Media literacy and Africa Check’s response to the Covid-19 ‘infodemic’ in South Africa

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic was both a health and an informational crisis, in the form of what was described as an infodemic. Africa Check – the continent first independent non-partisan fact-checking organisation – responded to this crisis by conceptualising and implementing a media literacy campaign in 2021, following the official declaration of a global Covid-19 outbreak by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in March 2020. The relationship between fact-checking and media literacy is examined using Africa Check’s ‘Know the Facts Get the Vax’ campaign in response to the Covid-19 infodemic in South Africa. The documents and content produced for the campaign are analysed using the “Six Cs” of misinformation literacy as a framework to identify whether the campaign consist of elements related to both fact-checking and media literacy. This study also aims to highlight the role that fact checking organisations fulfil in supporting efforts to better inform the public on key issues and the importance of being reflexive as organisation’s in addressing the spread of false and misleading Covid-19 information, by innovating and finding new approaches.