Introduction
The declaration of COVID-19 as a public health crisis presented significant challenges that affected people worldwide. The first reported incidence was in China, and subsequently, on March 2, 2020, one person was confirmed to be positive for the virus in Saudi Arabia. Nine days later, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic (Qureshi and AlRajhi, 2020). By November 2020, almost all countries had reported cases with more than 1.48 million deaths globally (Tambo, Djuikoue, Tazemda, Fotsing, and Zhou, 2021).
However, the health crisis is not the only problem caused by COVID-19. According to Al-Rawi, Fakida, and Grounds (2022), COVID-19 led to an infodemic characterized by the dissemination of misinformation, particularly on social media. Although there were credible sources of information, challenges in language translation issues in Saudi Arabia led to an increase in misinformation on social media.
Contextualizing Saudi Arabia
Many countries were left in a state of emergency due to the fast spread of COVID-19. In an endeavor to mitigate the negative implications, Saudi Arabia established a high-level coordination system within the first few weeks (Tambo, Djuikoue, Tazemda, Fotsing, and Zhou, 2021). Despite these efforts, studies indicate that widespread COVID-19 disinformation in Arabic was well-coordinated in Saudi Arabia. The country has a high social media presence due to the widespread ownership of smartphones. According to Alasmari, Addawood, Nouh, Rayes, and Al-Wabil (2021), there are 40.20 million subscribers in Saudi Arabia, which translates to 116% of the population. Therefore, any fake news released on Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, and YouTube can quickly become viral.
Language Translation Issues
Challenges in Language translation issues are the root cause of Infodemics in Saudi Arabia. For instance, the Saudi regime took disinformation created by specific people and amplified it across several social media platforms. The citizens of Saudi Arabia relied on social media platforms to communicate their thoughts about the condition. There was a false narrative that Qatar knew about COVID-19 from 2015 and was deliberately spreading the disease to sabotage their economy (Al-Rawi, Fakida, and Grounds, 2022). Consequently, people politicized the pandemic and made grounds for hatred and accusations.
Moreover, it led people to believe in fake news more than they did reliable information from credible channels. For instance, an analysis of COVID-19 content on Reddit from March to December 2020 revealed that fake news received more comments than legitimate information (Alwaday, 2022). There was a breakdown of communication, which increased the health risks to people. Notably, translation promotes communication between the public and medical agencies, as interpreters save lives by combating infodemics (Alhusayni, 2021).
Yet, there is a shortage of people who can accurately translate on social media. Research findings indicate that merely 23.33% of people believe that their online translation teaching is very good (Alwazna, 2022). The implication is that many people who get news that is wrongly translated are likely to believe it is accurate.
Related Article
In his “Teaching translation during COVID-19 outbreak: Challenges and discoveries” article, Alwazna (2022) explores translation teaching during COVID-19. The objective of this research was to identify the challenges that teachers encountered when conducting online teaching and propose potential solutions. Findings indicate that 40% of respondents enjoyed the translation teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, although only 23.33% were confident in their skills (Alwazna, 2022). The obstacles in online teaching include materials that need to be discussed in physical classes, poor internet connections, audio issues, and unfamiliarity with certain technologies. The solution is to adapt the learning objectives to the context, develop monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, and utilize machine learning translation.
Findings from the study can be applied to crisis translation on social media since the challenges are likely to be similar. When learning translation, learners need to have a clear direction on the purpose (Lee & Wang, 2022). Teaching social media users to recognize fake news is vital for their safety during a crisis. Given that people interact extensively through social media during lockdown, there is a need to increase the number of professional translators and interpreters. Thus, online teaching can be an effective way to combat misinformation on social media when used correctly.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the COVID-19 crisis in Saudi Arabia resulted in an infodemic in which fake news quickly spread through social media channels. The fact that Saudi Arabia has high internet penetration and smartphones means that they readily received misinformation that went viral on platforms such as Twitter. Moreover, the challenges in providing crisis translation exacerbated the situation, as many people failed to receive accurate information. The result is that many people failed to follow the safety protocols, as some chose to embrace politicized conspiracy theories. The implication is that there is a dire need to teach many professionals to have competencies in online crisis translation.
References
Alasmari, A., Addawood, A., Nouh, M., Rayes, W., & Al-Wabil, A. (2021). A retrospective analysis of the COVID-19 Infodemic in Saudi Arabia. Future Internet, 13(10), 254.
Alhusayni, H. (2021, December 21). Covid-19 expands translators’ role in saving lives, academics say.
Al-Rawi, A., Fakida, A., & Grounds, K. (2022). Investigation of COVID-19 misinformation in Arabic on Twitter: Content analysis. JMIR Infodemiology, 2(2), 1-10.
Alwaday, H. (2022). Critical discourse analysis of COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory Videos.: A Study of Popular Videos in Arabic Media (Master’s thesis).
Alwazna, R. Y. (2022). Teaching translation during COVID-19 outbreak: Challenges and discoveries. Arab World English Journal 12 (4.6), 86-102.
Lee, T. K., &Wang, D. (2022). Translation and social media communication in the age of the pandemic. Routledge Focus, US.
Qureshi, M. N., & AlRajhi, A. (2020). Challenge of COVID-19 crisis managed by emergency Department of a big tertiary centre in Saudi Arabia. International Journal of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 7(3), 147-152.
Tambo, E., Djuikoue, I. C., Tazemda, G. K., Fotsing, M. F., & Zhou, X. (2021). Early stage risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) strategies and measures against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic crisis. Global Health Journal, 5(1), 44-50.