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Negative rumors damage the destination’s image and tourist experience. This study aims to compare how rumor correction sources (government vs business vs tourist) affect user online citizenship behavior (UOCB).

Based on the stimuli-organism-response framework, a hypothetical model was established from rumor correction to UOCB. Three scenario experiments (more than 1,000 valid samples) were designed. Study 1 illustrated the effects of different rumor corrections, Study 2 was designed to verify the mediating effects of sympathy and perceived information authenticity (PIA) and the robustness of results was demonstrated in Study 3.

Government correction elicited the highest sympathy and PIA. Business correction was less than tourist correction in arousing sympathy but better than tourist correction in enhancing PIA. Sympathy and PIA had a mediating effect on the relationship between rumor correction and UOCB.

This study helps to identify the different advantages of rumor correctors and provides insights to prevent the deterioration of negative tourism rumors or even reverse these crises.

This study innovates research perspective of negative tourism rumor governance, expands the understanding of the effect and process of rumor correction and enriches the research content of tourism crisis communication.

负面谣言破坏目的地形象和游客体验。本研究比较谣言纠正来源（政府、企业、游客）对用户在线公民行为的影响。

基于刺激-有机体-反应框架, 搭建谣言纠正到用户在线公民行为的假设模型, 并设计3个情境实验（超过1000个有效样本）。实验1验证不同谣言纠正来源的纠正效果, 实验2证明同情和感知信息真实性的中介作用, 实验3测试实验结果的稳健性。

政府纠正引发最高的同情和感知信息真实性。企业纠正在唤起同情时不足于游客纠正, 但在增强感知信息真实性时优于旅游纠正。同情和感知信息真实性在谣言纠正与用户在线公民行为之间发挥中介作用。

有助于识别各个谣言纠正主体的不同优势, 为防止旅游负面谣言恶化甚至转危为安提供见解。

为旅游负面谣言治理提供新的研究视角, 拓展了对谣言纠正效果和过程的认识, 丰富了旅游危机沟通的研究内容。

Los rumores negativos dañan la imagen del destino y la experiencia del turista. Este estudio compara cómo afectan las fuentes de corrección de rumores (gobierno vs empresas vs turista) en el comportamiento cívico online de los usuarios (CCOU).

Sobre la base del marco estímulo-organismo-respuesta, se estableció un modelo hipotético desde la corrección de rumores hasta el CCOU. Se diseñaron tres escenarios experimentales (más de 1.000 muestras válidas). El Estudio 1 ilustró los efectos de las diferentes correcciones de rumores, el Estudio 2 se diseñó para verificar los efectos mediadores de la simpatía y la autenticidad percibida de la información (API), y la solidez de los resultados se demostró en el Estudio 3.

La corrección del gobierno obtuvo la mayor simpatía y API. La corrección de la empresa despertó menos simpatía que la corrección del turista, pero fue mejor para generar API. La simpatía y la API tuvieron un efecto mediador en la relación entre la corrección del rumor y el CCOU.

Ayuda a identificar las diferentes ventajas de los correctores de rumores y proporciona información para prevenir el deterioro de los rumores turísticos negativos o incluso revertir estas crisis.

Proporciona una nueva perspectiva de investigación de la gobernanza del rumor turístico negativo, amplía la comprensión del efecto y el proceso de corrección de rumores y enriquece el contenido de la investigación de la comunicación de crisis turísticas.

Technology has eased access to information. During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, ease of access and transmission of information via social media has led to ambiguity, misinformation and uncertainty. This research studies the aforementioned behaviours of information sharing and verification related to COVID-19, in the context of social media.

Two studies have been carried out. Study 1, with Indian social media users, is a two-factor between-subjects experimental design that investigated the effect of message polarity (positive versus negative) and message type (news versus rumour) on the dissemination and verification behaviour of COVID-19-related messages. The study also investigated the mediation of perceived message importance and health anxiety. Study 2 is a replica study conducted with US users.

The study finding revealed significantly higher message sharing for news than rumour. Further, for the Indian users, message with positive polarity led to higher message sharing and message with negative polarity led to higher verification behaviour. On the contrary, for the US users, message with negative polarity led to higher message sharing and message with positive polarity led to higher verification behaviour. Finally, the study revealed message importance mediates the relationship of message type and message sharing behaviour for Indian and US users; however, health anxiety mediation was significant only for Indian users.

The findings offer important implications related to information regulation during a health crisis. Unverified information sharing is harmful during a pandemic. The study sheds light on this behaviour such that stakeholders get insights and better manage the information being disseminated.

The study investigates the behaviour of sharing and verification of social media messages between users containing health information (news and rumour) related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-07-2020-0282

Commercial rumour can have a very negative impact on companies and products. As soon as a negative rumour begins to spread, sales often fall drastically. The major battle is not only to recover sales but how to recover consumer confidence before buyers eliminate the company’s brands from their evoked set. The literature on commercial rumour implicitly assumes that consumers will react to commercial rumours in a homogenous manner. However, most marketing scholars involved in studying cultural effects suggest that the culture of the buyer will influence their reaction specifically through their acceptance/rejection of the source attempting to refute the rumour. Therefore, any attempt to address commercial rumour without regard to the buyers’ cultural backgrounds may not be effective. An experiment was developed to test the effect of cultural background on choice of spokesperson to refute commercial rumours. The results of this experiment show that consumers from Eastern and Western cultural backgrounds respond in a different manner to spokespersons addressing commercial rumours. Their cultural backgrounds and values appear to influence their belief about the veracity of the source responding to the commercial rumours and their message. It is recommended that marketing personnel consider consumers’ and buyers’ core values when developing strategies for and selecting sources for controlling commercial rumours.

The purpose of the study is to understand how socially shared misinformation and rumors can enhance the motivation to protect personal interests and enhance social practices of panic buying.

The study employed a number of qualitative data collection methods for the purpose of triangulation, as it can offer thick interpretation and can help to develop a context specific research framework.

The shared misinformation and rumors on social media developed into psychological, physical and social threats; therefore, people started panic buying to avoid these negative consequences. People believed that there were differences between the information shared by politicians and government officials and reality, such as “everything is under control,” whereas social media showed people standing in long queues and struggling to buy the necessities of life. The shared misinformation and rumors on social media became viral and received social validation, which created panic buying in many countries.

It is the responsibility of government, politicians, leaders, media and the public to control misinformation and rumors, as many people were unable to buy groceries due either to socio-economic status or their decisions of late buying, which increased depression among people.

The study merged the theory of rumor (TORT) transmission and protection motivation theory (PMT) to understand how misinformation and rumors shared through social media increased global uncertainty and the desire to panic buy across the world.

This study adopts the multi-step model developed by Avraham and Ketter (2008), for altering place images, based on past academic literature on destination marketing. The purpose of this study is to determine the state of Fukushima’s sake breweries before and after 2011, and its strategies for overcoming negative images and strengthening regional branding. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven sake breweries in Fukushima.

Fukushima Prefecture, located in northern Japan, is renowned for its hot springs, lakes, historical architecture, gastronomy, and particularly its sake (or Japanese rice wine). However, pre-existing problems such as the prefecture’s changing demographics and economic development, the effects of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) and fears of radioactive contamination have made consumers reluctant to consume products from the region or to visit the prefecture. This study illustrates how various sake brewery stakeholders have sought to reverse and alter negative images associated with the prefecture. To examine these initiatives, this study uses the multi-step destination marketing and counter-branding model to identify the strategies and techniques used by the stakeholders, with the aim of altering the way the prefecture is perceived and reversing the negative image people may have of the prefecture. To acquire data for this model, this study uses semi-structured interviews conducted in 2018 and 2020 with local sake breweries, tourism associations and the local government on how they sought to retore a positive image of the prefecture and rebrand it into a new type of tourism destination that focuses on the strengths of its breweries.

The results indicate that through a combination of collaboration between the breweries, local government and the local communities, the sake breweries were able to reverse many of the negative effects of the 2011 GEJE. The success of the sake industry has prompted the local government to focus more strongly on tourism marketing that places sake products and breweries at the center of its campaign to promote the region.

While this paper focuses on the recovery of breweries, it does not include the recovery of wineries in Fukushima, which have made similar progress in their recovery. In addition, the interviews focused primarily on the perspectives of the suppliers and not the consumers.

The results of this research can help guide other destinations undergoing prolonged association with negative images on the path toward image recovery. In particular, this paper highlights the importance of a coordinated strategy by all stakeholders, the local government, businesses and communities, to create a united image and response for addressing the causes of these image problems and to create new opportunities for all stakeholders.

This research contributes to the field of image restoration, which combines theories regarding destination marketing and crisis management. Also, the research highlights the importance of collective stakeholder mobilization when attempting to help communities that are facing economic and tourism crises.

Sharing and disseminating debunking information are critical to correcting rumours and controlling disease when dealing with public health crises. This study investigates the factors that influence social media users' debunking information sharing behaviour from the perspective of persuasion. The authors examined the effects of argument adequacy, emotional polarity, and debunker's identity on debunking information sharing behaviour and investigated the moderating effects of rumour content and target.

The model was tested using 150 COVID-19-related rumours and 2,349 original debunking posts on Sina Weibo.

First, debunking information that contains adequate arguments is more likely to be reposted only when the uncertainty of the rumour content is high. Second, using neutral sentiment as a reference, debunking information containing negative sentiment is shared more often regardless of whether the government is the rumour target, and information containing positive sentiment is more likely to be shared only when the rumour target is the government. Finally, debunking information published by government-type accounts is reposted more often and is enhanced when the rumour target is the government.

The study provides a systematic framework for analysing the behaviour of sharing debunking information among social media users. Specifically, it expands the understanding of the factors that influence debunking information sharing behaviour by examining the effects of persuasive cues on debunking information sharing behaviour and the heterogeneity of these effects across various rumour contexts.

The Tohoku Region in northern Japan was devastated by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. Although much of the physical infrastructure has since been restored, annual tourism numbers have yet to restore to pre-disaster levels. In some areas, tourism recovery remains stagnant. The objective of this research is to examine how local decision-­makers utilize media strategies to deal with image-related crises and reverse negative images to combat stereotypes and deliver successful campaign messages. The study has found that each of the prefectures affected by the disasters has since utilized different campaign strategies with some, such as Fukushima, focusing on the future, while others, such as Aomori, utilized a mixture disassociating itself from the troubled area and associating itself with its more prestigious neighbor. Much of these negative images stem from persisting images of region-wide safety fears over natural hazards and radiation concerns. This study suggests that further research needs to be done to identify the different risk perceptions of foreign tourists by country, as some groups such as Koreans are more risk averse leading to a sharp decline in visits, while others such as Taiwanese who are accustomed to natural hazards are leading in visitor numbers and tourism recovery.

Studies have shown that negative publicity adversely affects brand trust, but exactly how brand trust can be damaged remains poorly understood. This study aims to explore how negative publicity influences image congruity and, subsequently, brand trust. In addition, the study also examined the effectiveness of two corporate strategies to repair both congruity and trust.

Based on a valid sample of 522 Chinese consumers between the ages 20 and 50, this study adopted a quasi-experimental design involving two types of negative publicity (performance- and value-related) and two initial corporate repair strategies (compensation and public apology) intended to repair brand trust.

Negative publicity shaped brand trust through both functional congruity and self-congruity. Moreover, the type of negative publicity affected the role of image congruity in brand trust. The effectiveness of repair strategies further depended on the type of negative publicity.

Mobile phones were an appropriate focal product for this research, but examining only one product category may limit findings’ generalizability. Negative emotions such as frustration or anger and their relationships with congruity can also be addressed in future work. Subsequent research can additionally consider more conditions to explore alternative routes of processing related to brand trust.

Brand trust is a vulnerable brand asset on which negative publicity can have seriously negative consequences. Marketers and brand managers should assess the extent to which negative publicity can damage image congruity and brand trust and come up with different repair strategies subsequently.

This study contributes to the limited and fragmented literature on consumers’ evaluations of negative information. Findings offer fresh insight into the impacts of negative publicity on image congruity and brand trust. The implications extend beyond negative publicity to other forms of negative information, such as rumors, fake news and negative word of mouth. Results also highlight the importance of adopting appropriate repair strategies to restore consumers’ trust in the event of negative publicity.

Social risk management has recently come to the fore as a significant feature of project management. This prominence is particularly evident in urban construction projects that take place in cultural heritage and tourism historic sites. Accordingly, this study aims to adopt social network analysis (SNA) to investigate social risks in construction projects occurring in urban districts rife with historically and culturally significant tourism sites.

The present study analyzed a real case study in Iran as an emergent economy and a developing country. Primarily, the study reviewed previous literature on social risks and relevant stakeholders. Next, the judgments of experts through the content validity ratio analysis confirmed 12 social risks and 9 key stakeholders. Finally, SNA is used to determine the relations between the social risks and stakeholders as well as the significance of each risk.

The investigation demonstrated that the most important social risks in the construction projects of the case study are “Psychological disorders”, “Environmental pollution” and “Cultural conflicts”.

The findings could help policymakers, urban planners and project managers in developing countries with a rich cultural heritage to reduce social risks and improve the efficiency of their projects.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is one of the first instances to investigate construction projects implemented in densely populated urban areas hosting cultural heritage and historic tourism sites.