Rumor - Rumor As Social Cognition (2004)

Rumor As Social Cognition (2004)

In 2004, Prashant Bordia and Nicholas DiFonzo published their Problem Solving in Social Interactions on the Internet: Rumor As Social Cognition and found that rumor transmission is probably reflective of a "collective explanation process." (35). This conclusion was based on an analysis of archived message board discussions in which the statements were coded and analyzed. It was found that 29.4% (the majority) of statements within these discussions could be coded as “sensemaking” statements, which involved, “attempts at solving a problem.” (42)

It was noted that the rest of the discussion was constructed around these statements, further reinforcing the idea of collective problem solving. The researchers also found that each rumor went through a four-stage pattern of development in which a rumor was introduced for discussion, information was volunteered and discussed, and finally a resolution was drawn or interest was lost (48).

For the study, archived discussions concerning rumors on the internet and other computer networks such as BITnet were retrieved. As a rule, each discussion had a minimum of five statements posted over a period of at least two days. The statements were then coded as being one of the following: prudent, apprehensive, authenticating, interrogatory, providing information, belief, disbelief, sensemaking, digressive, or uncodable. Each rumor discussion was then analyzed based on this coding system. A similar coding system based on statistical analysis was applied to each discussion as a whole, and the aforementioned four-stage pattern of rumor discussion emerged.