Utilizing eye-tracking to explain variation in response to inconsistent message onbelief change in false rumor

Exposure to Inconsistent message has been demonstrated as auseful method to alleviate belief in false rumor. However, thedata from previous research included unexplained variation inresponse to inconsistent message. Existing research alsoincluded the possibility that participants skipped out onreading and therefore they were not exposed to a message.We used an eye tracker to eliminate the possibility. Eyetracking data revealed that participants not only did not skipbut they paid more visual attention to inconsistent messagescomparing with consistent messages. Despite the overalleffectiveness of inconsistent message, some responsesshowed continued belief in rumors even after the exposure.Eye-tracking analyses demonstrated that when participantshad positive pre-belief for a rumor, more visual attention toinconsistent message predicted strengthened the belief. Wediscuss when exposure to inconsistent message does not workwell as a way for harnessing belief in false rumor

Investigation of Health Misinformation During the Covid-19 Pandemic

This study examines how misinformation related to Covid-19 on social media exacerbates individuals’ perceptions of health threats. Informed by the Health Belief Model, we analyze over 5K fact-checked articles to identify different categories or topics of misinformation. We also analyze the veracity of the misinformation topics. Overall, thirteen topics emerged from our analysis, with most of the misinformation questioning the benefits of preventive actions and undermining the severity of the pandemic. We also found significant misinformation related to official sources such as health agencies and research institutes communicating about the pandemic. The findings have implications for social media and health research. Public health experts and policymakers might find insights helpful in designing better communication and intervention strategies to counter the false narrative about the pandemic. The study lays the ground to examine further individuals’ health attitudes and behavior upon exposure to misinformation

Why I Retweet? Exploring User’s Perspective on Decision-Making of Information Spreading during Disasters

The extensive use of social media during disasters raises an important issue concerning use of social media to spread information, including misinformation. This study explores the underlying behavioral context of disaster information sharing by Twitter users. We conducted a web survey with 999 respondents in Japan to determine what makes people retweet disaster information in disaster situations. As a result of factor analysis, four factors were identified from 36 questions, namely: 1) Willingness to provide relevant and updated information because the information is believable, 2) Want people to know the information they perceive as important, 3) Retweeter subjective feelings and interests, and 4) Want to get feedback and alert other people. The results suggest that two of the factors influenced different groups of people in the community differently; however, everybody can play their role to reduce the negative impact of social media used for future disaster. Based on the findings, we discuss practical and design implications of social media use during disasters

Consumer anxieties about food grain safety in China

China has a long history of eating staple plant foods which are mainly derived from food grains, especially rice and wheat. Food grain safety has been a worrying challenge on health and nutrition grounds in China, although evidence clearly suggests that expanding agricultural production is linked to reducing undernourishment. The focus of this study is to investigate consumers’ anxieties about food grain safety in China. The nature and extent of consumer anxieties about grain safety, the cause of these anxieties, and possible ways to relieve anxiety are empirically analyzed. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with 142 grain consumers in 29 provinces of China, in both rural and urban areas, during 2016. The results show that consumers are worried about the production and processing safety of food grains and genetically modified cereals and that the causes of anxiety are varied. Anxiety is amplified by social media reports of food scandals, polluted ecological environments, the high incidence of food-related chronic diseases and cancer, concerns about food system governance and lack of knowledge and ability to identify grain quality. Consumers seek to relieve their anxiety by identifying grain quality themselves, choosing foreign grains and paying close attention to reports about unsafe food. These findings have important implications for future programs aimed at improving consumer confidence about grain safety

Same-Sex Marriage Referendum: What Factors Cause People to Stop the Circulation of Negative Messages on Smartphones?

In 2018, Taiwan held a referendum on same-sex marriage issues. Since it was the first time the public had an opportunity to make a decision on such issues, it became a battleground for conflicting ideologies, in which false messages were employed to influence voters. The current study focuses on the factors that might help people to stop the circulation of false messages. Social capital, political efficacy, and the theory of planned behavior have been integrated to develop a theoretical framework. The current study employs a 2x2 experimental design with partial least squares structural modelling to examine the hypotheses. The results demonstrated that people rarely follow rational routes to make voting decision on such issues. Voters are not concerned with the truthfulness of the messages but their stance. However, people might conceal their stance when facing weak ties of their social relations

What Makes Rumor Rebuttals Viral on Social Media?

This paper investigates the relationship between the characteristics of online rumor rebuttals and their virality on social media. Virality was conceptualized in terms of the volume of Likes (affective evaluation), Comments (message deliberation), and Shares (viral reach) attracted by rumor rebuttals on Facebook. The dataset included 479 online rumor rebuttal posts. Qualitative content analysis was employed to identify characteristics of the rebuttals while quantitative methods were used to examine how these characteristics predicted their virality. Rebuttal virality was found to be positively predicted by message posters’ credibility (#Likes, #Comments, and #Shares), justification of the rebuttal (#Likes and #Comments), call to action (#Comments and #Shares), and the presence of images (#Comments). In contrast, rebuttal virality was negatively predicted by the presence of debunking statements (#Comments) and URLs (#Likes, #Comments)

Impacto de la interactividad y el aprendizaje colaborativo activo en el pensamiento crítico de los estudiantes de educación superior

En la academia, el pensamiento crítico implica obtener información confiable y tomar acciones razonadas para resolver problemas. Para explorar las habilidades de pensamiento crítico entre los estudiantes de ingeniería, realizamos un estudio empírico de datos recopilados de estudiantes de pregrado de Arquitectura e Ingeniería Civil que asisten a una universidad privada en México. El instrumento de recolección de datos fue un cuestionario Google Forms aplicado en línea a través de la plataforma Canvas, mediante muestreo por conveniencia. Se recibieron 273 respuestas utilizables de 281 totales§. Se aplicó una técnica de regresión jerárquica para explorar la correlación de (1) la interactividad y (2) el aprendizaje colaborativo activo con el pensamiento crítico de los estudiantes de ingeniería. Encontramos que las becas y el estado de inscripción de los estudiantes influyen significativamente en el pensamiento crítico. Nuestros resultados analizados también sugieren que la interactividad y el aprendizaje colaborativo activo influyen positivamente en el pensamiento crítico. Este estudio también confirma que un entorno de aprendizaje basado en las redes sociales es esencial para mejorar las habilidades blandas de los estudiantes

SUCCESSFUL PRACTICES FOR USING SOCIAL MEDIA BY POLICE DEPARTMENTS: A CASE STUDY OF THE MUNICH POLICE

Social media has become a key component of police efforts to achieve public safety goals. To be effective, police must establish guidance on the best way to employ this tool in differing circumstances. Social media crisis communication guidelines for police departments have received little attention to date. Social media can support police in the successful dissemination of time-critical information and hinder the spread of rumors while aiming to remain as responsive as possible. Police departments, as the main formal authorities for establishing safety and security, take on enormous responsibility in management of crises such as terrorist attacks or shooting rampages. This paper conducts a multi-method case study of a 2016 shooting rampage event in Munich that resulted in the Munich police department receiving high praise. We answer three research questions about how social media, and particularly Twitter, played a crucial role in the crisis’ mitigation. In addition, we show the aftereffects of the crisis on social media use by the police department and depict how public reaction to shared content increased and changed during, and then after, the shooting rampage. We conclude the paper by documenting the implicit social media successful practices deployed by the Munich police during this emergency

Case Study on Veracity in Twitter Data Using Oil Company Related Tweets

Twitter is a powerful real-time micro-blogging service and it is a platform where users provide and obtain information, called tweets, at a rapid pace. Because of the volume, velocity, and unstructured nature of tweets, Twitter data can be viewed as big data. In this thesis we study the veracity of tweets using oil industry related tweets. Previous research has shown that most of the tweets posted on twitter are truthful. But the same platform (Twitter) is also used often to spread misinformation intentionally or unintentionally. There is no definitive measures to determine the veracity of tweets based on the tweets themselves. So there is a need for better mechanisms to measure levels of accuracy from tweets.In this thesis, we propose three measures to estimate the veracity/accuracy of topics based on analysis of tweets. They are topic diffusion, geographic dispersion, and spam rate. We collect tweets associated to topics. Using the tweets we compute the measures and estimate the veracity of topics. Reliable geographic dispersion data was not available in our data set and hence it is not used in validation process. To validate measures, we verity the tweeted information using official data. For this study we streamed oil industry data. Several topics were identified for our analysis. In the case of each topic, tweets unrelated to the topic are considered noise. After noise elimination, tweets are classified according to company names, then the proposed measures are computed. The results are compared against the verification results. In majority of cases, the estimates of veracity of topics by the proposed measures are confirmed by the verification results.Computer Scienc