Contemporary Social Internet Rumor Development And Influencing Factors

Internet rumor is the inevitable outcome of the information age. Nowadays both home and abroad, internet rumors are exercising its damage, and testing our people, our society and the authority of government. And it has been an issue of common concern. An exploration into the development process and laws of internet rumor and factors that help its transmission is instrumental in enabling people to distinguish rumor, reducing the risk of creating rumor and providing strategies for government to control and contain internet rumor.This paper studies the formation process of internet rumors and relative factors. Based on the theoretical background of social psychology and internet sociology, it employs the value-added theory, using the methodology of textual analysis, data analyzing and internet observation and studies the whole process of internet rumor development and transmission. This paper has selected the cases of “panic buying salt incident” and the Guo Meimei incident. After a thorough analysis, it concludes that the whole process abides by the basic law of formation, development and demise, with multiple climax points and nadir points. The social background, current social mentality and the relevance of the rumors to people as well as the absence of administrative authority together contribute to the formation and development of internet rumor. This paper has detected some basic laws and relative factors in this process by a thorough analysis of the panic buying and an auxiliary analysis of the Guo Meimei incident.