Characteristic Analysis Of Misinformation And Its Influence Factors For Transmission Intention

Background and Aims: As small units in society, we are always influenced by a wide range of information diffusion. People‘s attitudes are also changing with the flowing of information diffusion. The changes of attitude are usually the result of social influence, which is mainly through this information diffusion. In the military field, the one who overwhelmed on the information battlefield could dominate the war. Ostensibly, the psychological warfare in network era is the warfare of information consciousness rather than the warfare of public opinion. The misrepresentation and slander of the famous personalities in the history of the military or the Party have never stopped. Why these information would always occupy the information field? In social life, some misinformation always occupy the information field, who could easily take advantages of the diffusion in the information field. And there are some people, who are always gullible and susceptible to the misinformation. In the circumstances, which characteristics of this misinformation make it persuasive and influential to audiences? Which psychological traits could help resisting the adverse effects of misinformation and negative information? In this dissertation, the content characteristics, text features and expression techniques of misinformation and negative information about focus people, and the network diffusion of positive information about focus people were discussed. The psychological traits conducive to building good psychological barriers against the adverse effects of misinformation and negative information were also investigated.Methods: Part 1: The content analysis method was used to study the content characteristics and expression techniques of misinformation, and compare the differences of ―truth misinformation‖ and ―false misinformation‖. Part 2: The misinformation of focus people in the mobile internet information platform and the positive information(text format) of Qiu Shaoyun in microblog platform(weibo) were grasped using the Python language. The R language and big data searching and mining platform were used for the text and sentiment analyses on misinformation of focus people, and the visualization analysis on the microblog diffusion of Qiu Shaoyun‘s positive information. Part 3: The attitude and behavior disposition of the audiences to misinformation were surveyed by the designed attitude and behavior questionnaires. And their substantial patterns were deeply analyzed by the latent profile analysis method. Part 4: The critical thinking disposition scale was translated and revised. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were applied to dissect the latent structure of critical thinking and explore the relationship between the common and special factors. Part 5: The willing of misinformation diffusion and critical thinking of the audiences were investigated by questionnaire method. The influence factors of the information transimission were explored by the multiple linear regression analysis. The differences of the transimission of ―truth misinformation‖ and ―false misinformation‖ in high and low critical thinking individuals were studied in behavioral experiment.Results:(1)(1) The ―truth misinformation‖(247 pieces) accounted for 20.90%, ―false misinformation‖(751 pieces) accounted for 63.54%, the rest of information accounted for 15.57%. The misinformation about medical health accounted for the most propotion(36.07%), then science and technology(23.37%), and the least is mysterious information(0.93%). Most misinformation writing style belong to objective reporting(70.96%).(2) Most misinformation had no person narrative(90.27%). About 32.40% misinformation used emphasized exaggeration tone, 95.26% misinformation had not used fear apeal, and 91.37% misinformation had not used rhetoric technique. The content characteristic of misinformation showed that: had no example( 82.15%), provided evidence( 44.50%), and fake evidence account for more than a half of provides evidence.(3) The propotion of emphasized exaggeration tone, fear apeal, and inflamatory used in ―false misinformation‖ were lager than ―truth misinformation‖(Ps<0.05). The neagtive sentiment of ―false misinformation‖ had a large propotion. The differences of arousal, social effect, source ambiguity, content ambiguity, source credibility, content credibility and involvement were significant in the three types of information(Ps < 0.001).(2)(1) The Chi-square test showed a significant difference in positive sentiment and negative sentiment of Qiu Shaoyun‘ negative information(χ2 =0.537, P =0.464). Word frequencies of angry were much more than anxiety and sad(Ps < 0.05)in Lei Feng‘ negative information. There were no significant differences in word frequencies of angry, anxiety and sad of the other focus people(Ps >0.05).(2)The negative sentiment accounted for 67.10% of the total text, and positive accounted for 32.90%. The hotness of the focus people was rising rapidly from 2009 to 2015, especially in the year between 2014 to 2015.(3) In the positive information of Qiu Shaoyun, first-hand retweet accounted for 83.00%, and second-hand accounted for 8.00%. The positive information spread sharply within 200 hours after source microblogging(Weibo) released in the Weibo platform. A plateau occurred in about 200-400 hours after the positive information released, and the information would continue diffuse slowly.(3)(1) The participants showed the typical Chinese moderation thought and moderation disposition in the attitude disposition, with about one third participants chose the option ―neutral‖. In the behavior disposition, the participants were susceptible to misinformation of earthquake disaster or medical health. However, they were not susceptible to misinformation of military or politics.(2) The latent profile analysis revealed the model of best goodness of fit, which indicate three distinct attitude disposition profiles: Profile 1(mid or moderation attitude disposition profile; 79.84%; n = 685), Profile 2(low attitude disposition profile; 8.04%; n = 69), and Profile 3(high attitude disposition Profile; 12.12%; n = 104).(4) The goodness of fit of Bifactor model of CT scale was the best, and the standardized factor loading of the items varied from 0.301~0.694. The Cronbach‘s α coefficient of CT scale was 0.845, and the Cronbach‘s α coefficient and composite reliability approximately equal 0.80. The AVE varied from 0.30 to 0.50, which was merely adequate. The test-retest reliability was 0.812(P<0.001, 1± s1= 3.69±0.51, 2± s2= 3.77±0.49).(5) The multiple linear regression analysis showed a similar pattern in both A1 and A2 information when the demographic variables were controled:(in A1 information:F10, 312=30.53,R2=0.495,P < 0.05;in A2 information:F10, 312=31.43,R2=0.502,P < 0.05).(2) The main effect of CT was significant only when the transimission(1-7) was dependent variable(F1,94=8.391,P<0.05,partial η2=0.082), and the main effect and interaction of other condition were not significant(Ps>0.05).Conclusion:(1) Most misinformation writing style belong to objective reporting, without obvious person narrative. Its sources tend to be described, analyzed, and even commented on certain events or actions in the view of the spectator. Misinformation was supposed to use seemingly rigorous, rational, scientific language to convince the audience, package the information with certain approaches.(2) The attitudes of netizens on focus people‘s misinformation were diversely differentiated, varied to different focus people. The diffusion and influence of positive information were mainly occured on the initial stage, and the information diffusion showed the characteristics of fragmented, easy to spread, strong sociability and etc.(3) In terms of attitudes, the audiences were most susceptibly affected by the misinformation of earthquake or disaster, and less influenced by the political and military misinformation. According to the attitude and behavior disposition, the audiences could be classified into three distinct profiles.(4) The translated and revised CT scale showed good reliability and validity, which were adequate or satisfactory.(5) The information credibility, the involvement and the CT of respondents were the main factors influencing the willingness of subjects on information dissemination. And the CT was the important factor against the adverse effects of misinformation.