A Study On The Spread Of Protest Rumor In The New Media Age And Its Good Governance

Trying to define the rumor from a more neutral perspective, rather than holdingthe traditional cognition which focuses on whether a rumor is true, or whether itis released or confirmed by official authorities, this dissertation defines rumoras a type of information that contains much uncertainty and spreads widely. Fromthis perspective, as long as a piece of information contains uncertainty, rumorsmay arise from it. This definition itself provides an answer to the question whyin an age of information transparency, rumors continue to exist, even more frequentlyand with wider circulation.Uncertainty gives life and vigor to a rumor. If uncertainty turns to certainty,the rumor on it will cease to exist. Accordingly, one of objectives of disseminatingnews items is to eliminate uncertainty. In this sense, the rumor and correct newscomplement each other. In fact, the spread of rumors prompts news agencies to searchfor the truth, that is, the certainty.This dissertation puts forward the theories of Information Puzzle andInformation Dilution. The effect of Information Puzzle is obvious since everyonemay release and transmit information in the era of new media. While a piece ofinformation is released, whether it is based on facts or not, if it coincides withand seems to corroborate previously published information, then the informationpuzzle becomes more complete. If it does not corroborate the existing information,then it will be crowded out of the information puzzle. Whether a piece of informationcontains uncertainty (a rumor) or certainty (a piece of correct news), it spreadswidely as long as it matches existing information. Meanwhile, the spread of rumorscan be prevented or reduced via information dilution. That is to say, when thereis a certain rumor which pertains to an information puzzle, a large number of otherinformation items can be published to dilute the rumor-like information.We are in an information age, and the challenges of arresting and attenuatingthe spread of rumors will only increase. Although not all of the rumors aredestructive, there still exist some malicious rumors which may have perniciouseffects on the society: many of these arise from a specific type of rumors, called“protest rumors”. Therefore, this study investigated33representative “protestrumors” from2003to2013in China. Results revealed that new media is not the onlymain platform for the spread of protest rumors. The traditional media sometimes releases rumors as well. In some circumstances, it may be a last resort for somepeople to address or draw attention to certain social issues by initiating andtransmitting “protest rumors”.Many researchers have mentioned that information transparency denies rumorstheir place to hide. However，the first premise for this is that the channels andmeans to disseminate the open and correct information is ensured. The other importantprerequisite is that the source of the released information must have highcredibility. By analyzing the spreaders, the characteristics, the causes, and thepositive and negative social effects of the spread of protest rumors and byemphasizing the concept of theory of good governance, this study puts forward somespecific suggestions as strategies to interrupt the spread of rumors.