Digital communication and Ramadan at the time of COVID-19

Abstract

COVID-19 has presented both a health and an information risk with the viral spread of sometimes partial, false or erroneous news. In the Arab region, the media spheres have been saturated with information regarding coronavirus news. From social and traditional media, Arab audiences have been bombarded with a plethora of information, some of which was confusing and contradictory. As coronavirus sweeps across the world, many questions have been raised about the possibility of practicing the rites of the month of Ramadan and to observe fasting by Muslims. With the multiplication of the responses from medical staff, doctors of the law and political representatives, COVID-19 has simultaneously become a health, religious, political and ethical problem for the Muslim world. The premise elaborated so far calls for an in-depth research on the return of news on the official Facebook pages of three online magazines during the coronavirus emergency. The research carries out a qualitative media content analysis of all the news published by three digital ethnic newspapers: The Muslim News (United Kingdom), the Saphir News (France) and the Daily Muslim (Italy). The magazines have undertaken to stem the spread of fake news by offering users data and updates on COVID-19, proposing themselves as authoritative voices and reliable sources of information. Ramadan turns out to be a very central element in the three magazines in different measures, since it is an issue that becomes more and more urgent for the Muslim community as the weeks go by. The centrality of the religious element in the information flows is in line with the centrality of Islam in the individual and community life of the faithful. The health and religious emergency were narrated together providing updates on the daily measures to be put in place. Individuals have been called to face the health emergency stimulated by their sense of responsibility towards others also through religious principles. Social media have played an important role from religious, cultural and social points of view in one of the most important moments of the year for the Islamic community.