Infodemics: A call to action for interdisciplinary research

Research on infodemics, i.e., the rapid spread of (mis)information related to a hazardous event such as the COVID-19 pandemic, requires the integration of a multiplicity of scientific disciplines. The dynamics emerging from infodemics have the potential to generate complex behavioral patterns. For the field of Business and Economics, understanding these dynamics is of ultimate importance: it supports, for example, anticipating individual behavior, which might help reduce the uncertainty entailed by the COVID-19 pandemic and allows for assessing the efficiency of policy decisions to contain its effects. In addition to the field of Business and Economics, we take into account the following disciplines: Through the lens of Computer Science and Information Systems, the information accessible to individuals is central, whereby the way information spreads in a society is strongly affected by the employed algorithms for information provision and by personalization. From the perspective of Linguistics, specific language signals in communication which emerge during pandemics have to be taken into account (e.g., emotion-related words, avoiding causal terms). Considering linguistic patterns in the context of infodemics appears to be highly relevant as they strongly affect how information is interpreted, fact-checked, made sense of by non-expert persons, and the way misinformation is automatically detected. From a Cognitive Psychology point of view, the focus is on how motives, intuition and affect influence the search and evaluation of information, and on how cognitive processes, the digital information environment and linguistic patterns together shape individuals' understanding of critical events, risk perception and behavior. The perspective of Business and Economics allows for integrating these perspectives into the wider context of economic systems (e.g., organizations or the society).