scholarly journals Rumor and Communication

Communication ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas DiFonzo

An ocean of rumors, hearsay, half-truths, fake news, factoids, speculations, and conspiracy theories engulfs us. Rumor is a pervasive characteristic of human communication, a quintessentially social activity in service of making meaning. It is not surprising then that rumor has attracted attention from ancient peoples, from a wide array of scholarly disciplines (e.g., psychology, communication, political science, sociology, philosophy, literature, mathematics, computer science) and from a varied assortment of practice-oriented specializations (e.g., medicine, law, defense, politics, journalism, intelligence, marketing, management, finance, public relations). The intensity of interest in rumor has risen of late in exponential fashion amidst polarized political landscapes, reduced trust in institutional authorities (e.g., the academy, government, business, and the press), the ever-increasing ubiquity of the Internet, and a general lassitude about the concept of truth. This annotated bibliography reflects thinking and research about foundational issues inherent in rumor research (e.g., What is rumor?), features of rumor activity that have attracted longstanding attention (e.g., Why do people believe and transmit rumors? How do they become more accurate or more distorted?), and current areas of active inquiry (e.g., conspiracy theories, rumors about health and risk, organizational rumors, propaganda, intergroup stereotyping and conflict, journalism and fake news, and the prevention and management of harmful rumors).

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Joseph Van Bavel ◽  
Elizabeth Ann Harris ◽  
Philip Pärnamets ◽  
Steve Rathje ◽  
Kimberly Doell ◽  
...  

The spread of misinformation, including “fake news,” propaganda, and conspiracy theories, represents a serious threat to society, as it has the potential to alter beliefs, behavior, and policy. Research is beginning to disentangle how and why misinformation is spread and identify processes that contribute to this social problem. We propose an integrative model to understand the social, political, and cognitive psychology risk factors that underlie the spread of misinformation and highlight strategies that might be effective in mitigating this problem. However, the spread of misinformation is a rapidly growing and evolving problem; thus scholars need to identify and test novel solutions, and work with policy makers to evaluate and deploy these solutions. Hence, we provide a roadmap for future research to identify where scholars should invest their energy in order to have the greatest overall impact.


Jurnal Common ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Uud Wahyudin ◽  
Dedi Rumawan Erlandia

Era globalisasi menuntut sebuah kota untuk mengelola citranya dan menjadikan citra itu sebagai komoditas, bersaing untuk menjadi yang terbaik. Media massa memainkan peran penting sebagai salah satu media pemasaran dalam membentuk city branding untuk sebuah kota. Dengan demikian, humas pemerintah harus melakukan komunikasi interaktif dengan media massa atau pers.Public Relations dan mitranya, media massa atau pers, tidak dapat dipisahkan satu sama lain. Melalui media massa, Public Relations sebagai strategi promosi city branding dapat menyampaikan informasi tentang kota secara lebih komprehensif.Penerapan branding kota pemasaran melalui media massa oleh public relations pemerintah, dapat dilakukan dengan membuat profil kota / daerah yang harus disebarluaskan ke media massa di Indonesia dengan bahasa nasional, dengan desain yang menarik, sehingga mereka dapat dengan mudah menarik perhatian. Dalam praktik pemasaran atau promosi branding kota melalui media massa oleh humas pemerintah, setiap pemimpin daerah seperti walikota atau bupati harus diberi tanggung jawab untuk mempromosikan branding kota, terutama melalui media massa, baik cetak maupun elektronik. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The era of globalization requires a city to manage its image and make the image like a commodity, competing to be the best. Mass media plays an important role as one of the marketing media in forming city branding for a city. Thus, government public relations must make an interactive communication with the mass media or the press.Public Relations and its partners, mass media or the press, can not be separated from each other. Through mass media, Public Relations as a promotion strategy of city branding can convey information about a city more comprehensively.The application of marketing city branding through the mass media by government public relations, can be done by making a profile of the city/region that must be disseminated to the mass media in Indonesia with national language, with attractive designs, so that they can easily draw the attention. In the practice of marketing or promoting of city branding through the mass media by government public relations, every regional leader like a mayor or a regent must be given the responsibility to promote city branding, especially through mass media, both print and electronic.


Author(s):  
Giandomenico Di Domenico ◽  
Annamaria Tuan ◽  
Marco Visentin

AbstractIn the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, unprecedent amounts of fake news and hoax spread on social media. In particular, conspiracy theories argued on the effect of specific new technologies like 5G and misinformation tarnished the reputation of brands like Huawei. Language plays a crucial role in understanding the motivational determinants of social media users in sharing misinformation, as people extract meaning from information based on their discursive resources and their skillset. In this paper, we analyze textual and non-textual cues from a panel of 4923 tweets containing the hashtags #5G and #Huawei during the first week of May 2020, when several countries were still adopting lockdown measures, to determine whether or not a tweet is retweeted and, if so, how much it is retweeted. Overall, through traditional logistic regression and machine learning, we found different effects of the textual and non-textual cues on the retweeting of a tweet and on its ability to accumulate retweets. In particular, the presence of misinformation plays an interesting role in spreading the tweet on the network. More importantly, the relative influence of the cues suggests that Twitter users actually read a tweet but not necessarily they understand or critically evaluate it before deciding to share it on the social media platform.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Burkart

Das Standardwerk entfaltet die zentralen Perspektiven der Kommunikationswissenschaft. Medienwirkungen in der internetbasierten Kommunikationsgesellschaft, die kommunikative Revolution nach der Jahrtausendwende sowie die Bedeutung von Social Media werden ausführlich diskutiert. Die 6. Auflage geht zudem auf Fake News und auf Public Relations in Konflikt- und Krisensituationen ein.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNISA

Implementation of Public Relations or Public Relations is the entire implementation and application of the role of public relations in an organization / agency / company that has been planned, and organized with the aim of creating and maintaining mutual understanding and connecting between companies and their communities. These objectives can be applied through various programs / programs that benefit companies and the public in supporting them with information openness. This research aims to study and describe the Public Relations Implementation of the PSDA Office to foster good relations with external publics such as the press, agreements, and others. information. In a good relationship made by the Public Relations Department of the PSDA to reporters in the disclosure of information through the form of activities of forming personal contacts, press releases, and contingency plans. The good relations of PSDA Public Relations with Cross-Chancellors in information disclosure are coordinating activities, inviting the Governor, providing assistance, and holding social activities. The good relations of PSDA Public Relations with Universities in information disclosure are through apprenticeship / job training / street vendors, as well as holding World Water Day seminars.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 926-943
Author(s):  
Luiz Alberto De Farias ◽  
Sergio Andreucci

O artigo descreve os rituais e as estratégias de relações públicas utilizadas pelas assessorias de comunicação de empresas e organizações dos diversos segmentos, atuantes no mercado nacional, realizadas por meio de ações, programas e planos estruturados de gestão de crises.  Analisa ainda as vulnerabilidades da identidade, imagem e reputação organizacionais, os processos narrativos, as táticas aplicadas, a preparação dos porta-vozes, a função dos comitês de crises, a efetividade na intermediação das relações entre as organizações e a imprensa e as suas interfaces com a opinião pública.   PALAVRAS-CHAVE: relações públicas; crise; comunicação; opinião pública; reputação.     ABSTRACT The article describes the rituals and strategies of public relations used by the communication advisors of companies and organizations of the various segments, operating in the national market, through actions, programs and structured plans of crisis management. It also analyzes the vulnerabilities of organizational identity, image and reputation, narrative processes, tactics applied, preparation of spokespersons, the role of crisis committees, effectiveness in mediating relations between organizations and the press and their interfaces with public opinion.   KEYWORDS: public relations; crisis; Communication; public opinion; reputation.     RESUMEN El artículo describe los rituales y las estrategias de relaciones públicas utilizadas por las asesorías de comunicación de empresas y organizaciones de los diversos segmentos, actuantes en el mercado nacional, realizadas a través de acciones, programas y planes estructurados de gestión de crisis. Se analizan las vulnerabilidades de la identidad, imagen y reputación organizativas, los procesos narrativos, las tácticas aplicadas, la preparación de los portavoces, la función de los comités de crisis, la efectividad en la intermediación de las relaciones entre las organizaciones y la prensa y sus interfaces con la opinión pública.   PALABRAS CLAVE: relaciones públicas; crisis; la comunicación; opinión pública; reputación.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shauna Marie Bowes ◽  
Arber Tasimi

Misinformation is widespread and consequential. Thus, identifying psychological characteristics that might mitigate misinformation susceptibility represents a timely and pragmatically important issue. One construct that may be particularly relevant to misinformation susceptibility is intellectual humility (IH). As such, we examined whether IH is related to less misinformation susceptibility, what aspects of IH best predict misinformation susceptibility, and whether these relations are unique to IH. Across three samples, IH tended to manifest small-to-medium negative relations with misinformation susceptibility (pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, and fake news). IH measures assessing both intrapersonal and interpersonal features tended to be stronger correlates of misinformation susceptibility than measures assessing either intrapersonal or interpersonal features in isolation. These relations tended to remain robust after controlling for covariates (honesty-humility, cognitive reflection, political ideology). Future research should leverage our results to examine whether IH interventions not only reduce misinformation susceptibility but also lessen its appeal for those already committed to misinformation.


Author(s):  
Peppino Ortoleva

Fake news has been cyclically surfacing in the history of journalism and public opinion. In the vein of some classic authors, the chapter identifies ideas that are surprisingly useful in the present media environment. It interweaves three historical threads relevant to today’s fake news: (1) the growth of canards in 19th-century Paris, observed by both Honoré de Balzac and Gérard de Nerval as the habitual invention of news when facts were not sufficiently attractive for readers; (2) the diffusion of fausses nouvelles during the Great War, described by Marc Bloch and propelled by the tendency, in times of crisis, to search for oracles more than information proper; (3) the propensity, suggested by Richard Hofstadter, to spread conspiracy theories, notably in the development of McCarthyism.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Drew B Margolin

Abstract This article derives a theory of informative fictions (TIF). Common forms of misinformation—fake news, rumors, and conspiracy theories—while dysfunctional for communicating property information—information about the state and operation of things—can actually be valuable for communicating character information—information about the motivations of social agents. It is argued that narratives containing “false facts” can effectively portray a speaker's theory of another individual's character. Thus, such narratives are useful for gathering information about leaders and other important individuals who are evaluated in the community. After deriving the theory, TIF is used to derive propositions predicting the empirical conditions under which misinformation will be accepted, tolerated or promoted. The implications of the theory for addressing the normative problem of misinformation are also discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Mutsvairo ◽  
Saba Bebawi

From diplomatic spats between Qatar and Saudi Arabia to ubiquitous deceptive “news” updates purportedly sent by the Eritrean government urging all men to marry two wives or risk imprisonment, the future of fact-based reporting appears uncertain as mass media recipients world over become accustomed to consuming “fake news.” Despite the exponential expansion of journalism educators in the Middle East and Africa, several curriculums in these regions have been struggling to cope with the rising dominance of the “fake news” movement. Both regions have a well-documented appetite for conspiracy theories and indeed the power of disinformation and propaganda, which seem to have gathered steam in the wake of deliberate dissemination of hoaxes or sensationalist stories predominantly distributed via social media platforms, potentially posing a threat to the credibility of journalism. This article provides an updated state of affairs on the expansion of “fake news” in the Middle East and Africa arguing after an explorative examination of 10 journalism curriculums that educators need to focus on local contexts when preparing journalism modules. Although it is important to discuss global trends, developments, controversies, debates, and discussions involving the “fake news” movement, we think future journalists from both regions would benefit from media literacy courses that identify the difference between fact and fiction in relation to their own contexts. This is relevant because current pedagogical approaches appear influenced by developments abroad especially in these countries’ past colonial masters.


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