Information Cascade and Rumor Diffusion
This article examines how emotions influence the spread of Rumor online via social media using the concept of information cascade. The research specifically focuses on Twitter and analyzes a representative sample of Twitter rumors with their corresponding cascades. The paper hypothesized that “emotions embedded in online rumors are associated with the size, lifetime, and structural virality of the cascade.”
By cascade size, the researchers mean the amount of reshares that a cascade regenerates. Cascade lifetime refers to the lifespan when a cascade is active. Structural virality offers a metric combining and depth and breadth of a cascade. The higher the structural virality, the deeper and wide the cascade is, and therefore the more reshares a rumor generates on Twitter. By carrying out a regression analysis using the three indicators, the research found out that negative emotions are usually associated with rumor diffusion. “Aggressiveness” is ranked at the top of all negative emotions examined, generating 19.18% more reshares, being active for 8.33% longer, and spreading 1.69% more virally.
This research is interesting in terms of how it uses an economic model to predict emotions associated with rumors. The paper provides a 3-dimensional way to look at information cascades and how the model could be applied to real-world practices, which expands on the simple logic and statistical computation of information cascades introduced in class. The research makes sense with the three indicators, cascade size, cascade lifetime, and structural virality to disclose the most dominant driver of rumor diffusion on social media. Together with how people make decisions dependently on others’ choices explained by information cascades, the paper provides a more specific indicator, emotions, in the context of online rumor diffusion.