The Influence Of Identification?Information Quality And The Number Of Retweet On The Effectiveness Of Rumor Refutation

Weibo is increasingly becoming a tool for people to acquire and disseminate information in their daily lives because of its real-time information sharing,interactive convenience.Due to the lack of media gatekeeper,rumors abound on Weibo.Therefore,it is very urgent to study to how to control rumor.Is counter-rumor possible to control rumor propagation effectively as a mean of conventional counter-rumor? And in what conditions can counter-rumor be effective? For the above problems,previous studies have confirmed that counter-rumor can effectively reduce the beliefs and anxiety about rumors;the identification levels of the object of rumors,information quality and information source credibility influence the effect of counter-rumor;the retweet number of Weibo is an important peripheral cue.However,no research has been conducted to explore the impact of counter-rumor on the intention of share the rumors,as well as the level of identity,the number of retweet and the quality of information on the effectiveness of the counter-rumor.This study is divided into two parts,study 1 explored that whether counter-rumors could effectively reduce the rumor belief,anxiety and sharing intention or not.Study 2 introduced the identification variables,the quality of information and the number of retweet,and explored the influence of the identification,information quality and the number of retweet on the validity of the counter-rumors.Study 1 explored that whether counter-rumors could significantly reduce rumor belief,rumor anxiety and sharing intention.Results had shown that afer refuting the rumor,the belief,anxiety,and sharing intention about the rumor was significantly lower than before refuting the rumors.It was also found that the reduction of rumor belief,anxiety and the sharing intention in counter-rumor group were significantly higher than that of the non-refuting group.Study 2 explored the influence of identity,information quality and the number of retweet on the effectiveness of counter-rumor.Results showed that the information of high quality counter-rumors were more effective to reduce rumor belief,anxiety and sharing intention than the information of low quality counter-rumors.For disidentifiers,before refuting the rumor,the group of participants had the highest belief on rumor,and processed the information by the central route.Therefore,high quality information of counter-rumors were more effective than the information of low quality counter-rumors in rumor belief,anxiety and sharing intention.However,for disidentifiers,high number of retweet were not significantly higher than low number of retweet on the reduction of rumor belief,anxiety,communication intention.High number of retweet of counterrumors information had significantly higher source credibility than the low number retweets of counter-rumors and were more effective to reduce rumor belief.For netruals,before refuting the rumor,their belief about the rumor was in the middle,processing the information by the peripheral route,and high number of retweet of counter-rumors information were more effective than low number retweet information of counter-rumors on the reduction of rumor belief,anxiety,communication intention.However,there were no significant difference on the reduction of rumor belief,anxiety,communication intention between the group of high quality information of counter-rumors and of low quality information of counter-rumors.For identifiers,they did not believe the rumor,and they would not be affected by any types of refutation.