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Rumour
A rumor (American English), or rumour (British English; see spelling differences; derived from Latin 'noise'), is an unverified piece of information circulating among people, especially without solid evidence. In the social sciences, a rumor involves a form of a statement whose truthfulness or honesty is not quickly or ever confirmed. In addition, some scholars have identified rumor as a subset of propaganda. Sociology, psychology, and communication studies have widely varying definitions of rumor. Rumors are also often discussed with regard to misinformation and disinformation (the former often seen as simply false and the latter seen as deliberately false, though usually from a government source given to the media or a foreign government). Early work French and German social science research on rumor locates the modern scholarly definition of it to the pioneering work of the German William Stern in 1902. Stern experimented on rumor involving a "chain of subjects" who pas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fake News
Fake news or information disorder is false or misleading information (misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and hoaxes) claiming the aesthetics and legitimacy of news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity,Schlesinger, Robert (April 14, 2017)"Fake news in reality" '' U.S. News & World Report''. or making money through advertising revenue. Although false news has always been spread throughout history, the term ''fake news'' was first used in the 1890s when sensational reports in newspapers were common. Nevertheless, the term does not have a fixed definition and has been applied broadly to any type of false information presented as news. It has also been used by high-profile people to apply to any news unfavorable to them. Further, disinformation involves spreading false information with harmful intent and is sometimes generated and propagated by hostile foreign actors, particularly during elections. In some definitions, fake news i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libel
Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions that are falsifiable, and can extend to concepts that are more abstract than reputationlike dignity and honour. In the English-speaking world, the law of defamation traditionally distinguishes between libel (written, printed, posted online, published in mass media) and slander (oral speech). It is treated as a civil wrong (tort, delict), as a criminal offence, or both. Defamation and related laws can encompass a variety of acts (from general defamation and insultas applicable to every citizen – to specialized provisions covering specific entities and social structures): * Defamation against a legal person in general * Insult against a legal person in general * Acts against public officials * Acts against state insti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hoax
A hoax (plural: hoaxes) is a widely publicised falsehood created to deceive its audience with false and often astonishing information, with the either malicious or humorous intent of causing shock and interest in as many people as possible. Some hoaxers intend to eventually unmask their representations as having been a hoax so as to expose their victims as fools; seeking some form of profit, other hoaxers hope to maintain the hoax indefinitely, so that it is only when skeptical people willing to investigate their claims publish their findings, that the hoaxers are finally revealed as such. History Zhang Yingyu's '' The Book of Swindles'' ( 1617), published during the late Ming dynasty, is said to be China's first collection of stories about fraud, swindles, hoaxes, and other forms of deception. Although practical jokes have likely existed for thousands of years, one of the earliest recorded hoaxes in Western history was the drummer of Tedworth in 1661. The communication of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pheme (project)
Pheme is a 36-month research project begun in 2014 into establishing the veracity of claims made on the internet. Introduction Unverified content is dominant and prolific in social media messages. While big data typically presents challenges in its information volume, variety and velocity, social media presents a fourth: establishing veracity. The Pheme project aims to analyse content in real time and determine how accurate the claims made in it are. As claims propagate through a social network, each individual chooses whether or not to pass on information, based on how accurate they think it is. Analysing the language used and the spread of information through a network, as well as the spatial and temporal context of the information, is used to build a real-time lie detector for social media. This will help, for example, emergency services (who already integrate social media as part of their alerting and response systems) to flag potential hoax emergencies. Evaluating the autho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American And British English Spelling Differences
Despite the various list of dialects of English, English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American spelling. Many of Comparison of American and British English, the differences between American English, American and British English, British or English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English date back to a time before spelling standards were developed. For instance, some spellings seen as "American" today were once commonly used in Britain, and some spellings seen as "British" were once commonly used in the United States. A "British standard" began to emerge following the 1755 publication of Samuel Johnson's ''A Dictionary of the English Language'', and an "American standard" started following the work of Noah Webster and, in particular, his ''Webster's Dictionary, An American Dictionary of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Urban Legend
Urban legend (sometimes modern legend, urban myth, or simply legend) is a genre of folklore concerning stories about an unusual (usually scary) or humorous event that many people believe to be true but largely are not. These legends can be entertaining but often concern mysterious peril or troubling events, such as disappearances and strange objects or entities. Urban legends may confirm moral standards, reflect prejudices, or be a way to make sense of societal anxieties. In the past, urban legends were most often circulated orally, at gatherings and around the Campfire story, campfire for instance. Now, they can be spread by any media, including newspapers, mobile news apps, e-mail, and most often, social media. Some urban legends have passed through the years/decades with only minor changes, in where the time period takes place. Generic urban legends are often altered to suit regional variations, but the lesson or moral generally remains the same. Origin and structure Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gossip
Gossip is idle talk or rumor, especially about the personal or private affairs of others; the act is also known as dishing or tattling. Etymology The word is from Old English ''godsibb'', from ''god (word), god'' and ''sibb'', the term for the godparents of one's child or the parents of one's godchild, generally very close friends. In the 16th century, the word assumed the meaning of a person, mostly a woman, one who delights in idle talk, a newsmonger, a tattler. In the early 19th century, the term was extended from the talker to the conversation of such persons. The verb ''to gossip'', meaning "to be a gossip", first appears in Shakespeare. The term originates from the bedroom at the time of childbirth. Giving birth used to be a social event exclusively attended by women. The pregnant woman's female relatives and neighbours would congregate and idly converse. Over time, gossip came to mean talk of others. Functions Gossip can: * reinforceor punish the lack ofmorality and a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disinformation
Disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people, or to secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic deceptions and media manipulation tactics to advance political, military, or commercial goals. Disinformation is implemented through coordinated campaigns that "weaponize multiple rhetorical strategies and forms of knowing—including not only falsehoods but also truths, half-truths, and value judgements—to exploit and amplify culture wars and other identity-driven controversies." In contrast, ''misinformation'' refers to inaccuracies that stem from inadvertent error. Misinformation can be used to create disinformation when known misinformation is purposefully and intentionally disseminated. " Fake news" has sometimes been categorized as a type of disinformation, but scholars have advised not using these two terms interchangeably or us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Whispers
Telephone (American English and Canadian English), or Chinese whispers (some Commonwealth English), is an internationally popular children's game in which messages are whispered from person to person and then the original and final messages are compared. This sequential modification of information is called transmission chaining in the context of cultural evolution research, and is primarily used to identify the type of information that is more easily passed on from one person to another. Players form a line or circle, and the first player comes up with a message and whispers it to the ear of the second person in the line. The second player repeats the message to the third player, and so on. When the last player is reached, they announce the message they just heard, to the entire group. The first person then compares the original message with the final version. Although the objective is to pass around the message without it becoming garbled along the way, part of the enjoyment ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Circular Source
Circular reporting, or false confirmation, is a situation in source criticism where a piece of information appears to come from multiple independent sources, but in reality comes from only one source. In many cases, the problem happens mistakenly through sloppy reporting or intelligence-gathering. However, the situation can also be intentionally contrived by the source or reporter as a way of reinforcing the widespread belief in its information. Circular reporting occurs in a variety of fields, including intelligence gathering, journalism, and scholarly research. It is of particular concern in military intelligence because the original source has a higher likelihood of wanting to pass on misinformation, and because the chain of reporting is more prone to being obscured. It is also a problem in journalism and the development of conspiracy theories, in which the primary goal of a source spreading unlikely or hard-to-believe information is to make it appear to be widely known. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snopes
''Snopes'' (), formerly known as the ''Urban Legends Reference Pages'', is a fact-checking website. It has been described as a "well-regarded reference for sorting out myths and rumors" on the Internet. The site has also been seen as a source for both validating and debunking urban legends and similar stories in American popular culture. History 1990s In 1994, David and Barbara Mikkelson created an urban folklore web site that would become ''Snopes.com''. ''Snopes'' was an early online encyclopedia focused on urban legends, which mainly presented search results of user discussions based at first on their contributions to the Usenet newsgroup alt.folklore.urban (AFU) where they'd been active. The site grew to encompass a wide range of subjects and became a resource to which Internet users began submitting pictures and stories of questionable veracity. According to the Mikkelsons, ''Snopes'' predated the search engine concept of fact-checking via search results. David Mik ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
