社交媒体信任对重大突发公共卫生事件中公众网络谣言自治行为的影响

The Impacts of Social Media Trust on Public’s Behavior of Online Rumor Self-Governance during Major Public Emergencies

从社会心理学视角、以社交媒体信任为切入点,基于新冠肺炎疫情,考察公众在重大突发公共卫生事件中网络谣言自治行为的心理机制。采用问卷方法对963名成年居民进行调查。结果表明:(1)公众对官方社交媒体的信任既能直接促进公众的辟谣行为,也能通过增强公众对战胜疫情的信心产生间接影响;(2)公众对官方社交媒体的信任影响公众对自媒体的信任,但自媒体信任不能独立于官媒信任影响辟谣行为。因此,我国社交媒体存在着两个舆论场且官方舆论占主导地位,及时、有效的官方报道不仅能提高公众对战胜疫情的信心,也能促进公众网络谣言自治,进而实现网络谣言治理主体的多元化。

The frequent outbreaks of major public emergencies have become one of the major risks around the world.The COVID-19 epidemic which broke out at the beginning of 2020,not only has brought great harm to people’s health,but also has provided ground for starting various rumors.The social media further speeds up the spread of rumors,which may induce serious secondary disasters.Thus the effective dealing with major public emergencies involves not only the medical treatment and remedy in the physical field,but also governance of online rumor and public opinion guidance in the psychological field which may facilitate the progress of epidemic prevention and contribute to social stability and economic development.The traditional mode of rumor governance focuses on the monitoring from governments and enterprises,which have many inner shortcomings such as addressing the symptoms rather than the cause and rebounding of public opinions.More and more researchers call for paying attention to the participation of multiple parties in the society,especially the public’s self-governance for rumors.However,prior research has rarely addressed public’s autonomous behavior of refuting rumor,not to mention the underlying psychological paths.The present study aims to examine the effects of institutional and private sources credibility perceived during major public emergencies on public’s rumor-refuting behavior on social media platforms,from the perspective of social psychology.We employed 963 people inhabiting in a cosmopolis as participants and used the online questionnaire survey method to collect data.The findings showed that:(1)The level of institutional source credibility is higher than that of private source credibility on social media platforms during the COVID-19 epidemic period and that the impact of institutional source credibility on public’s behavior of refuting online rumor is stronger than that of private source credibility;(2)Public’s institutional source credibility in social media can impact public’s behavior of refuting online rumor not only directly,but also through the indirect effect of public’s confidence for the winning the battle against COVID-19 epidemic;(3)Public’s private source credibility can be affected by institutional source credibility in social media,and public’s private source credibility can’t affect public’s behavior of refuting online rumor independent of institutional source credibility.These findings imply that there are two kinds of opinion fields in Chinese social media,which are institutional and folk opinion fields,and that institutional opinion still plays the dominate role in the social media world,just as in the real world.The present research can not only enhance our understanding of the roles of different sources credibility in the social media era,but also have practical implications for facilitating public’s rumor self-governance by reinforcing the“timely,accurate,open and transparent”of institutional media report.