Keeping Up with the Tweet-dashians: The Impact of 'Official' Accounts on Online Rumoring

This paper examines how 'official' accounts participate in the propagation and correction of online rumors in the context of crisis events. Using an emerging method for interpretive analysis of 'big' social data, we investigate the spread of online rumors through digital traces-in this case, tweets. Our study suggests that official accounts can help to slow the spread of a rumor by posting a denial, and-supported by reflections from an organization that recently dealt with a rumor-crisis-offers best practices for organizations around social media strategies and protocols. Based on tweet data and connections to existing literature, we also demonstrate and discuss how mainstream media participate in rumoring, and note the role of a new breed of online media, 'breaking news' accounts. This analysis offers a complementary perspective to existing studies that use surveys and interviews to characterize the role official accounts play in online rumoring.

[1]  Leo Postman,et al.  AN ANALYSIS OF RUMOR , 1946 .

[2]  Lucinda L. Austin,et al.  How Audiences Seek Out Crisis Information: Exploring the Social-Mediated Crisis Communication Model , 2012 .

[3]  Edward A. Fox,et al.  Social media use by government: from the routine to the critical , 2011, dg.o '11.

[4]  Eva-Karin Olsson,et al.  Crisis Communication in Public Organisations: Dimensions of Crisis Communication Revisited , 2014 .

[5]  Karen Freberg,et al.  Intention to comply with crisis messages communicated via social media , 2012 .

[6]  Irina Shklovski,et al.  Finding community through information and communication technology in disaster response , 2008, CSCW.

[7]  Kyounghee Hazel Kwon,et al.  An Exploration of Social Media in Extreme Events: Rumor Theory and Twitter during the Haiti Earthquake 2010 , 2010, ICIS.

[8]  Kenneth M. Anderson,et al.  Design Challenges/Solutions for Environments Supporting the Analysis of Social Media Data in Crisis Informatics Research , 2015, 2015 48th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[9]  Brian G. Smith.  Socially distributing public relations: Twitter, Haiti, and interactivity in social media , 2010 .

[10]  Yan Jin,et al.  Keeping up with the digital age: How the American Red Cross uses social media to build relationships , 2011 .

[11]  Eugenia C. Kiesling.  Fog on War without the Fog , 2001 .

[12]  James Jay Carafano,et al.  Rumors of War , 2003 .

[13]  Mike Schmierbach,et al.  A Little Bird Told Me, So I Didn't Believe It: Twitter, Credibility, and Issue Perceptions , 2012 .

[14]  Ralph L. Rosnow,et al.  Psychology of rumor reconsidered. , 1980 .

[15]  Deanne Bird,et al.  Flooding Facebook - the use of social media during the Queensland and Victorian floods , 2012 .

[16]  S. Kiesler,et al.  Technology Adoption and Use in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans , 2010 .

[17]  Brooke Fisher Liu,et al.  How Disaster Information Form, Source, Type, and Prior Disaster Exposure Affect Public Outcomes: Jumping on the Social Media Bandwagon? , 2015 .

[18]  Brooke Fisher Liu,et al.  Social media use during disasters: a review of the knowledge base and gaps. , 2012 .

[19]  Beverley Raphael,et al.  The role of social media as psychological first aid as a support to community resilience building. , 2012 .

[20]  González-Herrero Alfonso,et al.  Crisis Communications Management on the Web: How Internet-Based Technologies are Changing the Way Public Relations Professionals Handle Business Crises , 2008 .

[21]  Shari R. Veil,et al.  A Work-in-Process Literature Review: Incorporating Social Media in Risk and Crisis Communication , 2011 .

[22]  Yan Jin,et al.  Examining the Role of Social Media in Effective Crisis Management , 2014, Commun. Res..

[23]  H. Raghav Rao,et al.  Community Intelligence and Social Media Services: A Rumor Theoretic Analysis of Tweets During Social Crises , 2013, MIS Q..

[24]  Robert M. Mason,et al.  Characterizing Online Rumoring Behavior Using Multi-Dimensional Signatures , 2015, CSCW.

[25]  Scott Counts,et al.  Tweeting is believing?: understanding microblog credibility perceptions , 2012, CSCW.

[26]  Kate Starbird,et al.  Connected Through Crisis: Emotional Proximity and the Spread of Misinformation Online , 2015, CSCW.

[27]  Connie White,et al.  A Holistic Approach to Evaluating Social Media's Successful Implementation into Emergency Management Operations: Applied Research in an Action Research Study , 2012, Int. J. Inf. Syst. Crisis Response Manag..

[28]  William L. Benoit.  Image repair discourse and crisis communication , 1997 .

[29]  Edward A. Fox,et al.  Social media use by government: From the routine to the critical , 2012, Gov. Inf. Q..

[30]  J Brian Houston,et al.  Social media and disasters: a functional framework for social media use in disaster planning, response, and research. , 2015, Disasters.

[31]  Leysia Palen,et al.  The Evolving Role of the Public Information Officer: An Examination of Social Media in Emergency Management , 2012 .

[32]  Starr Roxanne Hiltz,et al.  Use of Social Media by U.S. Public Sector Emergency Managers: Barriers and Wish Lists , 2014, ISCRAM.

[33]  Axel Bruns,et al.  Tools and methods for capturing Twitter data during natural disasters , 2012, First Monday.

[34]  A. Shapiro,et al.  National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism , 2010 .

[35]  K. Menninger.  On war. , 1973, Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic.

[36]  C. Wendling,et al.  The Use of Social Media in Risk and Crisis Communication , 2013 .

[37]  Adam Crowe,et al.  The social media manifesto: a comprehensive review of the impact of social media on emergency management. , 2011, Journal of business continuity & emergency planning.

[38]  P. Bordia,et al.  Rumor Psychology: Social and Organizational Approaches , 2006 .

[39]  Kim Witte,et al.  Generating Effective Risk Messages: How Scary Should Your Risk Communication Be? , 1995 .

[40]  David E. Alexander,et al.  Social Media in Disaster Risk Reduction and Crisis Management , 2013, Science and Engineering Ethics.

[41]  T. Shibutani.  Improvised News: A Sociological Study of Rumor , 1966 .