The science of rumors

Crescimbene, Massimo and La Longa, Federica and Lanza, Tiziana (2012) The science of rumors. Annals of geophysics, 55 (3). pp. 421-425. ISSN 2037-416X

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Abstract

This study takes a soft scientific cut to talks about rumors, hoaxes and urban legends. Social psychology, more elegantly, uses the latin word rumor (rumour in British English), which means sound, voice, or gossip. In social, economical, political, cultural and scientific communication, rumors indicate news that is presumed true, that circulates without being confirmed or made evident. The scientific history of rumors is briefly described starting from the period of ancient Rome, throughout the Second World War and the Internet era, up to today. We will try to answer some questions that can be useful to scientists today. What are rumors? How are they born? How do they spread? By which laws are they regulated? How do we need to fight them? A final question regards the collocation of rumors into modern science. Science today is divided into ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ science (the latter of which generally lacks a basic mathematical structure); these terms, respectively, indicate the natural sciences, which investigate Nature, and the social/human sciences, which investigate man in all his facets. Maybe rumors can be thought of as a bridge suspended between two banks: those of ‘scientific truth’ and ‘human truth’

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Rumor, Communication, Social psychology, Urban legends
Subjects:	300 Scienze sociali > 302 Interazione sociale (classificare qui i principi psicologici della Sociologia, le relazioni interpersonali, la Psicologia sociale) 300 Scienze sociali > 302 Interazione sociale (classificare qui i principi psicologici della Sociologia, le relazioni interpersonali, la Psicologia sociale) > 302.2 Comunicazione (Classificare qui le Scienze della comunicazione) 300 Scienze sociali > 306 Cultura e istituzioni (Include i ruoli, le funzioni e i modelli antropologici e sociali) (Classificare qui la cultura di massa, l'Antropologia culturale e sociale) > 306.45 Cultura e istituzioni - Scienza (Classificare qui la Sociologia della scienza)
Depositing User:	Roberto Wiedman
Date Deposited:	12 Oct 2012 13:24
Last Modified:	12 Oct 2012 13:24
URI:	http://eprints.bice.rm.cnr.it/id/eprint/4219

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