Abdullah Alhuntushi - Science Journalism in the Arab World: The Quest for ‘Ilm’ and Truth

Abdullah Alhuntushi and Jairo Lugo-Ocando

Science Journalism in the Arab World

The Quest for Ilm and Truth

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To both of our mothers, who brought science into our lives

For journalists all over the world, one of the most dramatic events in the twenty-first century was reporting the world COVID -19 pandemic. As the virus rapidly spread across all corners of the globe and took almost everyone by surprise, it became increasingly evident how ill-prepared our societies were to deal with these types of situations. Millions across the globe were dying as the world desperately searched for a vaccine while asking people to stay at home, self-isolate and wear masks. Meanwhile, the economy was collapsing as the planet came to a halt.

Governments deployed information campaigns as part of the efforts to convince everyone to undertake precautionary measures. These efforts became, in the end, a race to win the hearts and minds of people, convincing citizens to change their lifestyles and accept what at times seemed to many as draconian measures. This included informing the public about approaches, policies and actions to be collectively undertaken to reduce the speed of the contagion so as to avoid the collapse of the public and private health systems, which were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people falling ill and rushing into medical emergency rooms (Ghosh & Qadeer, ).

However, these communication efforts proved to be one of the biggest challenges and, in some cases, an impossible task. Indeed, one of the biggest surprises from that event was the way the government responses to the crisis were politicalised and faced a backlash from anti-vaccine and anti-mask movements from around the globe. Perhaps the biggest paradox was the fact that liberal democracies with an independent and free press which ought to be trusted in fact struggled to be so and failed to convince large segments of their own populations to embrace these responses and policies.

It was precisely in those political systems where information was widely available and individuals had the right to choose sources and responses where we mostly saw the spread of fake news and disinformation (Carrion-Alvarez & Tijerina-Salina, ). It came down to the fact that in many of these countries large segments of the public simply neither trusted the government nor the mainstream media.

These individuals fell into conspiracy theories that promoted the idea that governments and corporations were colluding for world domination and depopulation or that it was all a plot to implement a form of corporate fascism (Stecula & Pickup, ). This war against scientific truth was supported in turn by important segments of the right-wing news media and a variety of voices on social media platforms, all of whom disinformation campaigns that helped to radicalise groups of the public and slow down the rates of vaccination and mask use.

At this point, one must ask why did so many ignore or distrust what governments, international organisations and the mainstream media had to say about the pandemic? As the dust settled, we came to understand that there were many variables at play. For example, one of the aspects that caused most damage during the emergency was the fact that many in society did not really understand the nature of the crisis or the science behind the virus and the responses to it (e.g., that the world already had mRNA technology which facilitated the rapid development of a vaccine). Conspiracy theories thrived from ignorance as many were unable to grasp even the most basic concepts around health while fewer understood how to assess risk in their own lives.