Search results

While psychology, sociology and communications studies hypothesise a range of independent variables that might impact on individuals’ acceptance or rejection of rumours, almost all studies of the phenomenon have taken place in environments featuring notable, and sometimes very deep, partisan divisions, making it almost impossible to isolate the impact of partisan influences on views on different rumour subjects. This study aims to remove the possibility of partisan influences on readers of internet rumours by testing the impact of independent demographic variables in China, a one-party state with no overt partisan divisions. The study provides an opportunity to strip away the influence of ideology and see whether this factor may have coloured previous studies on susceptibility to believe rumours.

An empirical study was used to examine belief in false and true online rumours in a non-partisan environment. A large sample group was presented with rumours across four subject areas and respondents’ conclusions and demographic information was then subject to logistic regression analysis to identify relationships between factors and ability to identify the veracity of online rumours.

Unexpectedly, the regression analysis revealed no statistically significant nexus between many independent demographic variables and patterns of believing or disbelieving rumours. In other cases, a statistically significant relationship was revealed, but only to a limited degree. The results suggest that once the role of partisanship in explaining the proliferation of and belief in false rumours and the ability to identify true ones is removed from consideration, no other independent variables enjoy convincing links with rumour belief.

The study tests in China, a jurisdiction featuring a non-partisan environment, the impact of independent variables on media users’ belief in a wide range of rumours.

With the outset of automatic detection of information, misinformation, and disinformation, the purpose of this paper is to examine and discuss various conceptions of information, misinformation, and disinformation within philosophy of information.

The examinations are conducted within a Gricean framework in order to account for the communicative aspects of information, misinformation, and disinformation as well as the detection enterprise.

While there often is an exclusive focus on truth and falsity as that which distinguish information from misinformation and disinformation, this paper finds that the distinguishing features are actually intention/intentionality and non-misleadingness/misleadingness – with non-misleadingness/misleadingness as the primary feature. Further, the paper rehearses the argument in favor of a true variety of disinformation and extends this argument to include true misinformation.

The findings are novel and pose a challenge to the possibility of automatic detection of misinformation and disinformation. Especially the notions of true disinformation and true misinformation, as varieties of disinformation and misinformation, which force the true/false dichotomy for information vs mis-/disinformation to collapse.

This paper aims to present the case for critical realism (CR) as a framework in steering the anticipatory and participatory activities an appropriate analysis of complex problems, aiming toward a transformative change.

Through observation, interview and facilitation for Circular Design Lab and Thai Clean Air Network, this paper unpacks their foresight activities, their key findings and subsequently connects to the Morphogenesis analysis based on an alternative foresight epistemology of CR.

Foresight based on CR philosophy provides a deeper understanding of the complexity and invisibility of air pollution issues in Thailand. Acknowledging the transitive reality beyond this study’s perception, the activity design applies the iceberg models to investigate problem framing and illustrate the stratified reality in three domains: the empirical based on emission reports and legislative regulations; the actual based on patterns of farmers practice and industrial development, activated by causal mechanisms; the real based on structural and mental models, driven by cultural and belief systems in Thailand. At the bottom layer of the iceberg, the real lies the generative mechanisms of pre-existing structural and cultures that constrain Thai citizen from acting on social change.

CR’s emancipatory theory provides an immanent critique towards social improvement by illustrating comprehensive causal explanations of complex problems such as air pollution; while morphogenesis theory elaborates on the unconscious domination of the existing social structures, agencies, and cultures. Thus, the ethical inquiry of CR research is committed to the emancipation of false beliefs and creating conditions for “human prosperity”. However, this non-neutral value commitment is debated in the futures studies field.

The anticipatory activities on air pollution in Thailand bring to light the reality of power and oppression beyond human perception and illustrate the connection to the belief systems and its consequential action or lack thereof in dealing with the issues. The insight to power relationship provides an unconventional way to empower citizens in creating transformative change.

Modern foresight practice has developed under western cultures and societies. Recent efforts are made to investigate the epistemology underlying this field, for the future issues are ever more complex and interrelated across multiple sectors. This requires this study’s consideration of the meaning of knowledge and knowing, influencing the research paradigm. This paper proposes CR as a suitable foresight approach to emancipate this study from the widely accepted epistemologies and examine this study’s presupposition about social reality by a philosophical explanation based on the elements of ontology, causation, structure and persons.

An artificial chemistry approach is adopted to explore new ways of investigating a global dynamic of a collective belief. Five derivatives of belief are considered– knowledge, misbelief, delusion, ignorance, and doubt – to be reactants of an abstract chemical solution. The reactants interact one with another by certain laws obtained though unconventional interpretation of a belief update. Several types of reaction systems are studied in computational experiments with the doxastic solutions. A global dynamic of doxastic chemical solutions is also interpreted from a common‐sense point of view.

Purpose: The main purpose of the study is to understand the factors that facilitate correction behavior among individuals. In this study the authors examine the impact of self-perceived media literacy (SPML) and reflection on participants’ correction behavior.

Methods: Data for the study were collected from Amazon's MTurk using an online survey. Data were collected after a certificate of exemption was received by the Institutional Review Board in a research university in the United States (US) Qualtrics software was used to collect data. The total number of participants was 797.

Findings: The findings show that although both SPML and reflection are positively associated with rumor refutation, higher SPML alone is not enough. Reflective judgment is critical for individuals to take part in this behavior online, such that individuals with higher reflective judgment indicated that they refute rumors online, irrespective of their SPML score.

Originality: The authors tested the relationship of multiple variables with participants correction behavior. Although research shows the importance of social correction, there is not much knowledge about what facilitates actual misinformation correction.

Consumer knowledge has been one of the most studied variables in marketing due to its strong influence on consumer behaviour. Knowledge level has traditionally been measured through objective knowledge and the number of correct answers in a battery of items about product characteristics. The authors argue that this analysis could be complemented with other information, that is, the structure of non-knowledge. The main objective of this work is to explore the nature and explanatory potential of this new dimension on consumer behaviour in the agrifood context. The principal hypothesis is that, while they may have similar levels of objective knowledge, there are significant differences between the behaviour of consumers who have a predominant pattern of ignorance (tendency to answer “I don't know”) and those who are in error (tendency to give wrong answers).

The present study draws on data derived from five case studies examining consumer knowledge about agrifood products (olive oils, Iberian ham and orange juice) and certain aspects of consumer behaviour. A sample of 4,112 participants was classified into two non-knowledge profiles: wrong, if most items answered incorrectly in a questionnaire were wrong; or ignorant, if most items answered incorrectly were “don't know”.

The results obtained supported the argument that complementing the study of consumer knowledge with an analysis of the structure of non-knowledge is worthwhile, as differences within the structure are associated with different patterns of consumer behaviour.

In the present study, it is proposed that the measurement of knowledge be complemented with an analysis of the consumer's non-knowledge structure (items not answered correctly), given its effects on behaviour, an aspect hitherto unconsidered in the literature. To do so, a new index is proposed.

In light of the relation between culture and markets, an analysis of cultural evolution reveals that globalization will not lead to the homogenization of world cultures.

The orthodox view about women in sport is that, when compared with males, females have always held, and will always continue to hold an inferior position in sporting achievement.

Misinformation is a significant phenomenon in today's world: the purpose of this paper is to explore the motivations behind the creation and use of misinformation.

A literature review was undertaken, covering the English and Russian language sources. Content analysis was used to identify the different kinds of motivation relating to the stages of creating and communicating misinformation. The authors applied Schutz's analysis of motivational types.

The main types of motivation for creating and facilitating misinformation were identified as “in-order-to motivations”, i.e. seeking to bring about some desired state, whereas the motivations for using and, to a significant extent, sharing misinformation were “because” motivations, i.e. rooted in the individual's personal history.

The general model of the motivations underlying misinformation is original as is the application of Schutz's typification of motivations to the different stages in the creation, dissemination and use of misinformation.

The purpose of this article is to examine the US history of advertising regulation, both formal and informal and public and private – particularly focused on advertising that is likely to mislead consumers about attributes, characteristics or performance of advertised products.

This research examines both primary sources such as legal challenges and contemporary writings as well as secondary sources.

Although early court decisions were reluctant to find advertising to be dishonest, the Post Office was the first government agency to challenge blatantly false advertisements through criminal prosecution. At the end of the 1800s, the nascent advertising industry developed an interest in regulating truthfulness to enhance advertising credibility. It proposed a model state criminal code and advertising clubs, followed by local Better Business Bureaus, began to informally resolve advertising dispute. In 1914, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was established with authority to prevent unfair methods of competition which it used to challenge advertising that was likely to injure competitors. This authority was later expanded to cover advertising that was likely to mislead consumers regardless of competitive injury. The FTC experimented with trade association advertising provisions and expanding its concepts and tools overtime until a period of retrenchment in the 1980s that set the foundations of modern advertising regulation.

This is the first treatment of advertising regulatory history that simultaneously covers and compares various sources of advertising regulation to develop a comprehensive exposition of advertising regulation history.