Research On The Spread Of Unconfirmed Information After The Emergency Occurs

After the earthquake in Japan last year, the unconfirmed information about edible iodinsalt with the functionality of anti-radiation had already triggered stampedes at supermarketsfor iodin salt, which had aroused the people's extreme panic in the chaotic situation, andseriously influenced people's life, it actually causing lower average levels of happiness andlife satisfaction. In fact, the spread of the unconfirmed information which can create anodious influence, especially the fake information, can easily affect people's work and lifethan the disastrous itself, and even trigger social unrest and snowball into a political crisis.People are hungry for information about the emergency event after the interruption, somegossip of the emergencies news will fill all the place if the government departments andmedia deliberately make information asymmetry, vague, non-transparent. Consequently,many people suffer from the stress and anxiety, which can certainly lead to very seriousconsequences in the emergent event. On the contrary, if the government, media and the publiccommunicate closely with each other, then correct, timely information channels can be easilyobtained and made available to all. This will help reduce the social panic and adverse effectsof the expansion and dissemination of the unconfirmed information, and build the platformand standardized disclosure mechanism of information,.This will enhance people's trust inthe government and media, it is very critical in establishing the positive image for them.In this paper, the unconfirmed information is the research subjects, it is based on systemdynamics and the new features of unconfirmed information transmission process. This studyincludes: the cognitive mode of the information of the individual, the analytied methods andpropagation law for unconfirmed information from the social dimension, and the significant implication for unconfirmed information spreading generated by the authorities' actions.Then, people's emotional and cognitive, the propagation and control strategies, the relationbetween authorities' actions and unconfirmed information spreading were researchedsystematically. That will be helpful for judgment and publicity planning capabilities of theauthorities for unconfirmed information in emergency event. By effective intervening,controlling and guiding public social behavior,it will provide a theory and decisionsupporting tools for managersChapter1is introduction. The research expatiates on the thesis's research background,why the thesis focuses on this issue, how does this thesis is conducted, the main innovativepoints of this paper, and the expecting objectives of this research.Chapter2is literature review and evaluation. The research analyzes and reviews prioralliance related researches, including the existing researches, and also examines theinsufficiencies of the current methods.Chapter3is about related concepts, because of the exacting vaguer definitions of gossip,a new concept of the unconfirmed information is introduced.Chapter4is about competition for unconfirmed information. Firstly, competition for theunconfirmed information spreading itself is researched. Unconfirmed information involvesthe true news and fake messages, people need to make sense out of confusion and uncertainty,it is a key to preventing the accident and easing loss of the accident, this is also why thisarticle chooses this field as main research objective. Competitive model about unconfirmedinformation is proposed based on Gilpin-Ayala diffusion model, and procedure ofcompetition and diffusion is analyzed thoroughly. Secondly, competition among the targetedaudience is studied. It is said that unconfirmed information stops at the wise, who has goodidentifiable ability for unconfirmed information. Other people are considered as the limitedrationalists, thus these two group of people need to compete. In this study, the quantitativeanalysis with the support of the dynamic mathematics model is proposed. Using the theory of differential dynamical system, the status and stability of the rumor spreading are analyzed.After the propagation regularity of rumors is discussed, the thresholds are obtained. Thecontrol policies for rumor spreading are obtained by adjusting the parameters. The results ofthe thesis will provide the theoretical support to information control and can be referral fordecision makers'management on public opinions.Chapter5researches unconfirmed information transmission model with incubation. Itincorporates infectious force in the latent period. The mechanism of the unconfirmedinformation transmission is discussed, the threshold of control of unconfirmed informationcan be obtained, the similarities and differences of control strategies are compared,suggestions and inspirations to emergency management are achieved.Chapter6researches dynamical behavior of a transmission model with psychologicaleffect. The unconfirmed information transmission model with nonmonotonic incidence rate isproposed, which describes the psychological effect of certain serious information on thecommunity when the number of the infectives gets larger. The feasibility and rationality ofthis method are proved by the result of example. Finally, we outlined some strategies formanagers that can contribute to rumor control in an emergent event.Chapter7researches the optimal control for unconfirmed information. In this study, thedissemination of unconfirmed information after the emergency occurs is researched based ondynamic method. Firstly, the dynamic model for unconfirmed information spreading isproposed, which depicts the impact of media coverage and science education on thetransmission dynamics of information, and then the stability analysis is studied. Secondly, Inorder to overcome the limit of traditional methods of the static decision problem, the dynamicoptimal control for the transmission unconfirmed information is proposed based on thetheorem of the optimal control. An optimal objective based on the maximum social utility isestablished and the optimal solution is acquired by using the Pontryagin maximum principle.Compared with traditional control method, dynamic optimal control method has the obvious superiority in modeling. Based on the above generalizations, the paper presents somestrategies for unconfirmed information spreading and puts forward emergencydecision-making theoretical foundation and methodology basis.Chapter8researches an interplay model for authorities' actions and unconfirmedinformation spreading. In this study, we present a simple model to describe the interplaybetween rumor spreading and authorities' actions in emergency situation based on utilitytheory. By drawing from differential equations we find that it is possible to minimize negativesocial utility of rumor spreading in the control of situation. At the same time, authorities'proactive actions can improve rumor management in emergency situation and yield positivesocial utility. Once the relation of those two elements is mastered, it will help maximizemanagement's utility.Chapter9is conclusion and prospect. An overall summary is presented in this chapter,including important research conclusion, key contribution points, and suggestions tomanagement. This chapter also points out the research limitation and some suggestions forfuture research.This research includes the following contributions and innovations:(1)Because of the exacting vaguer definitions of gossip, a new concept of theunconfirmed information is introduced.(2) Competition for unconfirmed information is researched from the angle of theunconfirmed information itself and the targeted audiences, respectively. A betterunderstanding of the competition for unconfirmed information spreading is achieved in thispaper. The study will fill up the blank of competition information research.(3)The unconfirmed information transmission model with incubation is proposed,which incorporates infectious force in the latent period. Some modifications and extensionfor the classical model of information spreading are obtained. This result meets the actualcircs better and easier to be understood. (4)Some factors affecting the unconfirmed information transmission are considered,such as psychological effect for individual, media coverage and science education. Anoptimal objective based on the maximum social utility is established and the optimal solutionis acquired by using the Pontryagin maximum principle. The research to the optimal controltheory has provided a new visual angle to unconfirmed information spreading and hasenriched information research at the same time.(5)We present a simple model to describe the interplay between rumor spreading andauthorities' actions in emergency situation based on utility theory. Only on this condition, itcan contribute to grasp the law of interplay relations better. This will induce emergencymanager to balance the emergency rescues with the control of information. It can guaranteethe efficiency for emergency strategies, minimize the losses caused by the disaster.