The purpose of this study is to understand what causes the confidence in rumor about the nuclear power in the internet. There have been many previous studies on the factors that make people trust in rumors. However, it is difficult to find the previous researches about the degree of confidence in rumor. The trust in rumor and rumor confidence are similar, but have different meanings. Rumor confidence is the degree of assurance and belief in reliability of rumors.
Based on the survey data collected from Internet users(N=1572), we will analyze what makes the confidence about rumors in the internet about nuclear power energy. For this end, we set up the degree of confidence in rumor related with nuclear power energy as dependent variables. To find the causal factor, based on the theoretical review, we choose the fifteen independent variables from psychometric paradigm in risk reserch, communication studies, and cyberspace reserch.
We believe that our studies will provide the empirical evidences about causal structure of rumor.