Political rumoring on Twitter during the 2012 US presidential election: Rumor diffusion and correction. (August 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Shin, Jieun; Jian, Lian; Driscoll, Kevin; Bar, François
• Is Part Of: New media & society. Volume 19:Number 8(2017)
• Page Start: 1214
• Page End: 1235
• Publication Date: 2017-08
• Subjects: Elections -- political communication -- partisan homophily -- rumor -- satire -- social media; Mass media -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Mass media and culture -- Periodicals; Information technology -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Internet -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; 302.2305
• DOI: 10.1177/1461444816634054
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1461-4448

Abstract

Social media can be a double-edged sword for political misinformation, either a conduit propagating false rumors through a large population or an effective tool to challenge misinformation. To understand this phenomenon, we tracked a comprehensive collection of political rumors on Twitter during the 2012 US presidential election campaign, analyzing a large set of rumor tweets ( n = 330, 538). We found that Twitter helped rumor spreaders circulate false information within homophilous follower networks, but seldom functioned as a self-correcting marketplace of ideas. Rumor spreaders formed strong partisan structures in which core groups of users selectively transmitted negative rumors about opposing candidates. Yet, rumor rejecters neither formed a sizable community nor exhibited a partisan structure. While in general rumors resisted debunking by professional fact-checking sites (e.g. Snopes), this was less true of rumors originating with satirical sources.