Browse > Article
http://dx.doi.org/10.17477/jcea.2022.21.2.001

Rumors that Move People to Action: A Case of the 2019 Hong Kong Protests  

Kwon, K. Hazel (Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication from Arizona State University)
Publication Information
Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia / v.21, no.2, 2022 , pp. 1-12 More about this Journal
Abstract
A good story persuades people to act. The mobilizing power of a story, however, does not necessarily rely on informational fidelity. During political unrests, word-of-mouth can intermix facts with unverified claims and emotional outrage, often transforming reality into convincing rumor stories. This rapid communication article discusses how rumor publics (dis)approve and participate in 2019 Hong Kong Protests. This survey study finds that police injustice and brutality were the predominant themes of the collected rumor stories, although some stories contained mixed views or anti-protest claims. Rumors of police injustice and brutality were associated with less negative attitudes toward the protests, especially when respondents believed the story. The relationship between rumor stories and protest participation was less obvious, except for rumors about an individual protester's whereabout. This study discusses the ways in which rumor is embedded in contentious political processes.
Keywords
Rumors; Hong Kong protests; Political unrests; Misinformation;
Citations & Related Records
연도 인용수 순위
  • Reference
1 Bordia, P., & Rosnow, R. L. (1998). Rumor rest stops on the information highway transmission patterns in a computer-mediated rumor chain. Human Communication Research, 25 (2), 163-179.   DOI
2 Bail, C. A. (2016). Combining natural language processing and network analysis to examine how advocacy organizations stimulate conversation on social media. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113, 11823-11828.   DOI
3 Chen, H. T., Guo, L., & Su, C. C. (2020). Network agenda setting, partisan selective exposure, and opinion repertoire: The effects of pro-and counter-attitudinal media in Hong Kong. Journal of Communication, 70 (1), 35-59.   DOI
4 Oh, O., Agrawal, M., Agrawal, M., & Rao, H. R. (2013). Community intelligence and social media services: A rumor theoretic analysis of Tweets during social crises. Management Information Systems Quarterly, 37 (2), 407-426.   DOI
5 Einwiller, S. A., & Kamins, M. A. (2008). Rumor has it: The moderating effect of identification on rumor impact and the effectiveness of rumor refutation 1. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38 (9), 2248-2272.   DOI
6 Kwon, K. H., Bang, C. C., Egnoto, M., & Raghav Rao, H. (2016). Social media rumors as improvised public opinion: semantic network analyses of twitter discourses during Korean saber rattling 2013. Asian Journal of Communication, 26 (3), 201-222.   DOI
7 Aguirre, B. E., Wenger, D., & Vigo, G. (1998). A test of the emergent norm theory of collective behavior. Sociological Forum, 13 (2), 301-320   DOI
8 Bernardi, D. L., Cheong, P. H., Lundry, C., & Ruston, S. W. (2012). Narrative landmines: Rumors, Islamist extremism, and the struggle for strategic influence. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
9 Fine, A. G. (2013). Rumor in collective behavior and social movements. In Snow, D.A., della Porta, D., Klandermans, B., & McAdam, D. (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell encyclopedia of social and political movements (pp. 1-3). Hoboken: Blackwell Publishing. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/9780470674871.wbespm485   DOI
10 Lee, F. L., & Chan, J. M. (2016). Digital media activities and mode of participation in a protest campaign: A study of the Umbrella Movement. Information, Communication & Society, 19 (1), 4-22.   DOI
11 Public Opinion Programme (2019). People's confidence in "One Country, Two Systems." Retrieved from https://www.hkupop.hku.hk/english/popexpress/trust/conocts/ index.html.
12 Sunstein, C. R. (2009). On rumors: How falsehoods spread, why we believe them, what can be done. New York: Penguin Press.
13 Shibutani, T. (1966). Improvised news: A sociological study of rumor. Indianapolis: The BobbsMerrill Company.
14 Kwon, K. H. & Rao, R. (2017). Cyber-rumor sharing under a homeland security threat in the context of government internet surveillance: The case of South-North Korea conflict. Government Information Quarterly, 34 (2), 307-316.   DOI
15 Liu, J. (2017). Rumors and Mobile Phones: Participation and Resistance in Contemporary China. Participations, 17, 59-90.   DOI
16 Peterson, W. A., & Gist, N. P. (1951). Rumor and public opinion. American Journal of Sociology, 57 (2), 159-167.   DOI
17 Pezzo, M. V., & Beckstead, J. W. (2006). A multilevel analysis of rumor transmission: Effects of anxiety and belief in two field experiments. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 28 (1), 91-100.   DOI
18 Ruths, D. (2019). The misinformation machine. Science, 363 (6425), 348
19 Turner, R. H., & Killian, L. M. (1987). Collective behavior (3rd ed.). Hoboken: Prentice-Hall.
20 Margolin, D. B., Hannak, A., & Weber, I. (2018). Political fact-checking on Twitter: When do corrections have an effect? Political Communication, 35 (2), 196-219.   DOI