The Fading Of Rumors In Public Emergency In Microblog Platform:a Case Study Of "Yao Yan" Incident

Most current discussions on rumor are from the aspects of the reason, evolution or social psychology perspective. Different from previous studies, this paper focuses on the fading of rumor in microblog platform based on the analysis of "Yao Yan" incident happened in March,2011, combs the process of rumor’s emerge, diffusion and resolution in the incident, and lays a lot of emphasis on the contest and spread of the rumor refuted information. The research collected the information posted by stakeholder (@China National Salt Industry Corporation), science communication agency (@Rumor Pulverizer) and news agency (@Headline News) and the forwarding users and content as well, and explored the effects of these refuted information as well as the characters of the forwarding population and context by using content analysis methods. The feature of the users that forwarding the rumor refuted information and their attitudes were examined by descriptive statistics and the differences among the forwarding users and attitude of the three initiators were also examined by chi-square test. Besides, in order to provide a reference for rumor refutal in microblog platform, the factors that influence the rumor refuted information spread effective were explored from information post subject, information type and the characteristic of forwarding users by using regression analysis.The results show that the differences among the users that forwarding the rumor refuted information which posted by @China National Salt Industry Corporation,@Rumor Pulverizer and @eadline News were identified on region and type of microblog behavior. There are differences among forwarding users of the three type of rumor refuted information as well which indicated the population in the microblog platform influenced by rumor refuted information were breadth and diverse during the incident. The study also suggests that the initiators and the type of initial contents have an effect on the attitude and forwarding behavior of forwarding users. The result of data analysis indicated that the information posted by stakeholder has a master effect which were able to get attention in a short time; while the scientific knowledge posted by science communication agency and the emergency measures and behavior guidance information posted by news agency were obtained supportive by forwarding users. In addition, from the aspect of forwarding users characteristics, audience behavior type users, male users and motivation of content using users are more likely to express effective comments when forwarding the rumor refuted information and promote the fading of rumors.