Research On The Mechanism For The Spread Of Food Safety Rumors On Weibo

Before and after the 2016 US presidential election,political misinformation in social media became a heated research topic.In China's social media,political rumors do not account for the majority,but health rumors are endless.Among them,food safety rumors are closely related to people's lives.Studying the spread mechanism of food safety rumors in social media has a positive significance in curbing rumors and protecting people's interests.This article focuses on the spread mechanism of food safety rumors in Weibo,focusing on the text content,spread network,spread path and opinion leaders.Relying on the two-step-flow theory,taking‘injected watermelon' rumors as the research object,through text analysis,case analysis and social network analysis,explore the spread mechanism of food safety rumors and the methods to contain rumors.The study found that the food safety rumors in Weibo,like injected watermelon,will recur.The content of the rumor text has evolved year by year and has become more sensational Among multiple communication peaks,the rumor spreading network and the rumor refutation network are both small-world networks,which have short distance and high cohesion.Information can be directly transmitted from the opinion leader to the audience,and the speed is fast.At the same time,the spread path changes with the number and influence of opinion leaders in the network.In many peaks,opinion leaders who spread rumors are mostly information bloggers.They have limited fans but are highly active in Weibo.Opinion leaders generally do not forward rumors to each other,and the spread path is relatively simple.On the contrary,opinion leaders who refute rumors have official certification,high credibility,and a large number of fans.Multiple opinion leaders will forward rumors to each other,and the spread path is relatively more complicated.It can be seen that rumors are harder to refute than to spread.The opinion leaders do not need high influence to spread rumors.However,good credibility and fan base are needed to refute rumors.