Measuring the extent of the Libyan public's reliance on the media and social networking sites in realizing the risks of the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic and knowing ways to prevent them A field study on a sample of faculty members at Omar Al-Mukhtar Un

Abstract

The study aimed to:

• Know the degree to which Libyan public depends on both   media and social media in knowing   Covid-19 pandemic, awareness of its dangers, and awareness of methods of prevention.
• Know the degree of confidence of Libyan public in both   media and social media as a source of information about   Covid-19 pandemic.
• Identify kinds of mass media from which Libyan public get their knowledge about Covid-19 and ways of protection from its dangers.
• Identify degree of Libyan public confidence in the information from mass media on Covid-19 pandemic.
• Identify the degree to which Libyan public trusts in the information from social media on Covid-19.
• Identify differences of statistical significance between gender of Libyan public and kinds of media on which they depend to get their knowledge about Covid-19 pandemic.
• Identify differences of statistical significance between gender of Libyan public and their degree of confidence in mass media on which they depend to get their knowledge about Covid-19 pandemic.

The study has come to a set of results, the most important of which are:

• All respondents showed full knowledge of Covid-19's dangers on human race.
• 58% of the respondents depended on social media to get their information about Covid-19, meanwhile only 39% depended on mass media.
• 52% of the respondents depended on mass media as a source of news about Covid-19.
• 60% of the respondents depended on social media as a source of news about Covid-19.
• International TV channels were the first choice of 58% of the respondents who depended on mass media as a source of news about Covid-19.
• 55% of the respondents depended on local radio stations as a source of information about Covid-19.
• 86% of the respondents depended on Facebook social website as a source of information about Covid-19.
• 64% of the respondents showed their high confidence in what TV channels present about Covid-19, compared with the rest of mass media.
• 77% of the respondents showed high confidence in information presented by Facebook social website about Covid-19, compared with the rest of social media.
• The study revealed differences of statistical significance between gender and kind of mass media on which the respondents depend to get knowledge about Covid-19.
• The study revealed no differences of statistical significance between gender and confidence in mass media.