Exploring the Dynamics of Justification in the Wake of a Rumor Outbreak on Social Media

TY - JOUR

T1 - Exploring the Dynamics of Justification in the Wake of a Rumor Outbreak on Social Media

AU - Pal, Anjan

AU - Chua, Alton Y.K.

AU - Banerjee, Snehasish

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PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - This paper explores the dynamics of justification in the wake of a rumor outbreak on social media. Specifically, it examines the extent to which the five types of justification—descriptive argumentation, presumptive argumentation, evidentialism, truth skepticism, and epistemological skepticism—manifested in different voices including pro-rumor, anti-rumor and doubts before and after fact-checking. Content analysis was employed on 1,911 tweets related to a rumor outbreak. Non-parametric cross-tabulation was used to uncover nuances in information sharing before and after fact-checking. Augmenting the literature which suggests the online community’s susceptibility to hoaxes, the paper offers a silver lining: Users are responsible enough to correct rumors during the later phase of a rumor lifecycle. This sense of public-spiritedness can be harnessed by knowledge management practitioners and public relations professionals for crowdsourced rumor refutation.

AB - This paper explores the dynamics of justification in the wake of a rumor outbreak on social media. Specifically, it examines the extent to which the five types of justification—descriptive argumentation, presumptive argumentation, evidentialism, truth skepticism, and epistemological skepticism—manifested in different voices including pro-rumor, anti-rumor and doubts before and after fact-checking. Content analysis was employed on 1,911 tweets related to a rumor outbreak. Non-parametric cross-tabulation was used to uncover nuances in information sharing before and after fact-checking. Augmenting the literature which suggests the online community’s susceptibility to hoaxes, the paper offers a silver lining: Users are responsible enough to correct rumors during the later phase of a rumor lifecycle. This sense of public-spiritedness can be harnessed by knowledge management practitioners and public relations professionals for crowdsourced rumor refutation.

KW - Crowdsourced Rumor Refutation

KW - Fact-checking

KW - JUSTIFICATION

KW - KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

KW - online rumor

KW - social media

KW - Social Constructivism

UR - https://www.igi-global.com/article/exploring-the-dynamics-of-justification-in-the-wake-of-a-rumor-outbreak-on-social-media/291100

U2 - 10.4018/IJKM.291100

DO - 10.4018/IJKM.291100

M3 - Article

SN - 1548-0666

VL - 18

JO - International Journal of Knowledge Management

JF - International Journal of Knowledge Management

IS - 1

ER -