Collective Sensemaking and Location-Related Factors in the Context of a Brand-Related Online Rumor

TY - GEN

T1 - Collective Sensemaking and Location-Related Factors in the Context of a Brand-Related Online Rumor

AU - Chua, Alton Yeow Kuan

AU - Pal, Anjan

AU - Goh, Dion Hoe Lian

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

PY - 2020/11/26

Y1 - 2020/11/26

N2 - This paper examines collective sensemaking over the life cycle of an online rumor while considering two location-related factors: geographical proximity and cultural context. It has drawn data for a rumor case where a US-based customer claiming that Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) had served a fried rat. The rumor became viral on the Internet but was eventually debunked. The data included tweets across the three stages—parturition, diffusion, and control—of the rumor life cycle. Content analysis was employed followed by chi-square tests and binary logistic regression. Based on content analysis of 1,276 tweets, opinion-related posts were found to be prevalent at the onset of the rumor life cycle while information-related entries continued to swell through the stages. Tweets from both within as well as outside the US were evident in the early stages but they became localized before the rumor subsided. While there was a blurring of high and low cultural context in opinion-related tweets, information-related tweets reflected the communication of low-context culture as the process of collective sensemaking unfolded. The paper augments the rumor literature by exploring geographical proximity and cultural context in the process of collective sensemaking over the three stages of the rumor life cycle. It offers implications for practitioners to deal with online rumors.

AB - This paper examines collective sensemaking over the life cycle of an online rumor while considering two location-related factors: geographical proximity and cultural context. It has drawn data for a rumor case where a US-based customer claiming that Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) had served a fried rat. The rumor became viral on the Internet but was eventually debunked. The data included tweets across the three stages—parturition, diffusion, and control—of the rumor life cycle. Content analysis was employed followed by chi-square tests and binary logistic regression. Based on content analysis of 1,276 tweets, opinion-related posts were found to be prevalent at the onset of the rumor life cycle while information-related entries continued to swell through the stages. Tweets from both within as well as outside the US were evident in the early stages but they became localized before the rumor subsided. While there was a blurring of high and low cultural context in opinion-related tweets, information-related tweets reflected the communication of low-context culture as the process of collective sensemaking unfolded. The paper augments the rumor literature by exploring geographical proximity and cultural context in the process of collective sensemaking over the three stages of the rumor life cycle. It offers implications for practitioners to deal with online rumors.

KW - Collective sensemaking

KW - Cultural context

KW - Geographical proximity

KW - Rumor

KW - Social media communication

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85097529531&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-64452-9_25

DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-64452-9_25

M3 - Conference contribution

AN - SCOPUS:85097529531

SN - 9783030644512

T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)

SP - 271

EP - 286

BT - Digital Libraries at Times of Massive Societal Transition - 22nd International Conference on Asia-Pacific Digital Libraries, ICADL 2020, Proceedings

A2 - Ishita, Emi

A2 - Pang, Natalie Lee

A2 - Zhou, Lihong

PB - Springer

T2 - 22nd International Conference on Asia-Pacific Digital Libraries, ICADL 2020

Y2 - 30 November 2020 through 1 December 2020

ER -