A rumor or rumour (see spelling differences) is often viewed as "an unverified account or explanation of events circulating from person to person and pertaining to an object, event, or issue in public concern" (33) However, a review of the research on rumor conducted by Pendleton in 1998 found that research across sociology, psychology, and communication studies had widely varying definitions of rumor. Thus, rumor is a concept that lacks a particular definition in the social sciences. But most theories agree that rumor involves some kind of a statement whose veracity is not quickly or ever confirmed. In addition, some scholars have identified rumor as a subset of propaganda, the latter another notoriously difficult concept to define. A pioneer of propaganda studies, Harold Lasswell defined propaganda in 1927 as referring "solely to the control of opinion by significant symbols, or, to speak more concretely and less accurately, by stories, rumors, reports, pictures, and other forms of social communication" (1927:9). Rumors are also often discussed with regard to "misinformation" and "disinformation" (the former often seen as simply false and the latter seen as deliberately false, though usually from a government source given to the media or a foreign government). Rumors thus have often been viewed as particular forms of other communication concepts.

Psychology of Rumor (1902)

French and German social science research on rumor locates the modern scholarly definition of it to the pioneering work of the German William Stern in 1902. Stern experimented on rumor involving a "chain of subjects" who passed a story from "mouth to ear" without the right to repeat or explain it. He found that the story was shortened and changed by the time it reached the end of the chain. His student was another pioneer in the field, Gordon Allport.

Psychology of Rumor: Three Types (1944)

"A Psychology of Rumor" was published by Robert Knapp in 1944, in which he reports on his analysis of over one thousand rumors during World War II that were printed in the Boston Herald's "Rumor Clinic" Column. He defines rumor as

'' a proposition for belief of topical reference disseminated without official verification''. So formidably defined, rumor is but a special case of informal social communications, including myth, legend, and current humor. From myth and legend it is distinguished by its emphasis on the topical. Where humor is designed to provoke laughter, rumor begs for belief.

Knapp identified three basic characteristics that apply to rumor: 1. they're transmitted by word of mouth; 2. they provide "information" about a "person, happening, or condition"; and 3. they express and gratify "the emotional needs of the community." Crucial to this definition and its characteristics is the emphasis on transmission (word of mouth, which then was heard and reported in the newspaper); on content ("topical" means that it can somehow be distinguished from trivial and private subjects—its domain is public issues); and on reception ("emotional needs of the community" suggests that though it is received by an individual from an individual, it is not comprehended in individual but community or social terms).

Based on his study of the newspaper column, Knapp divided those rumors into three types: # Pipe dream rumors: reflect public desires and wished-for outcomes.(e.g. Japan's oil reserves were low and thus World War II would soon end.) # Bogie or fear rumors reflect feared outcomes.(e.g. An enemy surprise attack is imminent). # Wedge-driving rumors intend to undermine group loyalty or interpersonal relations (e.g. American Catholics were seeking to avoid the draft; German-Americans, Italian-Americans, Japanese-Americans were not loyal to the American side).

Knapp also found that negative rumors were more likely to be disseminated than positive rumors. These types also differentiate between positive (pipe dream)and negative (bogie and wedge-driving) rumors.

Psychology of Rumor (1947)

In the 1947 study, ''Psychology of Rumor'', Gordon Allport and Joseph Postman concluded that, "as rumor travels it [...] grows shorter, more concise, more easily grasped and told." This conclusion was based on a test of message diffusion between persons, which found that about 70% of details in a message were lost in the first 5-6 mouth-to-mouth transmissions.

In the experiment, a test subject was shown an illustration and given time to look it over. They were then asked to describe the scene from memory to a second test subject. This second test subject was then asked to describe the scene to a third, and so forth and so on. Each person’s reproduction was recorded. This process was repeated with different illustrations with very different settings and contents.

Allport and Postman used three terms to describe the movement of rumor. They are: ''leveling'', ''sharpening'', and ''assimilation''. Leveling refers to the loss of detail during the transmission process; sharpening to the selection of certain details of which to transmit; and assimilation to a distortion in the transmission of information as a result of subconscious motivations.

Assimilation was observed when test subjects described the illustrations as they ought to be but not as they actually were. For example, in an illustration depicting a battle-scene, test subjects often incorrectly reported an ambulance truck in the background of the illustration as carrying “medical supplies,” when, in fact, it was clearly carrying boxes marked “TNT (102).”

Rumor as Social Cognition (2004)

In 2004, Prashant Bordia and Nicholas DiFonzo published their ''Problem Solving in Social Interactions on the Internet: Rumor As Social Cognition'' and found that rumor transmission is probably reflective of a "collective explanation process." (35). This conclusion was based on an analysis of archived message board discussions in which the statements were coded and analyzed. It was found that 29.4% (the majority) of statements within these discussions could be coded as “sensemaking” statements, which involved, “[...]attempts at solving a problem.” (42) It was noted that the rest of the discussion was constructed around these statements, further reinforcing the idea of collective problem solving. The researchers also found that each rumor went through a four-stage pattern of development in which a rumor was introduced for discussion, information was volunteered and discussed, and finally a resolution was drawn or interest was lost (48).

For the study, archived discussions concerning rumors on the internet and other computer networks such as BITnet were retrieved. As a rule, each discussion had a minimum of five statements posted over a period of at least two days. The statements were then coded as being one of the following: ''prudent'', ''apprehensive'', ''authenticating'', ''interrogatory'', ''providing information'', ''belief'', ''disbelief'', ''sensemaking'', ''digressive'', or ''uncodable''. Each rumor discussion was then analyzed based on this coding system. A similar coding system based on statistical analysis was applied to each discussion as a whole, and the aforementioned four-stage pattern of rumor discussion emerged.

Rumor as Political Communication Strategy (2006)

In the past, much research on rumor came from psychological approaches (as the discussion of Allport and DiFonzio demonstrates above). The focus was especially on how statements of questionable veracity (absolutely false to the ears of some listeners) circulated orally from person to person. Scholarly attention to political rumors is at least as old as Aristotle's ''Rhetoric''; however, not until recently has any sustained attention and conceptual development been directed at political uses of rumor, outside of its role in war situations. Almost no work had been done until recently on how different forms of media and particular cultural-historical conditions may facilitate a rumor's diffusion. The internet's recent appearance as a new media technology has shown ever new possibilities for the fast diffusion of rumor, as the debunking sites such as snopes.com, urbanlegend.com, and factcheck.org demonstrate. Nor had previous research taken into consideration the particular form or style of deliberately chosen rumors for political purposes in particular circumstances (even though significant attention to the power of rumor for mass-media-diffused war propaganda has been in vogue since World War I; see Lasswell 1927). IN the early part of the 21st century, some legal scholars have attended to political uses of rumor, though their conceptualization of it remains social psychological and their solutions to it as public problem are from a legal scholarly perspective, largely having to do with libel and privacy laws and the damage to personal reputations.

Working within political communication studies, in 2006, Jayson Harsin

- introduced the concept of the "rumor bomb" as a response to the widespread empirical phenomenon of rumoresque communication in contemporary relations between media and politics, especially within the complex convergence of multiple forms of media, from cell phones and internet, to radio, TV, and print. Harsin starts 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. He then treats it as a particular rhetorical strategy in current contexts of media and politics in many societies. For Harsin a "rumor bomb" extends the definition of rumor into a political communication concept with the following features: # A crisis of verification. - A crisis of verification is perhaps the most salient and politically dangerous aspect of rumor. Berenson (1952) defines rumor as a kind of persuasive message involving a proposition that lacks 'secure standards of evidence' (Pendleton 1998). # A context of public uncertainty or anxiety about a political group, figure, or cause, which the rumor bomb overcomes or transfers onto an opponent. # A clearly partisan even if an anonymous source (e.g. "an unnamed advisor to the president"), which seeks to profit politically from the rumor bomb’s diffusion. # A rapid diffusion via highly developed electronically mediated societies where news travels fast.

In addition, Harsin locates the "rumor bomb" within other communication genres,such as disinformation (intentional false information) and propaganda,as rumor has been viewed by others. However, he distinguishes it from these concepts as well, since disinformation is often too associated with government, and propaganda is a widely varying concept used to describe attempts to control opinion without regard for ethics and accuracy of statement. Similarly, "spin" is a generic term for strategic political communication that attempts to frame or re-frame an event or a statement in a way that is politically profitable for one side and detrimental to another, though at its core it may simply be a red herring (Bennett 2003, p. 130). In addition, a "smear campaign" is a term that loosely means a coordinated effort to attack a person's character. Unlike a "smear campaign," rumor bombs need not be about discrediting a person (as is the case for example in claims about Iraq and 9/11 or weapons of mass destruction moved to Syria). Spin refers too specifically to an event and its re-framing. Rumor bombs may seek to produce events themselves.

A rumor bomb can be seen as having some characteristics of these general concepts, but rumor bombs happen in very particular cultural and historical conditions. They are not about mouth-to-ear interpersonal rumors as much rumor research has been interested in. They begin in a rapport between deliberate "disinformers" and ''media'', whether TV news,talk shows, newspapers, radio, or internet. They then circulate across these media, perhaps but not necessarily resulting in interpersonal mouth-to-ear rumor diffusion. Harsin wants to distinguish the rumor bomb from other more general concepts of rumor by ''emphasizing changes in politics, media technology, and culture''. According to Harsin, rumor in politics has always existed, but recent changes have created an environment ripe for a new kind of political rumor: a new media "convergence culture" where information produced on the internet can influence the production of media content in other forms;new media technologies and business values that emphasize speed and circulation that combine with entertainment values in news, political marketing, and public craving of tabloid news that mirrors other entertainment genres.

Rumors of affairs, of "weapons of mass destruction" and their alleged removal to other countries"John Kerry is French," Obama is a Muslim, John McCain had an illegitimate black child Obama's healthcare plan would legalize "death panels," Shirley Sherrod is a racist--all of these involve statements whose veracity is in question or are simply false. Others are statements whose ambiguous nature makes them potentially appealing to different audiences who may interpret them in particular ways and circulate them. Harsin builds on rumor research that has emphasized social cognition and diffusion of propaganda. He extends Prashant and Difonzio's work in particular, since they attempt to distinguish rumor from gossip, in that rumor is supposedly about public issues and gossip is about private, trivial things. The emergence of infotainment and tabloidization in especially American and British news has broken that distinction, since politics is now just as much about bringing the private into the public view, as was clear with the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.

References

- -

External links

article on Cass Sunstein's legalistic approach to politics and rumor

Category:Human communication es:Rumor cs:Pověst de:Gerücht fa:شایعه fi:Huhu fr:Rumeur he:שמועה io:Rumoro it:Rumor ja:噂 kn:ಗಾಳಿ ಮಾತು nl:Gerucht ru:Слух (информация) sr:Гласине zh:谣言

Name	The 3Ds
Background	group_or_band
Origin	Dunedin, New Zealand
Genre	RockPopIndie
Years active	1988–2010
Associated acts	Ghost Club
Current members	Dominic StonesDenise RoughanDavid SaundersDave Mitchell }}

The 3Ds were an alternative pop/rock band based from Dunedin, New Zealand, together from 1988 to 1997. The band was formed in May 1988 by

Dominic Stones — drums,

Denise Roughan — bass, keyboards, tambourine, vocals

David Saunders — guitar, vocals

The band's name referred to the members names all starting with "D". In 1989 they were joined by another "D",

David Mitchell — guitar, mandolin, vocals

Soon after the three became four they ventured out to play some live shows. These were mainly improvised songs, short sets and a Neil Young cover. The idea was to make a crazy, riffy, stick in your head noise, and to have fun. Three of the group were neighbours. All had been in other New Zealand bands, Stones was in Birds Nest Roys and Snapper and Roughan had been in Look Blue Go Purple. Mitchell had been in Goblin Mix and The Exploding Budgies and Saunders in the teen-folk band The Battling Strings. The band believed that making music ought to be about friends getting together, an attitude they maintained throughout their time together.

In 1992 the band played with Nirvana in New Zealand. This was followed by a brief tour of the United States supporting their first album ''Hellzapoppin'' and performing at the CMJ New Music Festival in NYC. In 1994 they toured Australia and also returned to the United States in support of their second album, 'The Venus Trail' released on Merge Records. The release of The 3Ds music on Merge Records had come about when Superchunk and The 3Ds played together on the 3Ds first trip to the States. The Venus Trail tour also took the band to the UK for the first time, where they played a sold out debut show, were awarded 'Band of the week' in Melody Maker, 'Album of the week' in the NME, and also recorded a John Peel session. Following the UK shows the band returned to the USA to tour extensively with Pavement, Superchunk, and Guided By Voices amongst others.

The 3Ds returned the favor to Pavement, Superchunk, and Portastatic, touring with them in NZ and Australia when the US bands made their first footsteps 'down under'. Following this, The 3Ds played two stadium shows supporting U2 on their Zoo TV tour in New Zealand at the personal request of the Irish super-group. Another tour of Australia performing main-stage on The Big Day Out series of shows followed along with many more great shows in NZ and Australia up to the summer of '97.

The distinctive cover art on the band's albums was designed by Mitchell, who is also a graphic artist. The cover of ''The Venus Trail'' was drawn by him left-handed.

The band drifted apart after releasing their third album, ''Strange News from the Angels'', in 1997. Mitchell and Roughan soon moved to London, where they went on to form the Ghost Club.

In July 2009 The 3Ds got together to play two shows at the Merge Records 20th anniversary festival held in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. A documentary film of the festival at the Cats Cradle is planned. In 2010 the 3Ds toured New Zealand, including the inaugural Laneways festival in New Zealand. This was followed by an invitation to play the Pavement curated All Tomorrows Parties festival in the UK. The groups out of print albums have been made available again by the resurrected Flying Nun label. Future plans are uncertain.

Discography

Date of Release	Title	Label	Chart	Certification	Catalog Number
	''Fish Tales/Swarthy Songs for Swabs''	Flying Nun Records (NZ)First Warning Records(US)	-	-	FN188
		Flying Nun Records (NZ)First Warning Records (US)	#4 (NZ)	-	FNCD225
	''The Venus Trail''	Flying Nun Records (NZ)Merge Records (US)	#2 (NZ)	-	FN281
	''Strange News from the Angels''	Flying Nun Records (Worldwide)	-	-	FN351
	''Fish Tales''	Flying Nun Records	-	-	FN150
	''Swarthy Songs For Swabs''	Flying Nun Records	-	-	FN167
		Flying Nun Records	-	-	FNCD262
		Flying Nun Records	-	-	FNCD318

Featured appearances

The group have appeared on a few film soundtracks in New Zealand. Also an Abba tribute album. The following is a list of these albums that have featured tracks by The 3Ds.

(1999) - Scarfies OST (Flying Nun Records) - ''Outer Space''.

(1997) - Topless Women Talk About Their Lives OST (Flying Nun Records) - ''Hey Seuss'', ''Animal'' & ''Spooky''.

(1995) - Abbasalutely (Flying Nun Records) - ''Mama Mia''.

Singles

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Year	Single	Album	Charted	Certification

Notes

External links

Flying Nun Website

3Ds myspace page Listen to some songs here...

Merge Records Website

Category:New Zealand indie rock groups Category:Flying Nun Records artists Category:Dunedin Sound Category:Merge Records artists

Name	Lew Rockwell
Birth name	Llewellyn Harrison Rockwell, Jr.
Birth date	July 01, 1944
Birth place	Boston, Massachusetts
Nationality	United States
Occupation	Political commentator, activist, blogger
Religion	Roman Catholic
Spouse	Mardelle Rockwell
Website	LewRockwell.com
Influences	Henry Hazlitt, Robert Taft, Garet Garrett, John T. Flynn, Albert Jay Nock, H.L. Mencken, Frank Chodorov, Charles C. Tansill, Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard }}

Llewellyn Harrison Rockwell, Jr. (born July 1, 1944, Boston), widely known as Lew Rockwell, is an American libertarian political commentator, activist, proponent of the Austrian School of economics, and chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Life and work

Rockwell was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1944. His father was a "Taft Republican", and Rockwell was exposed at a young age to military non-interventionism. He was introduced to the laissez faire thought of the French Liberal and Austrian schools of economics when he received Henry Hazlitt's ''Economics in One Lesson'' as a gift from a family friend on his twelfth birthday. Later in his youth, Rockwell describes feeling alienated from mainstream conservatism,

"Over time, I became aware that I was not only dissenting from the left but also from the conservative establishment, which was embroiled in the Cold War as a first principle. I grew increasingly skeptical of the official right, especially during the war on Vietnam.... I had been a reluctant Goldwaterite in 1964, but by 1968 I worked briefly for Gene McCarthy."

Early career in publishing

Rockwell earned a degree in English from Tufts University, and he went to work for Neil McCaffrey's Arlington House publishing company which had been founded in 1965. At Arlington House, Rockwell worked as an editor on books by authors including Bill Rickenbacker, Harry Browne, George Roche, and Henry Hazlitt. It was at Arlington House that Rockwell became acquainted with the works of Ludwig von Mises.

By the time that Arlington House was disbanded in the mid-1970s, Rockwell had gone to work at Hillsdale College. George Roche, whom Rockwell met while at Arlington House, had become president of the college in 1971. In his time at Hillsdale College, Rockwell started the Hillsdale College Press, founded the school's monthly publication, ''Imprimis'', and worked in fundraising and public relations. Gary North praises Rockwell for successfully borrowing Leonard Read's methods in creating ''Imprimis'':

"He applied Read's strategy when he launched ''Imprimis'' for Hillsdale College. The president of Hillsdale, George Roche, had worked for Read until he became president at Hillsdale in 1971. (I replaced Roche at FEE.) He wanted ''The Freeman'' for Hillsdale, but of course could not get it. So, he hired Rockwell to start ''Imprimis''. Hillsdale gives the newsletter away. As with ''The Freeman'', the letter is based on ideas, not appeals for donations. This became the most financially successful fund-raising newsletter in history, raising several hundred million dollars for Hillsdale. It now has over 1.7 million subscribers. It is the college's lifeline."

Rockwell met Murray Rothbard for the first time in 1975, while working for Hillsdale. Rockwell credits Rothbard with convincing him to wholly reject statism:

"It was clear to me at the time that Murray Rothbard was Mises's successor, and I followed his writings carefully. I first met him in 1975, and knew immediately that he was a kindred spirit.... I cannot remember the day that I finally came around to the position that the state is unnecessary and destructive by its nature – that it cannot improve on, and indeed only destroys, the social and economic system that grows out of property rights, exchange, and natural social authority – but I do know that it was Rothbard who finally convinced me to take this last step."

Working for Ron Paul

Rockwell served as Ron Paul's congressional chief of staff from 1978 to 1982. He has maintained a working relationship with Paul over the years, as a contributing editor to "The Ron Paul Investment Letter"; as a consultant to Paul's 1988 Libertarian Party campaign for President of the United States; and as vice-chair of the exploratory committee for Paul's spirited run for the 1992 Republican Party nomination for president.

In early 2008, libertarian publication ''Reason'' published a story discussing several racially charged articles that appeared in the Ron Paul newsletter. The ''Reason'' piece asserted that "a half-dozen longtime libertarian activists—including some still close to Paul" had identified Rockwell as the "chief ghostwriter" of the Ron Paul newsletters published from "roughly 1989 to 1994." According to ''Reason,'' Rockwell has denied responsibility for the disputed material and has called the accusations "hysterical smears aimed at political enemies."

Ludwig von Mises Institute

In 1982, Rockwell founded the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama and was its president until the summer of 2009, when he transitioned to the position of Chairman of the Board. He also is Vice President of the Center for Libertarian Studies in Burlingame, California and publisher of the political weblog LewRockwell.com. Rockwell was closely associated with his teacher and colleague Murray Rothbard until Rothbard's death in 1995. Rockwell's political ideology, like Rothbard's in his later years, combines a form of anarcho-capitalism with cultural conservatism and the Austrian School of economics. He also advocates federalist concepts as a means of promoting freedom from central government, and also advocates secession for the same political decentralist reasons. Rockwell has called environmentalism "[a]n ideology as pitiless and Messianic as Marxism."

The Mises Institute published Rockwell's ''Speaking of Liberty'', an anthology of editorials which were originally published on his website, along with transcripts from some of his speaking engagements. Rockwell and the Ludwig von Mises Institute together publish the ''Journal of Libertarian Studies''.

Paleolibertarianism

In 1985, he was named a contributing editor to ''Conservative Digest''. During the 1990s Rothbard, Rockwell and others described their views as paleolibertarian, but Rockwell no longer uses the term to describe his ideas. Jean Hardisty, founder of Political Research Associates, wrote in 1999 that Rockwell was one of the most influential proponents of the paleoconservative faction of "right-wing libertarianism."

LewRockwell.com

Lew Rockwell's web site features a selection of articles, including opposition to war and imperialism along with occasional articles criticizing the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. The site also carries essays which argue against the participation of the United States in the Second World War, speculation about an end of the United States as a cohesive union and assertions the Western world is threatened by an intersection of fascism and socialism alike as politicians and states centralize their power. These writings are sometimes controversial and have brought harsh criticism from some on the political right. His web site also provides podcasts featuring Rockwell's interviews of various scholars and writers, including many affiliated with the Mises Institute.

Books

Author

''Speaking of Liberty'' (2003; online e-book) ISBN 0-945466-38-2

''The Left, The Right, and The State'' (2008; online e-book) ISBN 978-1-933550-20-6

Editor

''Man, Economy, and Liberty: Essays in Honor of Murray N. Rothbard'' (with Walter Block) (1986; online e-book) ISBN 99911-786-2-7

''The Free Market Reader'' (1988; online e-book)ISBN 0-945466-02-1

''The Economics of Liberty'' (1990; online e-book) ISBN 0-945466-08-0

''The Gold Standard: Perspectives in the Austrian School'' (1992; online e-book), ISBN 0-945466-11-0

''Murray N. Rothbard: In Memoriam'' (1995; online e-book) ISBN 0-945466-19-6

''The Irrepressible Rothbard'' (2000; online e-book - Rockwell's introduction) ISBN 1-883959-02-0

Notes

External links

LewRockwell.com

"My Speech at the Antiwar Rally," LewRockwell.com, 25 September 2005

"My Visit to DC: An Interview with Lew Rockwell." Mises.org Podcast. 9 December 2005.

Lew Rockwell's Articles: at LewRockwell.com, The Free Market & more here, and WorldNetDaily.

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