the context of disinformation campaigns on

social media platforms, the encouraging news is that when consuming news on social media sites

Americans are still skeptical of these sites’ accuracy (Geiger, 2018). Out of the Americans who

frequently turn to social media as a news source, 57 percent admit they still expect the news they

are consuming to be inaccurate, according to a PEW Research study (Geiger, 2018). The

question that is then posed is if Americans understand the news that they’re reading is inaccurate

then why do they still use these sources? Could there be a link among news consumption, media

literacy, and believing disinformation campaigns? These types of questions are important to keep

in mind in the context of Covid-19 disinformation campaigns.

Covid-19 Disinformation Campaigns

Since the start of the outbreak, certain countries have put out faulty news narratives in

order to inhibit other countries from being able to deal with the pandemic in a successful way, or

to change their own country’s image regarding the virus (Scott, 2020). On March 27, 2020, the

U.S. Department of State held a briefing via teleconference with Special Envoy and Coordinator

of the Global Engagement Center (GEC), Lea Gabrielle. For some background, the GEC was

created to counter propaganda that Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was putting out.

Relating this back to the idea of netwar, ISIS using all channel networks to disseminate

dangerous information promoting terrorism is yet another example of what netwar can look like.

Essentially the GEC’s job is to counter disinformation disseminated by other countries that poses

a threat to our national security or policies (Gabrielle, 2020). Now, with the Covid-19 outbreak,

the GEC has internally established three different teams to focus on the major disinformation

campaigns that are circulating: one team for China’s disinformation, one for Russia, and the one

for Iran (Gabrielle, 2020).

Because the disease originated in China, it makes sense to examine this disinformation

campaign first. One narrative that the Chinese have been trying to push through social media

sites is that Covid-19 originated in the United States, not in Wuhan (Gabrielle, 2020). This

disinformation is dangerous in that it causes even more confusion and chaos than already

currently exists, while simultaneously taking attention away from the real problem at hand:

combating the disease. According to Lea Gabrielle, China has been creating false adversarial

narratives that position the Chinese Communist Party as superior when it comes to dealing with

the global health crisis. She said during the briefing, “What we’ve seen is the CCP mobilizing its

global messaging apparatus, which includes state media as well as Chinese diplomats, to push out
selected and localized versions of the same overarching false narratives” (Gabrielle, 2020). These

netwar tactics can be extremely detrimental not only to Chinese citizens but also to the rest of the

world.

Iran is another country that has put out disinformation claiming that the U.S. weaponized

Covid-19 as a military tactic (Tucker, 2020). Several news outlets reported on this headline, but most

alarming is that senior Iranian officials were the ones pushing this narrative about the United States

(Gabrielle, 2020). This is where disinformation campaigns get even more dangerous because more

and more people are willing to believe information when it comes from a senior government official.

Russia is also known for its disinformation tactics. During uncertain times like the Covid-19

crisis we are living through today, the Kremlin has been known to capitalize on the distress and

chaos of the situation in order to push their own narrative and to disable other countries from acting

in a proper way to what is going on (Gabrielle, 2020). Utilizing social media platforms, official state

media, and proxy news sites, Russia has pushed a false narrative similar to China and Iran by

enabling these netwar tactics:

“We are still seeing the Kremlin continue its reckless attempts to propagate disinformation,
endangering global health by undermining the efforts of governments; of health agencies and
organizations that are in charge of disseminating accurate information about the virus, such as the
World Health Organization” (Gabrielle, 2020).

While all three of these countries are spreading false narratives that put other countries in

danger during this pandemic, they are also pushing each other’s narratives and working together to

strengthen the disinformation campaigns (Gabrielle, 2020). Russia has been promoting the narratives

that both China and Iran are putting out right now. All three countries want a similar result from their

narratives, so they are backing up one another’s disinformation. The measures China, Russia, and

Iran are taking in order to fulfill their own agendas during a time of such panic and distress can be

extremely dangerous and disheartening. Fortunately, the GEC has measures in place that have
successfully stopped the spread of some of these disinformation campaigns (Gabrielle, 2020). It is

important that people are aware that everything they are reading or seeing during this time may not

always be fully factual.

RQ1: How familiar are students with disinformation campaigns surrounding the Covid-19

outbreak?

RQ2: What role, if any, does news consumption play in perception of these false narratives?

III. Methods

Netwar is a relatively new mode of conflict that came to be during the information age.

The rise of technology allowed individuals to have enormous amounts of data and knowledge

nearly instantly. Like anything, this was then used for both good and evil. Through networks,

like the internet, people began to use the newly found resource to create or resolve conflict.

Terrorist groups were formed across the globe through the use of the internet, activists came

together to protest certain causes, and governments manipulated their local media to deceive its

own citizens. Netwar is a large term for conflict that takes place through all channel networks,

whether it be the internet or other means of technology.

This paper will be focusing on one type of netwar in particular, disinformation

campaigns. With the rise of this type of war, came more and more chances for countries to push

out false narratives that supported their own agendas. For example, China began to weaponize

this type of information strategy by using state media outlets to manipulate and transform what

the people of China believed about their own realities. There are several examples of this type of

netwar throughout history, but this paper looks at disinformation campaigns in the context of the

global pandemic that is Covid-19. Covid-19 is a highly contagious respiratory virus that
originated in Wuhan, China. This outbreak has devastated the entire world, and each country had

to make diligent decisions when covering Covid-19 in their local and state media.

While many places understood the importance of reporting the truth to the citizens of

their own countries; other nations, including China, Russia, and Iran, decided to use this time to

create false news stories that would benefit themselves and harm others. In recent months and

weeks, we have seen narratives being pushed by these nations, including the false information

that the U.S. created the virus in order to weaponize it, or that China has contained the outbreak

(Gabrielle, 2020). These misinformation campaigns pose severe threats to countries like the U.S.

My research will focus on how university students consume their news, and what they know

about these disinformation campaigns.

In order to answer my research questions, how familiar are students with disinformation

campaigns surrounding the Covid-19 outbreak? And What role, if any, does news consumption

play in perception of these false narratives? I needed to use a quantitative research method as

opposed to a qualitative one. A survey made the most sense to collect my data. It allowed me to

collect a large amount of data in a relatively short period of time, while still being able to reach

many members of my target population, in order to be able to generalize my findings.

The survey format also allowed me to ask open-ended questions to collect more

individualized personal responses on the perception of the truth of these campaigns, as well as

the dangers they present. Through the website SurveyMonkey, I was able to create my research

instrument, with questions that aimed to answer my original research questions. I found my

participants through my own university, as well as students from other colleges across the

country. Using the platforms, LinkedIn, GroupMe, Facebook, as well as sending the survey to
friends and family members, I collected my data. My survey was also sent out to members of the

Elon community through email.

The survey begins with demographic questions regarding the participant’s age to make

sure I am only analyzing data that pertains to college aged students. The next few questions look

at the participant’s media consumption, and finally ends with questions regarding what the

survey taker knows or doesn’t know about specific disinformation campaigns put out by China,

Russia, and Iran. The anonymous respondents also had the opportunity at the very end of the

survey to express their opinion on how truthful these narratives seemed and were able to express

their concerns on the dangers of these false campaigns (Refer to Appendix I for survey

questions).

IV. Results & Discussion

Demographic information

Survey participants were recruited mainly on social media sites including Facebook and

LinkedIn. Friends, family, and peers were also contacted to fill out the survey through Gmail and

GroupMe. A total of 194 respondents participated in the anonymous survey. Gender did not play

a role in this survey due to the nature of the question attempting to be answered. University aged

students were the ones asked to answer the survey; however, some respondents still took the

survey who were not in this age range, slightly skewing the data. 1.03% were under the age of

18, 95.9% of the respondents were 18-24 years old, 1.54% were 45-54 years old, and 1.54%

were 55-64 years old.

News Consumption Among Participants

After answering the demographic question regarding the participants age, the next few

questions pertained to the respondent’s news consumption habits. The majority, 63.08%,
answered that they receive their news several times a day. 17.44% said they get their news once

a day, 10.77% got their news once an hour, 6.15% got their news more than once an hour, and

finally, 2.56% received their news once a week.

The next question asking participants what format they mainly get their news from

allowed respondents to pick more than one answer, therefore the percentages add up to over 100

percent, but give insight into the most popular news platforms today. Social media was the most

used medium for news consumption amongst the survey respondents with 80.51%, or 157

participants, saying they mostly got their news from social media networks like Facebook,

Instagram, and Twitter. However, the internet was a close second with 77.4% of respondents

saying they use news sites like nytimes.com and foxnews.com to receive their news. The third

most popular way of staying informed on current events was directly from family members or
friends, with 46.15% of participants listing this as one of their primary news sources. Print, radio,

and TV were the three least common methods of staying up to date on news.

The survey also asked respondents to manually type their most relied on news source.

The New York Times, CNN, and The Wall Street Journal were the three most listed media

outlets, and Twitter and Facebook were the most commonly listed social media platforms

respondents turned to for current events. However, many participants also said they rely on

Instagram and Snapchat for news updates as well, these were not listed quite as many times as

Twitter and Facebook, but a significant number of respondents do rely on the picture

applications to stay up to date.

Misinformation Campaigns Understanding

The next set of survey questions pertained to three specific misinformation narratives

being put out by China, Iran, and Russia. The participants were first asked if they had heard or

read that, “China has successfully contained Covid-19,” a narrative being pushed by the

Communist China Party, that was said to be untrue by a statement released by the United States

Department of State. 84.62% of the respondents said that yes, they had heard or read about this

misinformation campaign, with the remaining 15.38% saying they had not heard or read about

this narrative. “The United States weaponized the Coronavirus,” was the second narrative

participants were asked about. Unlike the first misinformation campaign mentioned above, the

majority, 62.37%, asked about the U.S. weaponizing Covid-19, said they had not heard or read

this false piece of information. Finally, claims reporting that the World Health Organization was

praising China’s efforts in dealing with Covid-19 were circling during the pandemic. The United

States Department of State also claimed this narrative to be another misinformation campaign
being pushed during the outbreak. 52.82% of participants said that they had heard or read about

this false narrative, and 47.18% said that they had not heard or read about this.

The final two questions in the misinformation campaigns survey were open response

questions. The format of these questions gave respondents the opportunity to share their opinion

regarding how truthful these false narratives seemed and if why they believe these types of

campaigns are dangerous. The first question regarding the truthfulness of some of these faulty

news stories or narratives showed many similar themes amongst participants. Due to the fact that

this question was optional, only 168 respondents out of the 195 opted to answer. One of the

common themes among the answers to the question, “If you have heard or read about any of

these false narratives mentioned above, did any of them seem truthful to you? Why or why not?”

was that many participants, although exposed to these false narratives, did not believe them.

An interesting trend appeared within the open-response question regarding how truthful

these campaigns appeared to be. The majority of respondents who did not believe these

narratives also consumed news several times a day, while participants who did find these

campaigns truthful consumed news much less, either once a day or once a week. Another

common theme in the answers to this question was that many people had seen from multiple

sources that China had contained the virus, making this narrative seem truthful, while others

were more skeptical about the country containing the virus due to the fact that China is known

for putting out misinformation because of the way their media is controlled by the communist

party. Another theme that arose pertaining to China containing the virus was that people simply

wanted to believe this narrative was true because of all the negative news circulating at the time.

The second open-response question on the survey asked, “if you feel inclined, please

state your own opinion on the dangers of these campaigns. Why is it important for us to stay
informed about false news circulating during a time like this?” As with the previous open-

response question, these answers were analyzed in order to pick out common themes. Even less

of the 194 respondents answered this question, with only a 72% participation rate among survey

takers. However, interesting themes emerged regarding the dangers of these misinformation

campaigns during a pandemic.

The first most common theme was that during a time of major uncertainty, informing the

public of the facts is crucial to being able to stop the spread of the virus. One participant wrote,

“These campaigns erode trust. In a worldwide pandemic people need to know the facts to protect

themselves, their loved ones, and the community at large. The frequency and scale of

disinformation surrounding us today certainly renders the public ill-informed, and possibly leads

citizens to take part in more actions that contribute to the overall spread of the virus.”

Regarding the theme of public health and safety another respondent wrote, “Public health

is extremely dependent on people getting accurate information. If they believe that Covid-19 is

contained, they might not practice social distancing.” Many participants expressed the constant

theme of fear for our public health and for our country’s response to the pandemic due to these

false narratives spreading.

Discussion

One of the research questions that this survey was created to answer was, “How familiar

are students with disinformation campaigns surrounding the Covid-19 outbreak?” First, the data

did show us what this age group knew about these misinformation campaigns. With almost 200

survey participants, the data collected is able to answer this question. While not all respondents

had been aware of each of the three narratives, 84.62% of the respondents had heard the first

narrative regarding China successfully containing the virus, 37.63% had heard about the
campaign stating that the United States had weaponized the virus, and over half, 52.82%, of

participants had heard or read about the WHO praising China’s efforts. These numbers tell us

that college aged students are aware of the narratives circulating, whether they had heard of all of

them or just one.

This information is crucial in terms of these countries’ efforts in spreading their

dangerous narratives and shows that they were successful with getting this false news out to

college-aged students. The answers to the open-ended question regarding why these campaigns

are dangerous also illustrated that not only had these university aged students heard or read about

these campaigns, they were also aware of why and how they pose a threat to public health and

safety, and to the action our country takes when fighting this pandemic.

The second research question was, what role, if any, does news consumption play in

perception of these false narratives? The survey asked participants to answer questions about

how frequently they get their news. When analyzing the data, an interesting trend appeared.

Participants who did not find these headlines to be truthful also listed that they get their news

several times a day (some respondents who did not believe them got their news once a day as

well). On the other hand, respondents who said they believed these narratives did not get their

news as often. This data allows me to look further into the connection between news

consumption and perception of the truth.

While this information cannot link these two directly, it does pose an interesting

discussion. Students who get their news more often either are more literate when it comes to

news put out and can decipher between true stories and false ones more effectively or, because

they get their news so frequently, this means they may be more skeptical to news stories as a

whole. If true, the latter could pose a serious issue in the context of the media in general,
especially during a pandemic. If avid news readers are less likely to believe what they read, this

too could impact their personal behavior towards containing the virus. If they don’t believe most

things they are hearing or reading from media outlets than they may be less likely to respond in

the appropriate way due to skepticism of the news they are consuming. Because of lack of

further data, this cannot be proved however, it is an interesting discussion that could lead to

further research on this topic. What the survey showed does seem to lean towards the fact that

news consumption does play a role in how these narratives are perceived.

The survey regarding misinformation campaigns during Covid-19 allows us to answer

these research questions. Students are familiar with these narratives going around, whether they

believe them or not, and most are well versed in understanding the danger that these faulty news

stories present. Based on trends from individual answers to the news consumption questions in

the survey and the open-ended question regarding how truthful these campaigns seemed, it is

safe to say that there is some sort of link between how often one consumes news, and one’s

perception of these stories, although further research must be conducted to confirm this further.

This survey gave important insight into what people know about these campaigns and their own

opinions on their truth and danger.

V. Research Limitations

With conducting this study, there were limitations that may have influenced the accuracy

of the data collected through the survey. The first limitation was that the survey was intended

only for individuals within the age group of 18-24. Respondents who were currently studying at

a college or university were recruited. However, because the link to this survey was posted on

social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, and the survey was open to the public, eight

participants did not fall into that category, minorly skewing the overall results.
 The fact that the survey takers were recruited only through the researcher’s own social

media networks and university connections poses another limitation. The respondents to this

survey are not a true random sample, which inhibits the ability to generalize to the larger

population.

The survey format in itself makes it almost impossible to measure the accuracy of the

participants’ answers. Some respondents may have answered questions dishonestly for a number

of reasons. Also, because the questions were not all required, some survey takers skipped a

portion of the questions, particularly the open-ended questions, which again minorly skewed the

ending results. While the survey questions were worded to minimize any confusion or multiple

interpretations, it cannot be proven that all participants interpreted the questions the same way,

which would also affect their answers. When creating a survey, it can be difficult to allow the

respondents to convey their emotions, even in the open-ended questions, which may have caused

confusion when analyzing the answers, which is another limitation that the research presents.

Surveys present a number of limitations that can be removed with further and more

narrowed research. However, with the small amount of limitations presented in this paper, there

was still crucial data that was used to answer the research questions being explored.

VI. Conclusion

Conducting research during an unprecedented historical event such as the novel

coronavirus is important, especially regarding netwar tactics such as the ones implemented by

several countries during the pandemic. As the past has shown, misinformation campaigns of any

kind present huge dangers to those receiving the false information, but when people’s lives are at

risk then the threats that are posed are even more severe. College-aged students, more

specifically, 18-24 years old, are the age group that uses social media as their predominant news
source, as this research’s survey solidified. Many of these false narratives that were being pushed

during the pandemic were found on social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. It is

important to understand what this age group knows about these misinformation campaigns and

how they interpret them.

This study found that students were aware that these headlines were being spread. In

terms of news consumption, the research showed that those who got their news several times a

day were less likely to find these headlines truthful, as opposed to those who consumed their

news once a day or even once a week. These types of trends could be interpreted in several

different ways, and future research will need to be conducted to analyze this idea further.

A possible next step would be to create another survey regarding misinformation

campaigns during the Covid-19 outbreak. Instead of asking participants strictly about false

narratives, a factual headline could be placed among the misinformation headlines. Keeping the

same questions about news consumption as the original survey for this research, it would be

easier to analyze what individuals deem truthful versus false based on their news consumption

and which headlines they think are real or fake. This next step of research could more clearly

identify the relationship between news consumption and the way certain headlines, true or false,

are perceived.

More data could be collected in the future to develop this study’s research questions

further. However, the information that was found from the misinformation survey in this paper is

important quantitative data that gives insight into the two questions this paper was designed to

answer. University aged students are aware of these narratives being pushed by China, Iran, and

Russia, which shows that these countries were successful in the spread and scope of getting their

messaging across to this age group. Analysis of news consumption trends showed a potential
relationship between how frequently students got their news and how truthful they found these

misinformation campaigns to be.

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