The Rumor Bomb: On Convergence Culture and Politics Jayson Harsin / American University of Paris – Flow
▻http://www.flowjournal.org/2008/12/the-rumor-bomb-on-convergence-culture-and-politics-jayson-harsin-americ
In February 2006, the Democratic Party of Japan admitted that one of its politicians used a hoax email producing a scandal that implicated a senior official of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, who allegedly received large sums of money from a publicly disgraced Internet startup. In 2005, a political consultant in South Africa was paid to fabricate emails to sow divisions and contribute to the succession battle in the ANC. In Nigeria in September 2008, an entire TV station was closed after it repeated an internet claim that Nigeria’s president would resign due to illness.
New photo-editing technologies led to visual rumors. Recall the doctored photo of John Kerry with “Hanoi” Jane Fonda which made its way into the New York Times, and countless war journalism examples.
Perhaps the most common American political rumor recently concerned Barack Obama. When it was clear Obama would be a contender, the Muslim rumor was launched, landing on mainstream news when a Clinton campaign volunteer was caught re-emailing it. Videoed McCain supporters also announced dread of an “Arab” President Obama, again frequenting news agendas, pressuring McCain to respond that Obama was a “decent family man” (not an Arab). Meanwhile, these rumors have complements that imply Obama was/is a terrorist because he allegedly “pals around with terrorists,” referring to acquaintance Bill Ayers.
Rumor then is a keyword of contemporary politics and culture. But is it useful as a scholarly concept?
I proposed the concept of “rumor bomb” (RB) to distinguish a particular use of rumor from other related notions.1 I begin with the widespread definition of rumor as a claim whose truthfulness is in doubt and which often has no clear source even if its ideological or partisan origins and intents are clear. I then treat it as a particular rhetorical strategy in current contexts of media and politics in many societies. The “RB” extends the definition of rumor into a media/politics concept with the following features:
1. A crisis of verification: perhaps the most salient and politically dangerous aspect of rumor. [...]
2. A context of public uncertainty or anxiety about a political group, figure, or cause, which the RB overcomes or transfers onto an opponent. ....
3. A clearly partisan even if anonymous source (eg. “an unnamed advisor to the president”), which seeks political profit from the RB’s diffusion. [...]
4. A rapid electronic diffusion: i.e. a “convergence culture” where news travels fast.