Abstract
One of the major societal issues regarding the current COVID-19 pandemic is an overwhelming, often contradictory, flow of information from both legacy and social media. This information influences the attitudes of citizens all around the world especially regarding how they will respond towards taking the necessary measures to prevent the spread of the virus (e.g. wearing of face masks, social distancing, lockdowns, etc.) and vaccination.
At the same time, as has been observed by many researchers during the last year, both regional and local media can play a very positive role in sharing helpful information within communities and increasing common resolve to survive these tough times. But many questions remain, such as how to fight the spreading of fake news, how to update editorial principles, and is AI somehow able to support these processes? And how can scientists from other disciplines effectively take part in them?