Shownotes Transcript
"欢迎来到英文小酒馆的迷你双语板块【Buzzword Mix】-新词特饮，短短几分钟，让不同段位的你掌握最新最地道的英文谈资！关注公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】，获取更多有趣节目内容和文稿哦~" In today's Buzzword Mix, our Buzzword is Infodemic. Now this is a combination of two words we all know too well, “information” and “pandemic”.由Information和Pandemic组成的这个词Infodemic, 中文里把它翻译成 “信息疫情”, 简称 “信疫”。 I'm sure you've heard of the expression going viral. 现在网络特别是社交媒体上, 如果一条新闻或者一条视频火了, 我们通常会说going viral病毒式的传播。But with more and more Information going viral overnight, what we can encounter is an infodemic. By definition, an infodemic is a rapid and far-reaching spread of both accurate and inaccurate Information about something, such as a disease. 所谓 “信息疫情” 就是指关于某一个话题一个事情, 比如说一个病毒, 整个网络会涌现出大量的真真假假的信息, 而这些信息会迅速的蔓延到互联网的每一个角落。As facts, rumors, and fears mix and disperse, it becomes difficult to learn essential information about an issue. 而随着这些事实、谣言还有恐惧不断的交织和传播, 作为普通人, 我们就很难了解关于这个事情的核心的有效信息。Now since we're still not out of the current pandemic, you might think the word infodemic has come out of the covid years, but actually this word isn’t new, it was coined in 2003, the year of SARS. 可能有的人会觉得infodemic这个词是在新冠这几年才出来的新词, 但实际上它是在03年非典的时候就被创造出来了。And it was coined by journalist and political scientist David Rothkopf in a Washington Post column. Back then he said, SARS is the story of not one epidemic but two, and the second epidemic, the one that has largely escaped the headlines, has implications that are far greater than the disease itself. That is because it is not the viral epidemic but rather an "information epidemic" or infodemic that has transformed SARS into a global economic and social debacle. 他当时就说非典其实要对付的是两个疫情, 一个是病毒的疫情, 还有一个造成更大的社会和经济影响的就是infodemic.