Here is an excerpt from a Joongang Daily Article about rurmors.
"Why do we accept rumors? In his book “On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done,” Harvard Professor Cass Sunstein described one of the reasons as the “social waterfall effect.” When we make a judgment, we have a tendency to depend on the thoughts and actions of others. That’s why when the majority of the people you know believe in a rumor, you also start to believe it.
The second reason is “group polarization.” When people with the same thought get together to talk, they end up with a far more extreme version of that thought than before. And yet, they still believe themselves to be reasonable.
Consider the propagation of rumors that grow bigger as they are reproduced through blogs and message-board comments.
For example, former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook was recently acquitted of bribery in a trial. However, there is no way to undo the “unverified information” that was already leaked during the investigation.
There has been all sorts of speculation surrounding the sinking of the Korean naval corvette Cheonan. The most radical of these rumors started from the opposition floor leader commenting that the media conference of the survivors sounded “somewhat contrived"."
No comments:
Post a Comment