Research On Online Rumor Spreading In Public Emergency Events

The phenomenon of rumor spreading has a long history since ancienttimes. In the modern times of new media, online rumors have become acritical factor in prodding public emergency events and impacting thedevelopment of the situation. Today, highly-developed social media havegreatly enhanced the efficiency of information dissemination while theaverage life span of a rumor becomes much shorter, which is a test for thepublic’s ability to judge the information and the administrators‘copingskills. Based on this, this research attempts to answer, under the socialnetwork frame, the following questions: how is the spreading of rumorsnowadays different from the past? How do various social roles respond torumors in a public emergency? And how should they respond for themaintenance of social order?Therefore, this study focuses on the current social network pattern,sorted the material by theoretical and historical analyses, conductedempirical researches into cases and data, and summarized the rationalconclusions drawn from the experience acquired at home and abroad,trying to discover the new features of rumor spreading, evaluate thedifferent roles in reaction behavior, and discuss the preliminarysuggestions in "How to respond". The dissertation is divided into sevenchapters.The first chapter is introduction, which presented the researchbackground, literature review and research design, etc., and provided anoverall picture of the framework of this study.The second chapter is the theoretical foundation, which clarified thebasic concepts involved in this research, defined the core object and the scope of research questions, and meanwhile, summarized related theories.The third chapter is historical analysis. Based on Chinese society, thischapter reviewed the historical changes of rumor spreading, with anemphasis on the spreading modes since the Internet appeared, and clarifiedthe rumors spreading patterns. On this basis, the author re-sorted eachelement of the whole process of online rumor spreading in publicemergency.The fourth chapter is empirical research. Based on the2010-2012dataof major public emergency events that produced great impact on thesociety and the online rumors that emerged with them, this part analyzedthe frequency distribution and correlations of key variables, discussed therumor spreading mechanism and its effects on the public emergency.The fifth chapter analyzed responses of different roles when they faceonline rumors. Case survey, content analysis and questionnaire survey areused to attain data about the response of rumormongers, netizens, mediaand government when they face online rumors.Finally, the author outlined the experience of foreign and domesticsociety, rethought the idea of how to govern the online rumor, and thenproposed several strategies.