Fakes and Facts in a Pandemic
By Patricia Kingori | 03 May 2021
Fake news was a very serious issue even before the pandemic broke out. But, in the face of COVID-19, this phenomenon has become even more dangerous. Whether it's about the origins of the disease, how it spreads, or how it can be cured, it has become really difficult to determine what is real and what is fake. Patricia Kingori is a sociologist who is deeply committed to understanding the role that authenticity plays across different institutions and actors. She reflects on what we can learn from paying attention to fakes, false information, and forgery during a pandemic.
About the Expert
Patricia Kingori is a Wellcome Senior Investigator and Associate Professor in Global Health Ethics at the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities and the Ethox Centre at the University of Oxford. She is also a Senior Fellow at Somerville College, Oxford. Dr Kingori’s primary expertise lies in Sociology. Her current research interests intersect the Sociology of Science and Medicine, and a critical examination of ethics in practice.
Her most recent research project seeks to understand how uncertainty and ambiguity about the authenticity of products and activities across a vast array of institutions, actors, and locations are reconciled in real-world settings. It will also investigate the moral paradoxes associated with such uncertainty.
