Evaluating the Effectiveness of Government Rumor Refutation in Major Public Health Emergencies:An Em-pirical Study from the Dual Perspectives of Information Coverage and Persuasion
[Purpose/Significance]This paper explores the effectiveness of government rumor-refuting infor-mation in the context of significant public health emergencies,focusing on both the process and outcomes.It aims to quantify the government's ability to manage online rumors,improve the reach and persuasiveness of govern-ment-provided information,and offer practical guidance for government public opinion management.[Method/Process]Utilizing a dual perspective of information coverage and persuasion,this paper integrated social network analysis metrics and the theory of information influence to construct a two-dimensional evaluative framework for the effectiveness of government rumor-refuting information.The Analytic Hierarchy Process(AHP)was applied to determine the weights of the indices.The COVID-19 pandemic was taken as a case study for empirical analysis,employing social network analysis,sentiment analysis,and comprehensive evaluation to measure the government's rumor-refuting efforts across the public opinion cycle of a public health emergency.This approach validated the effectiveness of the evaluative system proposed.[Result/Conclusion]The empirical results demonstrate that the evaluative framework effectively reflects the impact of government rumor-refuting information in the face of major public health emergencies.It recommends that governments develop phased rumor-refuting strategies in response to the progression of public sentiment,innovate in the dissemination pathways of corrective information,and establish a continuous assessment mechanism for the effectiveness of their rumor-refuting efforts.Such actions are crucial for enhancing the influence of rumor-refuting information and elevating the caliber of online rumor management.
government rumor-refutingsocial networkpersuasion theoryinformation effectivenessmajor public health emergency
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