VERIFICATION OF COVID-19 MISINFORMATION ONLINE: LITERACY CONTRIBUTIONS OF FACT CHECKING WEBSITES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN NIGERIA

With the rise of social media have come problems of authorship and mis- and dis- and mal-information. Social media allows everyday people to become content creators and gives a voice to ordinary citizens to express themselves. Despite the benefits of citizen participation, misinformation continues to thrive in both Western and non-Western contexts. Three fact-checking websites, Dubawa, Africa Check, and Fact Check Hub were analyzed in this thesis to identify the current literacy efforts towards tackling misinformation in Nigeria. The results revealed that there was a significant difference between news topics that debunked misinformation (ꭓ2 (5, 146) =19.083a, p = .002) and no significant difference between the news topics that encouraged misinformation literacy (ꭓ2 (5, 146) = 3.166a, p = .674) from articles analyzed in their efforts to present accurate information during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. This thesis proposes that fact- checking organizations’ resources and fact checks be included as a crucial part of future literacy policy making efforts in the quest to fight misinformation on the continent. Future research should assess the extent to which fact-checking organizations deliver interventions i.e., fact-checked posts close to the sites where misinformation is propagated. Furthermore, there needs to be an assessment of the utilization of the proposed fact-checking skills identified by fact-checking organizations by individuals when they encounter misinformation online to assess their self-efficacy in responding appropriately to misinformation following misinformation literacy exposure.