TY - JOUR
T1 - Misinformation Sharing on Twitter during Zika
T2 - An Investigation of the Effect of Threat and Distance
AU - Valecha, Rohit
AU - Volety, Tejaswi
AU - Rao, H. Raghav
AU - Kwon, K. Hazel
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the journal reviewers for their constructive feedback. This work was supported by the NSF under Grant 1651475. The usual disclaimer applies.
Publisher Copyright:
© 1997-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2021/1/1
Y1 - 2021/1/1
N2 - Recently, health-related misinformation has plagued social media. We investigate the behavior of misinformation sharing on Twitter. We argue that misinformation sharing is likely to be influenced by the distance to the health crisis as afforded by Twitter. This article investigates three types of distances, namely social (personal relations), spatial (geometric), and temporal (time gap). We address three research questions in the context of Zika virus: first, how does social, spatial, and temporal distances affect the threat appeal of a misinformation message? Second, how does social, spatial, and temporal distances influence misinformation sharing? Third, how does the effect of social, spatial, and temporal distances on misinformation sharing varies based on the influence afforded by Twitter? The results indicate the negative effect of social and temporal distances on threat appeal, and the negative effect of spatial distance on misinformation sharing. The results also indicate the negative effect of temporal distance on misinformation sharing for more influential Tweeters and the negative effect of social and spatial distance on misinformation sharing for less influential Tweeters.
AB - Recently, health-related misinformation has plagued social media. We investigate the behavior of misinformation sharing on Twitter. We argue that misinformation sharing is likely to be influenced by the distance to the health crisis as afforded by Twitter. This article investigates three types of distances, namely social (personal relations), spatial (geometric), and temporal (time gap). We address three research questions in the context of Zika virus: first, how does social, spatial, and temporal distances affect the threat appeal of a misinformation message? Second, how does social, spatial, and temporal distances influence misinformation sharing? Third, how does the effect of social, spatial, and temporal distances on misinformation sharing varies based on the influence afforded by Twitter? The results indicate the negative effect of social and temporal distances on threat appeal, and the negative effect of spatial distance on misinformation sharing. The results also indicate the negative effect of temporal distance on misinformation sharing for more influential Tweeters and the negative effect of social and spatial distance on misinformation sharing for less influential Tweeters.
KW - Misinformation Sharing
KW - Social Distance
KW - Spatial Distance
KW - Temporal Distance
KW - Threat
KW - Twitter
KW - Zika
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85098752513&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85098752513&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/MIC.2020.3044543
DO - 10.1109/MIC.2020.3044543
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85098752513
SN - 1089-7801
VL - 25
SP - 31
EP - 39
JO - IEEE Internet Computing
JF - IEEE Internet Computing
IS - 1
M1 - 9296952
ER -