Pal, Anjan orcid.org/0000-0001-7203-7126, Banerjee, Snehasish orcid.org/0000-0001-6355-0470 and Kaur, Avneet (2023) What Makes Rumor Rebuttals Viral on Social Media? In: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Ubiquitous Information Management and Communication (IMCOM 2023). The 17th International Conference on Ubiquitous Information Management and Communication, 03-05 Jan 2023 IEEE
Abstract
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).
Metadata
Item Type: | Proceedings Paper |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Keywords: | Facebook,fake news,misinformation,online rumor,post popularity,rumor rebuttal,social media,virality |
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: | 25 Oct 2022 10:30 |
Last Modified: | 27 Dec 2024 00:29 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | IEEE |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:192555 |