Chua, Alton Y.K. and Banerjee, Snehasish orcid.org/0000-0001-6355-0470 (2017) To share or not to share:The role of epistemic belief in online health rumors. International journal of medical informatics. pp. 36-41. ISSN 1872-8243
Abstract
Objectives This paper investigates the role of epistemic belief in affecting Internet users’ decision to share online health rumors. To delve deeper, it examines how the characteristics of rumors—true or false, textual or pictorial, dread or wish—shape the decision-making among epistemologically naïve and robust users separately. Methods An experiment was conducted. Responses were obtained from 110 participants, who were exposed to eight rumors. This yielded 880 cases (110 participants × 8 rumors) for statistical analyses. Results Epistemologically naive participants were more likely to share online health rumors than epistemologically robust individuals. Epistemologically robust participants were more likely to share textual rumors than pictorial ones. However, there were no differences between true and false rumors or between dread and wish rumors for either epistemologically naive or robust participants. Conclusions This paper contributes to the understanding of users’ health information sharing behavior. It encourages users to cultivate robust epistemic belief in order to improve their online health information processing skills.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Epistemic belief,Health care,Information science,Online healthcare community,Rumor diffusion,Social media |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Social Sciences (York) > The York Management School |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 08 Dec 2017 12:20 |
Last Modified: | 16 Oct 2024 14:15 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2017.08.010 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2017.08.010 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:125052 |