Rumors and Urban Legends

Abstract

Historically, rumors have been the subject of moral blame. Only since the middle of the twentieth century have they been a field of scientific studies. Rumors may be defined as unverified or false brief reports (rumors, strictly speaking) or short stories (urban legends) with surprising content. They are passed on among a social milieu as true and current, and expressing something of that group's fears and hopes. According to Rouquette, rumors present four typical features: instability of the message (leveling, sharpening, and assimilation processes, revealed by Allport and Postman); involvement of the rumor transmitters, who feel that the information concerns them; negativity of the content, for most rumors report news of aggression, accident, failure, scarcity, scandal, etc.; attribution of the rumor to a trustworthy source. The hermeneutics of rumors reveal the hidden message, the implied moral that they carry. Rumors express social (or symbolic) thought. They are deep-rooted in the collective imagination, exploiting and modernizing cultural motifs, sometimes of very old standing, that have strong symbolic content. The recent interest in narrative rumors, or urban legends, has made it possible for sociologists and folklorists to collaborate profitably.