- ISSN: 2632-2463
- E-ISSN: 2632-2471
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oa ‘Nature is healing’: Environmental infodemic and the pitfall of dualism
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By
Etsuko Kinefuchi1
- Source: Journal of Environmental Media, Volume 1, Issue s1, Jun 2020, p. 3.1 - 3.8
Abstract
As the pandemic of COVID-19 shut down the world and people were ordered to stay home and social distance from each other, the world turned to social media to share all sorts of information about the pandemic and related topics, giving rise to infodemic or ‘an over-abundance of information – some accurate and some not – that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it’ (WHO 2020: 2). Besides the overwhelming amount of information about the virus and its treatment, COVID-19 infodemic includes a copious volume of information about the environment. Many of the stories that spread on social media reported improvements to the environment, and this was attributed to human absence. This article will reflect on these stories and their implications from an ecological perspective with several questions in mind: how is the environment constructed in social media in relation to the pandemic, and what are their implications?; what may be overlooked in the infodemic on the environment, and why does that matter? My reflection addresses and problematizes the prevalence of dualism in the ways the environment is constructed in the widespread environmental stories in the context of the pandemic.
