When do people share different health rumours? An empirical study in the COVID-19 context in China Online publication date: Fri, 31-Jan-2025
by Xin Zhang; Peng Yu; Liang Ma
International Journal of Mobile Communications (IJMC), Vol. 25, No. 2, 2025
Abstract: One of the most important questions confronting managers is how to control different rumours. Although previous literature has studied the antecedents of users' rumours sharing intention, little research has focused on how different rumour types (dread and wish rumour) affect sharing intention and its boundary conditions. To fill this research gap, this study conducted two empirical studies based on elaboration likelihood model (ELM) to explore how the way of processing rumours varies with rumour type. The results show that: 1) in dread rumour studies, central cues have a positive effect on sharing intention, while only source credibility in peripheral cues has a positive effect on sharing intention; 2) in wish rumour studies, peripheral cues have a positive effect on sharing intention, while only perceived utility in central cues has a positive effect on sharing intention; 3) enjoyment in helping others positively moderates the relationship between rumour characteristics and sharing intention.
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Mobile Communications (IJMC):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:
Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.
If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com
Our Blog 
Follow us on Twitter 
Visit us on Facebook