The COVID-19 pandemic has occurred alongside a worldwide infodemic where unprecedented levels of misinformation have contributed to widespread misconceptions about the novel coronavirus. Conspiracy theories, poorly sourced medical advice, and information trivializing the virus have ignored national borders and spread quickly. This information spread has occurred despite generally strong preferences for domestic national media and social media networks that tend to be geographically bounded. How, then, is (mis)information crossing borders so rapidly? Using social media and survey data, Peter Loewen co-authors this paper which evaluating the extent to which consumption and propagation patterns of domestic and international traditional news and social media can help inform theorizing about cross- national information spread. In a detailed case study of Canada, the study employs a large multi-wave survey and a massive data set of Canadian Twitter users. The authors show that the majority of misinformation circulating on Twitter that is shared by Canadian accounts is retweeted from U.S.-based accounts. Moreover, exposure to U.S.-based media outlets is associated with COVID-19 misperceptions and increased exposure to U.S.-based information on Twitter is associated with an increased likelihood to post misinformation. This paper thus theorizes and empirically identify a key globalizing infodemic pathway: disregard for national origin of social media posting.

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