Summary Of ' The Watercooler Effect '

Rumors are something that we all know are constantly spreading everyday; however, most of us might not exactly know the specific effects that they can and do have on our social lives. In this article by Jesse Singal titled “How To Fight a Rumor” he writes to try and explain the effects that rumors have and different methods that some people have used to try and counter them. His thesis is that in order to combat rumors we must first learn about the inner workings of rumors themselves. He does this by using examples such as the 2008 presidential election, studies that have been conducted, and the research from those studies. These examples along with others combine to make his argument much more strong.

“How to Fight a Rumor” by Jesse Signal is an essay that gives information about rumors and how to fight them. The essay uses research from rumor researchers and gives different examples of how people deal with rumors. It also views rumors on a psychological level and looks into why people spread them. In the essay, Jesse Signal informs the reader why people spread rumors, how to fight rumors, and gives examples of how people deal with rumors.

Everyone has had some experience with gossip. In this lab, you will explore how well rumors (or secrets) spread when this information is passed on to other people.

Salmans main purpose is to inform her readers of current legal battles being pursued by Procter and Gamble in discrediting false rumors, which were causing a threat to the company 's sales and reputation. Salmans also debates the issue of rumors and provides actual opinions concerning the rumors from a variety of sources, mainly the prosecutors, defense and church ministers to provide the reader with opposite views. I believe that rumors are usually created due to rivalry, anger, jealousy or hate either amongst individuals or corporations. Rumors most often hinder a person character, beliefs or

The perpetuation of misinformation can be very difficult to correct and may have lasting effects even after it is discredited. For instance, if an audience is reliant on the information provided by the media to make an informative decision about a topic involving their morals, the validity of the author’s claims will determine the mass majority of their decisions they make in the future. As a result, false information may continue to influence beliefs and attitudes even after being debunked if it is not replaced by an alternate causal explanation.

In, “One Man’s Rumer I Another Man’s Reality, Gregory Rodriguez, an author of the Los Angeles Times he argues about the power of broadcasting the truth and its effect on the people. As a result, “can false rumors and off-the-wall theories be corrected by broadcasting the truth” (Gregory Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times, September 28, 2009)?

In Stephanie Ericsson’s essay, “The Ways We Lie”, she describes the many ways we create miscommunication individually and as a community. Lies that affect us individually are lies we commit between ourselves and a small group, like, “your hair looks great” to a friend, knowing you meant the opposite. Meanwhile, lies that affects society is on a more severe consequence scale – Adolf Hitler, world famous anarchist, persuaded his soldiers into believing obliterating the life of massive amount of Jewish believers had a good cause, when it actually disrupted society itself. Her main topic is how we are consumed by lies and deceptions abused by oneself and society. She categorizes each lie which she later elaborates the different consequences they

However, if the news is based just on rumors, what would it be? It would turn out fake news. The recent memorable incident relating to the fake news would be during the 2016 US presidential campaign. In “The Journal of Economic Perspectives,” Enrico Moretti and Gordon Hanson state that fake news had some influence over the election result that Trump became the US president (Moretti and Hanson. 235). They also mention that they discover 41 articles which support Clinton or are against Trump and 115 articles which support Trump and are against Clinton (Moretti and Hanson. 225). These pro-Clinton articles were shared on Facebook 7.6 million times and these pro-Trump articles were shared 30.3 million times (Moretti and Hanson. 225). What makes surprising about this fact is those articles later turned out to be fake news. Before the news about Clinton’s scandals was leaked, there were much less of people who would vote for Trump and much less of fake news criticizing her. Nonetheless, her scandals came out, those fake news based on rumors increased the number. People read them out of their curiosity and shared them in a second.

In her essay “The Ways We Lie” Stephanie Ericsson (2007) states different ways people lie in their lives and explains the reasons why people lie. Ericsson starts her essay, by explaining how she lied four times in just one day, and that she doesn’t feel guilty about doing it. Although at the same time she explains that everyone lies one way or another but there is no such a thing as a good lie. The author continues her contends by listing different types of lies people use in different situations such as: the white lie, facades, ignoring the plain facts, deflecting, omission, stereotypes and clichés, groupthink, out-and-out lies, dismissal, and finally delusion then she explains each in detail by providing examples.

As Pitts said from the article, “We admit no ideas that do not confirm us, hear no voice that does not echo us, sift out all information that does not validate what we wish to believe”. Therefore, people are becoming prevented from thinking in a logical, “critical” way they don’t just simply believe what isn’t correct according to their way of thinking. When we listen to information-provider like radio and TV, we realized that we are being estranged because of our own way of thinking, “alienated” even from the simplest truth. This can lead us into believing false facts and we can do nothing but to believe them. The falsities outbreak is a real danger to the modern world because we are always advancing in modern

“Users appear to be less capable of distinguishing true from false rumors… in fact, we show that the prevalent

The spread of fake news can be detrimental and life altering without checking the validity of sources and facts before passing on such news to others. Pizzagate was a conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 Presidential Election campaign, which alleged there was a child-sex ring taking place and the top Democrats had something to do with it (Pizzagate: A Slice of Fake News). Some believe it all started when John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, had his email account hacked. Tons of emails were leaked and made public. His emails were said to contain coded messages that referred to human trafficking and were also connected to the Comet Ping Pong pizza parlor (“Pizzagate: A Slice of Fake News). James Alefantis is the owner of the Comet Ping Pong and also an acquaintance of Podesta. One email did contain Podesta and Alefantis discussing a fundraiser idea for Hillary Clinton, but no talk happened about the alleged child-sex ring. While this ‘news’ was spreading fast, Alefantis and his forty plus employees were receiving deaths threats, negative tweets on Twitter and Facebook, and facing harassing altercations with strangers. The staff observed social media outlets and “counted five #pizzagate Twitter posts a minute” at one point (Kang). Alefantis himself said that, “From this insane, fabricated conspiracy theory, we’ve come under constant assault.” (Kang) The only people that know what is true in the Pizzagate conspiracy theory are the ones who are

O'Meara, Kelly Patricia. “Total Lack of Trust” Insight on the News, Vol. 17, Issue 35, 1 Map, 17 September 2001, p.3-4 and p.10, http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezp.tccd.edu/pov/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=c459d314-fc33-439d-abeb-6df65b308001%40sessionmgr2&bdata=JnNpdGU9cG92LWxpdmU%3d#db=pwh&AN=5134351. Accessed 4 October 2016.

It is true that we humans need to discuss, give opinions, and have deep conversation about events that happened in the past or are happening right now and about people we all cross in our life. However, some sources where our discussions, opinions and conversations are built up on are sometimes misleading from its origin. ‘’The news isn't there to tell you what happened. It's there to tell you what it wants you to hear or what it thinks you want to hear’’ ~ Joss Whedon (Goodreads,

Synopsis. One of the more interesting readings in Behrens and Rosen’s Wrting and Reading Across the Curriculum was “A Psychology of Rumor” By Robert H. Knapp. His major point was the understanding of the process and the reasoning behind rumors.