How Did Rumors on Twitter Diffuse and Change in Expression? An Investigation of the Process of Spreading Rumors on Twitter during the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake

Morihiro Ogasahara,Hiroyuki Fujishiro,Hirotaka Kawashima

doi:10.1155/2019/5103840

Abstract

Twitter has been emerging as a major communication channels during disasters. The characteristics of Twitter—quickly and widely diffusing information and allowing every user to be an information transmitter—can be effective for problem solving in anxious and ambiguous situations such as disasters; however, false rumors on Twitter can be a serious problem. Rumor research has suggested that rumors are a kind of collective sense-making when mass media cannot provide people with enough information (e.g., during disasters). Furthermore, the expression of the rumor changes during the process of spreading. This study investigated the data of 187 thousand tweets related to the Cosmo Oil rumor during the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011 and analyzed the change in Twitter expressions and the collective sense-making process during this catastrophe. The results of this study suggest that collective sense-making is rare in diffused tweets, partly because of the gatekeeping role of hubs (i.e., users who have many followers on Twitter). Rumor discussion on Twitter during disasters might be suitable for broadcasting static information than for collective sense-making.

Highlights

Twitter is a microblogging service where users post messages up to 140 characters
This study investigates the pattern of expression changes over time and the collective sense-making process on Twitter using real tweet data about the Cosmo Oil rumor
We introduce the texts of tweets that featured communication about the Cosmo Oil rumor

Summary

Introduction

Twitter is a microblogging service where users post messages up to 140 characters. In 2018, it had 326 million monthly active users worldwide. President Trump of the United States had, as of 2018, over 55 million followers. Another feature of Twitter communication is the ease with which posts can be forwarded to other users (“retweets”). Twitter users can allow their followers to read other user's tweets using only two clicks on the “retweet” button for each tweet that they read. Because of these characteristics, specific tweets can spread to millions of people over a very short period on Twitter [1]

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