I study the relationship between the legacies of pandemics/epidemics and the problematization of information through changes in the governance of public health, specifically in the cases of the International Sanitary Convention of 1944 and the creation of the 1969 International Health Regulations.
Long abstract:
Public health emergencies in recent decades, especially the COVID-19 pandemic, have highlighted the growing concern in the global health community with the problem of ‘infomedics’: the uncontrolled, excessive, or rapid spread of information that is false or misleadingly inaccurate. Attempts to address this problem have also driven the emergence of a new form of expertise: ‘infodemiology’. In this paper, I explore the relationship between the legacies of health emergency events (pandemic and epidemic) and infodemics as a problem of government. Specifically focusing on the historical cases of the International Sanitary Convention of 1944 and the creation of the 1969 International Health Regulations, I examine how politics around changes and reforms in the governance of public health influence or shape governmental perception and action with respect to information and its circulation.