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Research on influencing factors and governance of disinformation dissemination on science and technology topics: an empirical study on the topic of “metaverse”

Xu Wang (School of Economics and Management, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China) (Information Center for Military and Civilian Collaboration of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China)
Xin Feng (School of Economics and Management, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China) (Information Center for Military and Civilian Collaboration of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China)
Jingyi Zhao (School of Economics and Management, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China)

Internet Research

ISSN: 1066-2243

Article publication date: 25 July 2023

Issue publication date: 20 November 2023

631

Abstract

Purpose

The online Question and Answer community is full of a large number of science and technology topics, the discussion and dissemination of which play an important role in promoting the popularization of new technologies and cultivating public enthusiasm for science. However, the spread of false information and rumors weakens the community's positive effect, making the community more difficult for people to obtain useful information on such topics. Research on the influencing factors and governance of the spread of false information on science and technology topics has become the key to the spread of popular science.

Design/methodology/approach

Therefore, this paper uses the Elaboration Likelihood Model as the theoretical framework to examine the role of the factors influencing the spread of false information on science and technology topics in Zhihu community on the information persuasion and the impact on public behavior attitude from the core path and the edge path. This paper compiles a crawler program to capture 12,893 response information under the “Metaverse” topic in Zhihu community as an empirical sample and uses text mining and conducts visual correlation analysis to explore the key factors affecting the persuasive transmission path of information on science and technology topics.

Findings

The research finds that the content specialization, content consistency and content coherence of science and technology topics affect personal judgment from the aspect of information content through the core path and have a positive correlation with information persuasion; the number of comments, the length of the text and the publishing authors' influence from the edge image characteristics through the edge path are positively correlated with the information persuasion. Then, from the perspective of topic platform, government and topic participants, this paper puts forward a general plan to improve the information persuasion of science and technology topics so as to deal with false information.

Originality/value

Compared with the small data set of the traditional questionnaire survey, the research based on community empirical big data is more reliable. The model takes into account the attitude and behavior of users and is more suitable for the research on the transmission path of scientific and technological information in the internet era. This research provides a direction for analyzing the text characteristics and development trends of information in the field of science and technology and is conducive to promoting the optimization of the network information environment and building a good ecology, with the spread of rumors about science and technology topics curbed and the governance of false information strengthened.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the funding from the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province (No: G2021203011), Humanities and Social Science Research Project of Hebei Education Department (No: JCZX2023015), the National Social Science Found Major Project of China (No: 21&ZD336) and Humanities and Social Science Research Project of Hebei Education Department (No: JCZX2023005).

Citation

Wang, X., Feng, X. and Zhao, J. (2023), "Research on influencing factors and governance of disinformation dissemination on science and technology topics: an empirical study on the topic of “metaverse”", Internet Research, Vol. 33 No. 5, pp. 1802-1827. https://doi.org/10.1108/INTR-06-2022-0477

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited

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