“ICT Mediated Rumor Spread and Resulting Community Behaviors during a Social Crisis”
Dr.
H Raghav Rao, Distinguished Professor of Information Systems, State
University of New York, USA is here at MYRA School of Business, Mysore
to teach an elective course to the Business Management students. A
US-based scholar of Information Systems Management, his research
interests are in decision support systems, e-business, cyber-security,
emergency response systems and information assurance. His recent
research has implications for political revolutions, anti-terrorism
initiatives, corporate-decision making and communications during natural
disasters
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has played a major role in the communication sector, it has encompassed
all sectors – education, medical, health, government, services and so
on. This is the bright side of ICT.
However, the dark side of ICT -was the focus of Dr. Rao’s talk. ICT-mediated Rumors – their spread and repercussions during a social crisis – an
investigative study was carried out by Prof. H Raghav Rao and his team.
Dr. Rao said that a rumor
is a story or statement that goes into circulation without confirmation
or certainty to facts; they can arise in the context of ambiguity when
the outcome of a situation is not apparent or when people feel insecure
in a social situation; they are highly powerful, pervasive and
persistent forces affecting a large group of people. Rumor dynamics is
closely related with group tension, public sentiment, and social trust
of a community.
ICT-mediated rumors–
diffusion of rumors through ICT -can spread more rapidly and widely;
hence such a study and how to control the spread through the use of ICT
is highly essential and significant in this ICT-Driven age, because the
social impact of rumors spread due to the technology can be devastating.
he said.
He spoke with specific reference to his study which was based on the Bangalore-based August 2012 ‘Hate Campaign’ triggered by internet and SMS against the North-East Indians. The
repercussion -we were witness to the biggest-ever exodus that ever
happened recently. With the growing popularity of online social networks
and their information propagation potentials, the significance of being
able to control the type of information that propagates in the network
has become ever more important and become increasingly challenging, said
Dr. Rao. He deliberated upon the importance of developing effective
social-technical systems for emergency response and an understanding of
the factors that affect the way people react to ICT mediated rumors.
He revealed that a survey
of the targeted citizens suggested that social ties and communication
media characteristics influenced rumor belief, which prompted responses –
both informational and behavioral (safety-seeking) actions. With
developed countries also not being immune to the adverse effects of such
social-media-driven misinformation campaigns; FEMA (The Federal
Emergency Management Agency) has already begun to operate rumor control
centers to refute false rumors that spread rapidly through networked
ICTs during emergencies. However, there is a total lack of research on
the dissemination of online rumors, he said.
The study carried out by
Dr. Rao and his team entailed data collection from the victims of the
August 12-mass-exodus incident to explore how the unsubstantiated hate
rumor was received; believed/disbelieved; and forwarded/refuted in and
through various types of media devices, platforms and social relations.
His study elucidated the way artifacts in the information domain
influenced actions in the behavioral domain; reviewed rumor theory as a
form of collective crisis communication; then outlined the research
method, introduced the relevant hate rumor case, described the data
collection procedures, analyzed the data, and discussed the results.
During his talk, he
recalled a few significant world-wide ICT-mediated rumors causing major
behavioral changes among the public across the world – the 2010 Haiti
earthquake and a disaster rumor in Ghana; the 2011 Tsunami in Japan and a
toxic rumor in Japan; the Sandy Hurricane in 2012 with rumors of the
trading floor in NYSE getting flooded under more than 3 feet of water –
the repercussion of this rumor was that the Stock Market crashed and
recovered later when the rumor was known to be false; the 2013 Boston
Marathon bombings,-which used a CCTV picture on Facebook to ‘Help Catch the Bomber’
– where it actually turned out that one of the suspects in the picture
Mr. Sunil Tripathi, a student at Brown University had actually drowned
in a river the previous day. However, as a result of the rumor, the
family of Sunil Tripathi became victims of ‘Hate Mail’.
Prof. Rao said that
optimal rumor-mongering conditions are wartime, natural calamities,
terrorist attacks, and such critical situations. The reasoning is that
unexpected crises produce uncertain information circling around the
unfamiliar situations which elevate the levels of anxiety.
He explained that rumor
theories argue that, in crisis situations, people tend to turn to their
social networks such as “kins, friends, co-workers, and neighbors” to
acquire situational information; many rumor studies have empirically
shown that rumors travel faster through strong social ties; people are
easily persuaded by messages received from ‘in-group’ members, the same messages are not so persuasive when received from ‘out-group’ members. His study also revealed that false rumors received through
email “are more likely to be believed and shared with others and that
the patterns of circulation and belief exhibit strong political bias”.
He concluded that since
we have entered an age where mobile technologies are ubiquitous, it can
pose opportunities as well as unexpected threats to our society
especially in terms of the rapid and wide spread of unverified
information through invisible personal networks, and reiterated the need
for further research to identify the antecedent conditions that promote
the dissemination of false rumors.
The talk was well
received by the Business Management students as was evident from the
intellectual interactions that followed the talk.