Rumor,Collective Memory And The Guarding Threshold Culture

Rumors often goes with human society, in the information society with highly-developed media technologies, the spread of rumors expanded and accelerated with the help of network platform, it threaten and destroy social harmony and stability in a short time. At the same time, conflicts aggravated and problems highlighted in transitional China, a series of events led to rumors. Why the legend of kidney stolen produces a lot of rumors after landing in China, and why these rumors spread continuously over and over again in more than a decade. To explore the spread of “cut kidney” rumors and the social psychology behind rumors implicitly will have certain directive significance to the reality.The research of this paper is divided into five parts, the specific contents are as follows:In the first part, this paper analyzes the origin of the rumor of “cut kidney”. Firstly, it difines the concept of gossip, rumor and urban legends, and points out they can be transformed into each other under certain conditions. Then, it analyzes that “cut kidney” rumors is hatched by the legend of kidney stolen.In the second part, this paper shows the present situation of the spread of the “cut kidney” rumors in China. It focuses on the spread of “cut kidney” rumors from four aspects: propagators, text, channel and audience. People spread rumors because of altruism or egoism, or to cover up the truth, or distort the interpretation of some facts. Propagators make rumors credible through leveling, sharpening, adding and assimilation. Rumors share news and spread fear through a variety of media channels. For the audience, it is difficult to identify the authenticity of “cut kidney” rumors because of their low scientific literacy.In the third part, this paper analyzes the role of collective memory in the repeated transmission of “cut kidney” rumors. Firstly, it describes the model of collective memory in the spread of rumor, then it anlysizes collective memories in rumors from the diachronic perspective, and how to re construct them in the social reality.In the fourth part, this paper explains the role of the threshold culture in the repeated transmission of “cut kidney” rumors. It introduces the threshold and analyzes that people fell panic and fear when they facing outsiders and invasion from the perspective of individual psychology and group psychology. And “Cut kidney” rumors fit the Chinese people's sense of guarding the threshold, they make the content indigenous and spread in the circle. Rumors become credible and repeated.In the fifth part, this paper sorts out the relationship of collective memory, the guarding threshlod culture and the rumor. It is found that social psychology and rumors are the relations of action and reaction.