A Study on the Effectiveness of Rumor Control via Social Media Networks to Alleviate Public Panic About COVID-19.
Front Public Health
; 10: 765581, 2022.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1952750
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 outbreak triggered a massive spread of unverified news on social media and has become a source of rumors. This paper studies the impact of a virtual rumor control center (RCC) on Weibo user behavior. The collected COVID-19 breaking news stories were divided into positive, negative, and neutral categories, while the moderating effect model was used to analyze the influence of anti-rumor on user behavior (forwarding, liking, and commenting). Our research found that rumor refuting does not directly affect user behavior but does have an indirect moderating effect. Rumor refuting has a profound impact on user forwarding behavior in cases of positive and negative news. Specifically, when the epidemic becomes more serious, the role of rumor refuting becomes critical, and vice versa. Refuting rumors reduces user willingness to forward positive or negative news, with more impact on negative news. Time lag analysis shows a significant moderation of unverified news within 72 h of refuting rumors but indicated an apparent weakening trend over time. Furthermore, we discovered non-linear feature and counter-cyclical phenomena in the moderating effect of rumor refutation.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Social Media
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Front Public Health
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Fpubh.2022.765581
Similar
MEDLINE
...
LILACS
LIS