Online Public Rumor Engagement Model and Intervention Strategy in Major Public Health Emergencies

From the Perspective of Social Psychological Stress

Bibliographic Data

ID15470648
AuthorsJiaqi Liu (0000-0003-3335-7164, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Jiayin Qi (0000-0001-7162-4898, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume19
Issue4
Pages1988-1988
Publication date2022-02-10
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1661-7827 • E-ISSN: 1660-4601
PublisherMultidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (PUBLISHER • CH)
DOI10.3390/ijerph19041988
PMID35206175
OpenAlexW4211062140
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited33

During major public health emergencies, a series of coupling problems of rumors getting out of control and public psychological imbalance always emerge in social media, which bring great interference for crisis disposal. From the perspective of social psychological stress, it is important to depict the interactive infection law among distinct types of rumor engagers (i.e., advocates, supporters, and amplifiers) under different social psychological stress states, and explore the effectiveness of rumor intervention strategies (i.e., hindering and persuasion) from multiple dimensions, to scientifically predict the situation of public opinion field and guide the public to restore psychological stability. Therefore, this paper constructs an interactive infection model of multiple rumor engagers under different intervention situations based on a unique user-aggregated dataset collected from a Chinese leading online microblogging platform ("Sina Weibo") during the COVID-19 in 2020. The simulation result shows that (1) in the period of social psychological alarm reaction, the strong level of hindering intervention on the rumor engagers leads to more serious negative consequences; (2) in the period of social psychological resistance, the persuasion and hindering strategies can both produce good outcomes, which can effectively reduce the overall scale of rumor supporters and amplifiers and shorten their survival time in social media; (3) in the period of social psychological exhaustion, rumor intervention strategies are not able to have a significant impact; (4) the greater the intensity of intervention, the more obvious the outcome. Experimental findings provide a solid research basis for enhancing social psychological stress outcomes and offer decision-making references to formulate the rumor combating scheme

Intervention (counseling · Perspective (graphical · Political science · Psychiatry · Public engagement · Public health · Public relations · Rumor · Social media · Applied Psychology · Computer Science · Media Influence and Health · Medicine · Mental Health via Writing · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Nursing · Psychology · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access