BOOM Live has launched senior citizen workshops to increase COVID-19 awareness as well as tackle the deluge of misinformation surrounding the pandemic. BOOM has partnered with renowned actor Aasif Sheikh to produce five short informational films to highlight COVID-19 appropriate behavior.
With the science around COVID-19 constantly evolving, there is a constant surge of information about the disease. In many cases however, the information shared may not be true at all. Aasif Sheikh urges viewers in the third short film to only trust official and reliable sources and never share news or information which you are unsure of.
The pandemic has caused an information overload driven by the the penetration of social media which can cause confusion and mistrust. Senior citizens, due to various technical and awareness constraints, are most vulnerable to this infodemic and are prone to falling for misinformation and fake news.
In a bid to tackle this information gap, BOOM will partner with senior citizen forums, organizations, and associations across India to host free online workshops titled "Information Overload in times of COVID-19" that are aimed to empower senior citizen participants to distinguish between news, opinion, propaganda, and analysis. BOOM has also launched five short film series that aims to build awareness around COVID-19 appropriate behavior, especially among senior citizens.