Research On The Effectiveness Of Refuting Health Rumors In Social Media

With the development of the Internet,social media has gradually become the main channel for audiences to obtain information,while the gatekeeping of traditional media has declined,and the environment of public opinion is filled with information whose source is not verified and whose credibility is not tested.With the development of online medical treatment,the audience is increasingly seeking health information from the Internet.Limited by various factors such as health literacy,education background and preference,the audience cannot accurately identify whether the health information is true and accurate,which leads to the emergence of health rumors.In social media,weibo occupies a very important position.Many health rumors are generated from weibo and are further amplified and spread,which brings unnecessary anxiety and panic to the audience and brings bad influence to the society.In the face of endless health rumors on social media,rumor refuting has been proved to be one of the effective means to reduce the credibility of rumors and curb the spread of rumors.Its essence is to state the truth,expose the falsity of the rumor information and thus reduce people’s willingness to spread and prevent the spread of rumors.The complex social media environment and the diversity of the audience bring both challenges and opportunities to refuting rumors.The spread speed and scope of refuting rumors exceed that of rumors.When the audience has not received the rumor information,they have gained "immunity" through refuting rumors,which will achieve twice the result with half the effort.Therefore,this paper aims to build a theoretical model that influences the audience’s willingness to verify and spread information about rumor-refuting in the era of social media,so as to provide more ideas and references for the practice of rumor-refuting.In this paper,the 2×2×2 experimental research method is adopted to simulate the spreading situation of health rumors dispelling information in weibo,and the data is collected through the network questionnaire platform "Credamo".In the research,the ELM theory model is applied to the practice of dispelling rumors in social media.Eight different experimental stimuli were selected by combining the quality of rumor-refuting information(high quality/low quality),the credibility of rumor-refuting information sources(high credibility/low credibility)and social cues(high social cues/low social cues).The subjects’willingness to verify and share rumor-refuting information under different experimental stimulus scenarios was tested,and the data were analyzed by SPSS software.It summarizes the factors that influence the audience’s verification and sharing of rumor-refuting information in the age of social media.The results show that,in the context of social media,the quality of health rumor refuting information,the credibility of rumor refuting source and the social cues in the rumor refuting information representing "others’ recognition" can significantly affect the audience’s willingness to share the rumor refuting information,especially the social cues variables.It is an innovative application in line with the situation of social media and has been proved in the practice of rumor refutation of health rumors.In addition,when the audience is spreading rumor refutation information,they are also verifying the rumor refutation information.The quality of rumor refutation information,the credibility of rumor source and social cues can also significantly affect the audience’s willingness to verify the rumor refutation information.Finally,in the process of spreading rumor information,the quality of rumor information and the credibility of rumor source can produce a significant interaction effect.High-quality rumor information and high credibility information source can be greatly recognized by the audience,which is also the best way to improve the influence of health rumor rumor information.At the same time,in the practice of health rumors refuting,attention should be paid to the important influence of "social cues" on the audience,and reasonable use of the communication power of "social cues" in the era of social media and the subjective initiative of the audience to expand the influence of rumor refuting information and improve the audience’s participation in the practice of rumor refuting.In addition,the strong willingness of the audience to verify the rumor-refuting information also reflects the uneasy feeling of the audience in the complex network environment.Our government should play the role of coordinating all parties and assume the important responsibility of purifying the network environment.This study focuses on the research on the disproving effect of health rumors,combines with the social media situation to carry out innovation,expands the application scenario of ELM theory,and provides a reference for relevant departments and media to manage health rumors.