Nowadays, popular small videos have attracted many audiences, but they have also become a new channel for rumor transmission. Some small video rumors have caused public panic, and it is difficult to refute rumors. Have you ever encountered rumors about small videos?
Recently, a survey of 2006 respondents conducted by the Social Survey Center of China Youth Daily on the joint questionnaire network showed that 87.7% of respondents had encountered small video rumors on the Internet. The respondents believed that small video rumors were more popular in the fields of celebrity gossip (54.7%), life health (43.4%) and social security (38.2%). To reduce the spread of video rumors, 59.6% of the respondents suggested to deal with violations in accordance with the law without giving up, and 51.5% suggested to guide We Media to strengthen self-management.
87.7% of respondents have encountered small video rumors
Jiang Hua (a pseudonym), a graduate student from a college in Liaoning, usually only occasionally watches small videos, "but I have seen some rumors when I watch them at such low frequency. Generally, the titles of such videos are sensational, such as' Surprise! Are you still... 'and so on".
In the survey, 87.7% of respondents said they had encountered small video rumors on the Internet, of which 25.8% had encountered many.
Su Junbin, associate professor of the School of Journalism and Communication of Xiamen University, pointed out that rumors have two factors: the importance of topics and the ambiguity of information. For example, if some emergencies have insufficient information sources or no disclosure of authoritative information sources, it will create a space for rumors to spread. The particularity of video rumors is "seeing is believing", which is more misleading to the audience. People may not be able to identify whether the video has been edited.
In the survey, respondents believed that small video rumors were more common in the fields of celebrity gossip (54.7%), life health (43.4%) and social security (38.2%), among others: food and medicine (36.5%), scientific and technological achievements (34.4%), historical politics (20.2%), real estate stock market (19.4%), public policy (15.9%), finance and economics (12.8%), national defense and military (12.3%) Sports events (10.0%) and international news (7.4%).
"I prefer to study cooking and cosmetics, and watch more videos of these two aspects." Jiang Hua thinks that there are many skin care rumors in the small videos she often watches, "for example, some small videos introduce which inexpensive cosmetics can remove blackheads, but actually they will cause more damage to the skin".
In the survey, respondents pointed out that the most common types of small video rumors are exaggeration (56.6%) and taking out of context (55.9%), and others are: piecing together (41.5%), half truth (35.6%), fabricating (34.5%), faking (23.0%), implied meaning (18.7%), logical sophistry (11.9%), memory bias (6.2%), etc.
"Some video photographers are so skilful that they want to get a click rate that they directly upload skin care methods they haven't used to the Internet. Most of the time, these small videos can't find the original publisher because they have been forwarded many times," Jiang Hua said.
Su Junbin pointed out that people are most concerned about personal safety issues, such as natural disasters. People think that seeing is believing, and ordinary audiences with insufficient media literacy tend to think that videos are true.
Compared with traditional rumor transmission, small video rumor is more difficult to refute. 55.5% of the respondents believe that the reason is that people always believe in small video. 55.1% of the respondents think that small video has a greater visual impact and more demagogic power. 48.3% of the respondents think that small video has a faster transmission speed. Other reasons why respondents think it is difficult to refute rumors about small videos are that the platform is relatively closed, spread in small circles (34.5%), spread more widely (34.1%), spread anonymously (19.8%), and more complex and diversified user groups (15.7%) in the era of social media.
Kuang Wenbo, professor and doctoral supervisor of the School of Journalism of Renmin University of China, believes that small video rumors on Internet platforms are not rare. "The lower the transparency and the closer people live in the field, the more likely rumors will appear, including small video rumors. People feel that seeing is believing, so it is more difficult to refute rumors".
59.6% of respondents suggested no leniency towards violators
In the survey, 73.8% of the respondents pointed out that small video rumors misled the public and confused the public, 59.2% of the respondents felt that small video rumors disturbed the social order, 47.7% of the respondents felt that it was not conducive to the explanation of the truth of the event, and 30.9% of the respondents felt that small video rumors would hit some enterprises or industries at a low cost.
Jiang Hua said that some folk remedies hurt the skin, and later repair is more difficult. "Many young girls, such as junior high school students and senior high school students, blindly follow the trend without discrimination".
To reduce the spread of video rumors, 59.6% of the respondents suggested to deal with violations according to law and never give up, 51.5% suggested to guide We Media to strengthen self-management, 45.6% suggested to establish a corresponding scientific rumor refutation mechanism, 39.7% suggested to strengthen the information supervision of We Media platform, and 37.6% suggested to let the voice of rumor refutation accurately cover the rumor to reach the crowd, 27.1% of respondents suggested improving the credibility of the government, 23.2% suggested that the media should strengthen the sense of responsibility to promote the formation of social consensus, and 16.9% suggested that we media should implement the real name system.
Yang Zheng, a sophomore at a university in Beijing, believes that, first of all, the threshold of small video platforms should be raised, such as the real name of identity, so that there is evidence to check. There can be a certain punishment mechanism for the forwarding person, so that everyone is responsible for their words and deeds. Video viewers should also improve their discrimination, and should not be credulous about videos of unknown origin.
Jiang Hua believes that the low threshold environment of small video platforms is difficult to change, because the participation of the whole people is the biggest selling point of these small videos. So the most important thing is for the audience to improve their discrimination and check some official websites and authoritative websites, so that they will not be easily misled by rumors.
Su Junbin believes that to reduce the spread of small video rumors, we should do a good job in social governance and not allow rumors to breed. Rumor is an ancient form of communication. The response to rumors should not be excessive. If the audience is in obvious emotional excitement, they should not take the initiative to refute rumors. The main thing is persuasion. In terms of technical means, we should develop algorithms for automatic video recognition.
Among the respondents participating in this survey, the post-00s accounted for 1.8%, the post-90s accounted for 27.8%, the post-80s accounted for 53.3%, the post-70s accounted for 11.9%, and the post-60s accounted for 4.6%.
