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http://dx.doi.org/10.1633/JISTaP.2020.8.3.6

Social Media Rumors in Bangladesh  

Al-Zaman, Md. Sayeed (Department of Journalism and Media Studies, Jahangirnagar University)
Sife, Sifat Al (Department of Journalism and Media Studies, Jahangirnagar University)
Sultana, Musfika (Department of Journalism and Media Studies, Jahangirnagar University)
Akbar, Mahbuba (Department of Journalism and Media Studies, Jahangirnagar University)
Ahona, Kazi Taznahel Sultana (Department of Journalism and Media Studies, Jahangirnagar University)
Sarkar, Nandita (Department of Journalism and Media Studies, Jahangirnagar University)
Publication Information
Journal of Information Science Theory and Practice / v.8, no.3, 2020 , pp. 77-90 More about this Journal
Abstract
This study analyzes N=181 social media rumors from Bangladesh to find out the most popular themes, sources, and aims. The result shows that social media rumors have seven popular themes: political, health & education, crime & human rights, religious, religiopolitical, entertainment, and other. Also, online media and mainstream media are the two main sources of social media rumors, along with three tentative aims: positive, negative, and unknown. A few major findings of this research are: Political rumors dominate social media, but its percentage is decreasing, while religion-related rumors are increasing; most of the social media rumors are negative and emerge from online media, and social media itself is the dominant online source of social media rumors; and, most of the health-related rumors are negative and surge during a crisis period, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper identifies some of its limitations with the data collection period, data source, and data analysis. Providing a few research directions, this study also elucidates the contributions of its results in academia and policymaking.
Keywords
social media; rumors; misinformation; disinformation; fake news; Bangladesh;
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