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SPRINGER BRIEFS IN COMPLEXIT Y

Susannah B. F. Paletz
Brooke E. Auxier
Ewa M. Golonka

A Multidisciplinary
Framework of
Information
Propagation
Online

123
SpringerBriefs in Complexity

Series Editors:
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Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, MI, USA
Karl J Friston, University College London, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience,
London, UK
Hermann Haken, University of Stuttgart, Center of Synergetics,
Stuttgart, Germany
Viktor Jirsa, Université de la Méditerranée, Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique (CNRS), Marseille, France
Janusz Kacprzyk, Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences,
Warsaw, Poland
Kunihiko Kaneko, Research Center for Complex Systems Biology,
The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Scott Kelso, Florida Atlantic University, Center for Complex Systems and Brain
Sciences, Boca Raton, FL, USA
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University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
Jürgen Kurths, University of Potsdam, Nonlinear Dynamics Group,
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Ronaldo Menezes, Department of Computer Science, University of Exeter,
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Andrzej Nowak, Department of Psychology, Warsaw University,
Warszawa, Poland
Hassan Qudrat-Ullah, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals,
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
Peter Schuster, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Frank Schweitzer, ETH Zurich, System Design, Zürich, Switzerland
Didier Sornette, ETH Zurich, Entrepreneurial Risk, Zürich, Switzerland
Stefan Thurner, Section for Science of Complex System,
Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Linda Reichl, University of Texas, Center for Complex Quantum Systems,
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Susannah B. F. Paletz • Brooke E. Auxier
Ewa M. Golonka

A Multidisciplinary
Framework of Information
Propagation Online
Susannah B. F. Paletz Brooke E. Auxier
Center for Advanced Study of Language Philip Merrill College of Journalism
University of Maryland University of Maryland
College Park, MD, USA College Park, MD, USA

Ewa M. Golonka
Center for Advanced Study of Language
University of Maryland
College Park, MD, USA

ISSN 2191-5326     ISSN 2191-5334 (electronic)


SpringerBriefs in Complexity
ISBN 978-3-030-16412-6    ISBN 978-3-030-16413-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16413-3

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019


This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To David Leon Paletz, who has conducted
multidisciplinary research in this area for
decades and who inspires us all to cross
boundaries with rigor and insight.
Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Erica Michael, Michael Maxwell, and Nikki Adams for
comments on a prior draft, to the CASL Researcher’s Forum attendees for helpful
comments during our presentation, to our families for their support and patience,
and to Rebecca Goolsby for her guidance on and funding of this project.
Funding/Support This material is based upon work supported, in whole or in part,
with funding from the United States Government Office of Naval Research grant
12398640. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed
in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of
the University of Maryland, College Park, and/or any agency or entity of the United
States Government.

vii
Contents

1 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1
1.1 Background ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    3
1.2 Overview of the Framework ������������������������������������������������������������    5
2 Sources of Messages ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������    9
2.1 Originating Content��������������������������������������������������������������������������   10
2.2 Receiving Content����������������������������������������������������������������������������   10
2.3 Gathering Content����������������������������������������������������������������������������   11
2.4 Summary of Sources of Messages����������������������������������������������������   13
3 Reactions to the Message and Messenger����������������������������������������������   15
3.1 Affect and Engagement��������������������������������������������������������������������   16
3.1.1 High Arousal-Specific Emotions������������������������������������������   17
3.1.2 Other Affective Engagement������������������������������������������������   19
3.2 Cognition������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   20
3.2.1 Belief in the Original Message ��������������������������������������������   21
3.2.2 Other Cognitive Reactions Rendering Belief
Unnecessary��������������������������������������������������������������������������   32
3.3 Both Affect and Cognition����������������������������������������������������������������   33
3.4 Summary of Reactions by Genuine Users����������������������������������������   35
4 Motivation to Share ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   37
4.1 Needs������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   38
4.1.1 Impression Management and Self-Enhancement�����������������   38
4.1.2 Self-Consistency Motives and Social Identity����������������������   39
4.1.3 Accuracy ������������������������������������������������������������������������������   40
4.1.4 Affiliation������������������������������������������������������������������������������   41
4.2 Sociopolitical and Economic Motivations����������������������������������������   43
4.3 Summary of Motivations������������������������������������������������������������������   44

ix
x Contents

5 Context and Match Between Context and Framework


Components����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   47
5.1 Culture, Narratives, and Language ��������������������������������������������������   48
5.2 Norms and Comparisons Within a Social Group������������������������������   51
5.3 Ties, Strong and Weak, Within the Social Network��������������������������   52
5.4 Summary of Context ������������������������������������������������������������������������   55
6 Non-Genuine Actors��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   57
6.1 Bots ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   57
6.2 Sockpuppets and Troll Farms������������������������������������������������������������   61
6.3 Summary of Non-Genuine Actors����������������������������������������������������   63
7 Ability to Share����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   65
7.1 Perceptions of Being Able to Share: Efficacy
and Experience����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   65
7.2 Social Media Affordances����������������������������������������������������������������   66
7.2.1 Sociotechnical Affordances��������������������������������������������������   66
7.2.2 Practical Affordances of Platforms ��������������������������������������   67
7.3 Summary of Ability to Share������������������������������������������������������������   68
8 Discussion and Conclusion����������������������������������������������������������������������   69

 ppendix A: Methodology of the Qualitative Analysis of Fake


A
News Stories������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   73

 ppendix B: The Framework of Information Propagation


A
on Social Media������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   83

References ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   85

Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 103
Chapter 1
Introduction

Abstract As the use of social media platforms has increased, so have they become
a new domain in information warfare. Before tackling the roots or spread of misin-
formation or disinformation, it is important to understand why people share any
information on social media at all. This book presents a broad, multidisciplinary
review and creation of a theoretical framework of the factors that have been shown
to, or might, influence sharing information on social media, regardless of its verac-
ity. The act of sharing information online is made up of several categories of factors:
sources of messages, reactions to the original message and messenger, the motiva-
tion to share, the ability to share (and perception of the ability to share), and then, of
course, actual sharing behavior. In addition, while genuine actors may have reac-
tions to the original message and messenger, there also exist non-genuine actors that
have pre-programmed or pre-planned reactions. We also qualitatively examined 20
fake news stories in two different languages as they appeared in social media in
order to illustrate factors affecting information propagation and identify potential
gaps in the literature.

Keywords Social media · Fake news · Misinformation · Disinformation ·


Multidisciplinary · Model · Qualitative research · Russia · Information warfare ·
Social media sharing

Social media are a relatively new channel by which people not only acquire, but
also share information. Social media networks have also been used to spread mis-
information, since at least 2010 on Twitter about the Democratic candidate Martha
Coakley to the 2016 U.S. presidential election (Mustafaraj & Metaxas, 2017). The
revelations of Russian disinformation campaigns on social media against the U.S.
population during the 2016 election have identified a stark vulnerability in the secu-
rity of the United States (e.g., Sydell, 2017; United States of America v. Internet
Research Agency LLC, 2018; Waltzman, 2017; Woolley & Howard, 2017). Fake

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 1


S. B. F. Paletz et al., A Multidisciplinary Framework of Information
Propagation Online, SpringerBriefs in Complexity,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16413-3_1
2 1 Introduction

news, as it is currently popularized,1 is not new, nor is propaganda (e.g., Allcott &
Gentzkow, 2017; Jowett & O’Donnell, 2015; Lazer et al., 2018; McKernon, 1928;
Pratkanis & Aronson, 2001). However, there has been an increase in this kind of
‘information war’ by Russia against the United States and European countries at
least since 2014 (e.g., Paul & Matthews, 2016; Prier, 2017; Woolley & Howard,
2017). Information warfare does not simply occur between nations: Both jihadi
Islamic groups and right-wing extremists also recruit and spread propaganda online
(e.g., Benigni, Joseph, & Carley, 2017; Bowman-Grieve, 2013; Caiani &
Wagemann, 2009; Derrick, Sporer, Church, & Ligon, 2016; Prier, 2017; Vidino &
Hughes, 2015).
Social media-based information conflict has sparked the interest of government,
academia, and industry alike. Key research topics underlying the flood of online
communication are why and how people share narratives and information online.
Narratives, in this context, refer to coherent stories that are shared with multiple
people rather than isolated pieces of information (Green & Brock, 2005; Hinck,
Kluver, & Cooley, 2017). A narrative might describe an activity or conflict consist-
ing of a storyline with a beginning, middle, and end, rather than a single fact, and it
may imply or state a context, how, and why (van Krieken & Sanders, 2016). Readers
of news stories can be more involved in narrative reporting, for instance, compared
to more neutral, ‘hard news’ reporting (van Krieken & Sanders, 2016). This review
examines studies of information propagation, and often focuses on narratives. Given
its conceptual breadth, we also use the term “message” to include narratives.
Although narrative propagation is not new, social media has made spreading stories,
including false ones or ones with false elements, easier.
Before tackling the roots or spread of misinformation (incomplete, vague,
ambiguous information) or disinformation (intentionally untrue information;
Cooke, 2017), it is important to understand why people share any information on
social media at all. The propagation of information has many antecedents, causes,
and moderating factors, including amplifiers and suppressors. Information propaga-
tion has been studied for decades across a range of disciplines: psychology,
marketing, sociology and social network analysis, political science and political
communication, human-computer interaction (HCI), journalism, and information
sciences. This book leverages existing knowledge about the spread of information
in general, why people are convinced by information they see, the effects of differ-
ent kinds of messages on human affect and cognition, and what might make some-
one go from interest to sharing, as well as some possible cross-cultural differences.
Most individual articles focus on a small number of factors that might be useful,

1
Fake news historically has included yellow journalism and other information in news media that
is deliberately inaccurate or misleading. For most of this book, we use the term ‘fake news’ to refer
to “news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false, and could mislead readers” (Allcott &
Gentzkow, 2017, p. 213). Note that intent is hard to prove, and propaganda can include a mix of
falsehood and truth. Although we will refer to ’fake news,’ particularly in reference to the corpus
we analyze, we will often also refer to the more technical terms of misinformation and disinforma-
tion (Cooke, 2017). Fake news may include one or both types. While disinformation is intention-
ally untrue, misinformation may have elements of truth in it (Cooke, 2017).
1.1 Background 3

with few works attempting a comprehensive view (see Hermida, 2014, for one such
attempt). In addition to surveying the literature, we conducted a bottom-­up, qualita-
tive analysis of 20 fake news stories shared via social media in English and Russian,
in terms of both language and social media users and platforms (Methodology in
Appendix A). We use insights from these stories to contextualize and illustrate the
findings from the literature, as well as to add to our theoretical framework. By
assembling many factors from across a wide literature, future research can develop
measures to quantify those factors, with the goal of discovering which ones have
predictive power for encouraging sharing behavior in conjunction with each other in
real-world social media and within different cultural and language contexts.
Thus, this work presents a broad, multidisciplinary review of the factors that
have been shown to, or might, influence sharing information on social media,
regardless of its veracity. This book begins with an introduction to the problem, then
covers the background and an overview of a high-level framework of information
sharing. The framework flows through the different ways information is acquired or
viewed from a source, to reactions by the target sharer and motivations to share, to
the ability (and perceptions of the ability) to share before leading to sharing behav-
ior. Finally, this framework distinguishes between genuine and non-genuine (inau-
thentic) actors: Non-genuine actors are individuals who are pretending to be
someone they are not, and can include bots, which are automated and driven by
algorithms designed to interact or share information.

1.1 Background

In the U.S., social media use has become synonymous with digital and mobile life.
A Pew Research Center study found that in November 2018, at least 69% of U.S.
adults used at least one social media site (Pew Research Center, Internet, &
Technology, 2018). This finding is a significant jump from November 2010, when
only 45% of American adults said the same. Among popular social media sites in
the U.S., including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest, Facebook
remains the most popular, with 68% of U.S. adults using it and 74% of them visiting
the site daily (Pew Research Center, Internet, & Technology, 2018).
Social media platforms are proving popular destinations for news consumption,
specifically. In August 2017, 67% of Americans reported getting at least some of
their news on social media, with, again, Facebook leading the way (Shearer &
Gottfried, 2017). Forty-five percent of Facebook users say they get news on the site,
followed by YouTube (18%) and Twitter (11%; Shearer & Gottfried, 2017), though
about a quarter of Americans report getting news from two or more social media
sites.
Many users openly struggle with misinformation and disinformation. A Pew
study using 2016 survey data found that 23% of respondents said they had shared a
made-up news story—some knowingly, some unknowingly (N = 1002; Barthel,
Mitchell, & Holcomb, 2016). A larger percentage of respondents in this study, 64%,
4 1 Introduction

stated that fabricated news stories “cause a great deal of confusion about the basic
facts of current issues and events.” A different study of 1200 respondents found that
only 14% of American adults viewed social media as the most important source of
election news, but that all the respondents were exposed to at least one, or perhaps
several, fake news articles (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). Fake news websites relied
more heavily on social media traffic than true news, which relied on social media
traffic relatively less (42% versus 10%). Of concern, in a study of disconfirmed
rumors on Twitter, most misinformed users (86–91%) spread the false rumors rather
than expressing doubt about them or seeking confirmation of the rumor, and most
(78–96%) of the debunked-rumor-spreading users neither deleted nor clarified their
original posts (Wang & Zhuang, 2018).
Social media have made the cost of spreading information low, making it easy to
influence public opinion (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017; Shao, Ciampaglia, Varol,
Flammini, & Menczer, 2017; Shifman, 2014). Opinions are expressed attitudes
(Glynn, Herbst, O’Keefe, Shapiro, & Linderman, 2004), whereas attitudes are a
mix of behavior, affect (feelings), and cognition (beliefs; Breckler, 1984; Glynn
et al., 2004). Attitudes may be overtly or implicitly contained within narratives,
including in how narratives are presented and framed. Social media are, of course,
not only used for sharing individual political opinions. Social media are used by
large companies to advertise; by smaller-scale creators and businesses to promote
themselves and cultivate an audience and fan base; by politicians to share directly
their thoughts with constituents and others; and by individuals to share news,
memes, and their lives with each other. On the one hand, social media serve as a
new ‘public sphere’ that enables minority and oppressed voices to gain an audience
by circumventing gatekeepers, thus enhancing free speech (Debatin, 2008; Shifman,
2014). On the other hand, social media platforms are designed to encourage shar-
ing, regardless of the authenticity or benevolence of the content, and thus support
the best and worst of human psychology: the needs for attention, affiliation, and
status; the desire to control and dominate narratives; and the attraction of novelty
(e.g., Hermida, 2014; Tufekci, 2018). Malicious actors, be they state-sponsored or
unaffiliated with a state, also use social media platforms to organize, spread their
narratives, recruit, disrupt, undermine, and outright harm (see Goolsby, 2013;
Goolsby, Galeano, & Agarwal, 2014; O’Sullivan, 2018; Paul & Matthews, 2016;
Prier, 2017; Sindelar, 2014; Tufekci, 2018; Vidino & Hughes, 2015; Waltzman,
2017; Woolley & Howard, 2017).
Social media therefore can suffer from a series of problems, including deliber-
ately false information, too much information, and malicious or hostile actions
(Goolsby, 2013; Tufekci, 2018). This hostility can affect individuals outside of the
digital environment, such as when individuals’ personal information is deliberately
posted online (called doxing) and malicious actors falsely report to law enforcement
an emergency, resulting in the deployment of a SWAT (Special Weapons and
Tactics) team to an unsuspecting person’s home (swatting; Tufekci, 2018). Even
beyond deliberate malicious actions, compared to traditional media, new media
encourage audiences to follow content they already agree with (Paletz, Owen, &
Cook, 2018). Citizen journalists (and those trying to be journalists) lack the
1.2 Overview of the Framework 5

resources to truly uncover the truth and are primarily reactive (Paletz et al., 2018).
In addition, most new media platforms are controlled by a few large corporations
(e.g., Facebook), with smaller social media organizations increasingly acquired by
larger ones (Arsenault & Castells, 2008; Paletz et al., 2018). Further, social media
raise a range of privacy concerns (Ellison, Vitak, Steinfield, Gray, & Lampe, 2011;
Paletz et al., 2018; Trepte & Reinecke, 2011). Not only are people on social media
publically sharing what used to be private word-of-mouth and rumor (Hermida,
2014), but social media are used to express and promote hatred, extremism, and
fanaticism, and “are rife with muddle and nonsense, distortion and error” (Paletz
et al., 2018, p. 27). With such downsides, one wonders why anyone remains engaged
in social media, let alone shares information. Understanding why people share
information online is key to sorting through the muddle (Paletz et al., 2018).

1.2 Overview of the Framework

The virality, or widespread sharing, of messages themselves has been studied exten-
sively. One conceptual model of sharing in social media, based on successful viral
marketing campaigns, suggests four success factors with the acronym ‘SPIN’:
“spreadability of content based on personal factors, the propagativity of content
based on media type, the integration of multiple media platforms, and the succes-
sive reinforcement of messaging” (Mills, 2012, p. 166). Within this SPIN frame-
work, the spreadability refers to likeability of the content of the message and
whether the sharer feels others in the social network will have a similar reaction;
propagativity refers to the ease with which consumers can continue to distribute or
redistribute the content based on both qualities of the content itself and the initial
sharer’s social network; integration refers to the strategic use of multiple social
networks simultaneously; and although most content does not achieve this final
stage, nexus refers to the “successive reinforcement of the campaign by virtue of
sequentially releasing units of viral content” (Mills, 2012, p. 168). Our framework
incorporates the factors behind both spreadability and propagativity and goes
beyond Mills’ model to include insights from a range of disciplines. Related
research utilizes network analysis to examine the relationship between different
kinds of memes based on their content, form, and stance (Shifman, 2013, 2014),
rather than the social network of individuals sharing that information (e.g., Segev,
Nissenbaum, Stolero, & Shifman, 2015). This research suggests that when a meme
spreads and changes, it retains some of its essential and unique ‘hooks’ and generic
attributes (Segev et al., 2015).
The higher-level constructs in this framework draw from a range of disciplinary
theories. For example, from political communication, we take the different ways in
which media collect narratives (Paletz, 2002). From psychology, we draw on the
interplay and distinctions among cognition, affect, and behavior; the impact of cul-
ture on the three of those; the distinctions among different types of cognitive
­processing; persuasion; and the importance of both individual differences and the
6 1 Introduction

social situation (see below, e.g., Ajzen, 1991; Breckler, 1984; Brock & Green, 2005;
Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004). This framework does not presume sharing, but instead
identifies factors that may encourage or discourage sharing and the potential inter-
actions among those factors.
Most of the components of this framework relate to the process of evaluation that
a person goes through, explicitly or implicitly, before making a decision to share
information. At the most abstract level, this evaluation involves information that
originates from somewhere, a psychological reaction on the part of a real person
engaged with that information (or a pre-programmed reaction by an entity that is not
genuine), a motivation to share, and then an assessment as to what kind of sharing
is possible and/or desirable. Thus, in our framework, the act of sharing information
online is made up of several categories of factors: sources of messages, reactions to
the original message and messenger, the motivation to share, the ability to share
(and perception of the ability to share), and then, of course, actual sharing behavior
(Fig. 1.1). Dotted lines indicate the general temporal flow of a process which may,
but need not, indicate direct causal relationships. Solid lines indicate potential
directional influence. For example, the sources of messages do not cause the same
reaction in all people, but the messages elicit some kind of psychological reaction
by genuine actors. That reaction is influenced by their dynamic motivations. This
high-level framework has much in common with fundamental psychological theory
that suggests that attitudes and norms feed into behavioral intentions that then feed
into behavior, dependent on the perceived ability to perform the behavior (e.g.,
Madden, Ellen, & Ajzen, 1992). In addition, we recognize that an increasing amount
of online activity is conducted by non-genuine actors (e.g., Arnsdorf, 2017;
O’Sullivan, 2018; Woolley & Howard, 2017). These include bots, or algorithms
designed to share (Lokot & Diakopoulous, 2016; Shao et al., 2017; Varol, Ferrara,

Genuine Actors
Reactions to the
Message and
Messenger
Sources of Ability to Sharing
Messages Share Behavior

Motivation to
Share Context and match
between context and
other model
components
Non-Genuine
Actors

Fig. 1.1 Highest-level framework of information propagation on social media


1.2 Overview of the Framework 7

Davis, Menczer, & Flammini, 2017) and/or sockpuppets, or multiple fake identities
through which individuals create the illusion of support (or disdain) by pretending
to be different people (Bu, Xia, & Wang, 2013). Sockpuppets can be bots or can be
humans who are hiding behind a false identity. As defined here, non-genuine actors
on social media do not react to original messages with authentic or real psychologi-
cal responses (i.e., with affective and/or cognitive processes). Instead, they are pro-
grammed to propagate messages based on preexisting and adaptive plans. That
noted, genuine human actors are behind the creation or goals of bots and sockpup-
pets, and they have specific motivations of their own (e.g., economic, political),
such that genuine actors’ motivations impact non-genuine actors. Finally, the
broader context and match between that context and the component pieces of this
framework, including culture and the sharer’s placement within their social net-
works, influence and touch all the other components. The highest level framework,
represented in Fig. 1.1, includes all of these components (see also Fig. B1 in
Appendix B for a detailed version of the framework).
Chapter 2
Sources of Messages

Abstract Messages originate from a variety of sources. Social media users may
create content, observe a message or narrative, or seek one out. What people view is
influenced by what they search for and what is being shared already in their social
networks.

Keywords Social media · Political communication · Communication · Social


media users · Narratives · Social networks · Sociology · Sources · Information
science · Social media sharing

In information studies, scholars have identified spaces where information is


shared. Information grounds—traditionally seen as physical spaces like coffee
houses and beauty parlors—are described as neutral, accessible places where con-
versation is the main activity (Fisher & Naumer, 2006; Oldenburg, 1999). Though
physical places were studied as information grounds in the early 2000s, in today’s
digital ecosystem, online spaces like social networking platforms and messaging
sites could be considered information grounds where these same conversations
happen regularly. The types of information shared in these information grounds
include current events, gossip, everyday advice regarding family, healthcare, and
employment.
Researchers in human information interaction (HII) examine the interaction
between people and information in its multiple forms and purposes (Fidel, 2012).
There are two established research areas within HII: (1) information-seeking behav-
ior, which focuses on how people look for and use information, and (2) information
retrieval, which focuses on creating models for computer systems that retrieve infor-
mation based on users’ requests (Fidel, 2012). Information-seeking behavior, partic-
ularly how users evaluate and share information, is the most relevant for this review.
As with traditional journalists, a social media user can acquire information from
a combination of three kinds of activities (Paletz, 2002): Social media users can
originate, receive, and/or gather information. In originating, individuals can take
their own photos, write their own narratives, and record their own videos. More

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 9


S. B. F. Paletz et al., A Multidisciplinary Framework of Information
Propagation Online, SpringerBriefs in Complexity,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16413-3_2
10 2 Sources of Messages

commonly, social media users see information and narratives that those they follow
share, and then may decide to (or not to) share in turn. Finally, social media users
may actively seek out others’ sources, such as online news sources or blogs (web-­
based public journal logs), and then gather them to share on Facebook, Twitter, or
some other platform.

2.1 Originating Content

The broad access to digital technologies, especially in developed countries, has


allowed anyone to become a content creator. Individuals can digitally share artistic
content they create (e.g., music, fiction), as well as photographs, videos, and narra-
tives detailing their personal lives. With this access, social media users are also able
to contribute to the news process. Users can report from events as they occur and
share photos and videos live from the scene. They can also share their opinions on
a wide range of topics. This phenomenon has been called citizen or participatory
journalism (Allan, 2013; Rosen, 2006). Specifically, citizen journalism is “a type of
first-person reportage where ordinary individuals temporarily adopt the role of a
journalist in order to participate in newsmaking, often spontaneously during a time
of crisis, accident, tragedy or disaster when they happen to be present on the scene”
(Allan, 2013, p. 9). Acts of citizen journalism can take many formats including
eyewitness accounts, audio recordings, video footage, and mobile and digital cam-
era photography (Allan, 2013). Anyone who has access to a smartphone, it seems,
can share information online. Increasingly, the role of the audience is shifting from
being passive receivers to active contributors, with the standard gatekeepers and
expense of broadcasting giving way to easy access to an audience via social media
(Paletz, Owen, & Cook, 2018; Rosen, 2006). This shift from consumers to contribu-
tors means that audiences and social media users play a much different role in the
digital sharing and spreading of news and information. In a study of over 10,000
tweets using relevant hashtags collected during Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines,
the second most common (32.3%) purpose of tweeting was memorializing: express-
ing sympathy and prayers to those being effected by the hurricane (Takahashi,
Tandoc, & Carmichael, 2015). In addition to citizen journalists, malevolent actors
can create their own content, as well (e.g., Arnsdorf, 2017; Scott, 2017).

2.2 Receiving Content

Social media users can also receive content, viewing it on their social media pas-
sively, actively, and/or via the social media platform’s algorithms. In the study of
tweets during Typhoon Haiyan, the most common type of tweet (43.4%) was sec-
ondhand reporting of the disaster, or tweeting information that arose from some-
where else (Takahashi et al., 2015). As noted previously, two-thirds of Americans
2.3 Gathering Content 11

reported getting their news via social media (Shearer & Gottfried, 2017). Social
media users’ digital networks have a significant impact on what content they are
exposed to and what they consume. As they follow specific accounts of friends,
family members, celebrities, businesses, and media organizations on social media,
what those groups and individuals share dictates the content appearing in their
feeds. Homophily is a basic principle such that individuals who are similar tend to
connect with each other (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001). Individuals
who are similar to each other socioculturally, demographically, professionally, ideo-
logically, and so on will tend to join together into networks.
For some, this clustering may create an echo chamber of information. In echo
chambers, individuals are largely exposed to conforming opinions (Flaxman, Goel,
& Rao, 2016). A study of 10.1 million Facebook users found strong liberal versus
conservative homophily, particularly for liberals (Bakshy, Messing, & Adamic,
2015). In fact, individuals chose to view less cross-cutting content than what was
available to them. However, the same study also found cross-ideological friend-
ships: of those who reported their ideology, over 20% of an individual’s Facebook
friends were from an opposing ideological affiliation. This large study suggests that
most peoples’ echo chambers are porous. That noted, in a self-report study of 103
participants, individuals engaged less on Facebook if they perceived more diversity
in their networks compared to those who perceived more similarities (Grevet,
Terveen, & Gilbert, 2014). In other words, sharing was more likely to occur in the
context of homophily, when friends exposed the user to like-minded content and the
user was more assured to have a positive audience.
Researchers examining homophily need to take into account the dynamic
(changeable) nature of friendship online (Noel & Nyhan, 2011). Two processes can
make social networks more homogeneous: Users can become more like those in the
existing network, and users can unfriend (drop from their social media network)
individuals who are dissimilar (Noel & Nyhan, 2011). These dynamic processes
increase homophily over time, making cross-sectional studies of the effects of
homophily on social influence potentially biased (Noel & Nyhan, 2011). Even with
that caveat, homophily is an established phenomenon that impacts the information
that social media users observe (Bakshy et al., 2015; Flaxman et al., 2016).
In addition, Mills’s (2012) SPIN theory of sharing identified size of network as a
potential factor of propagativity, or the ease with which users can share information.
This theory proposed that the bigger the network, the more viral content may show
up on a user’s social networking sites because of an increased chance of exposure.
Thus, individual exposure to a greater array of, and more viral, content, is in part a
function of the user’s network size.

2.3 Gathering Content

Individuals, of course, are not simply passive receivers of information: They also
seek it out (Fisher & Julien, 2009; Kuhlthau, Heinström, & Todd, 2008). Social
media users may actively seek out news sources, science articles, or other content
12 2 Sources of Messages

directly and share those links on social media (analogous to journalists’ gathering
of information, Paletz, 2002). Information search can be a multi-stage process in its
own right, including affective and cognitive responses (Kuhlthau et al., 2008).
Conducting information search for a class project, for example, is a knowledge
construction task that entails an initial increase and then subsequent decrease in
uncertainty and anxiety (Kuhlthau et al., 2008). Less structured information search
processes could also occur in the context of sharing information on social media.1
The phenomenon of homophily can also affect what individuals seek out, as indi-
viduals gather and check news from sources they trust and follow like-minded friends
and family on social media (termed selective exposure; Paletz, Koon, Whitehead, &
Hagens, 1972; see also Chap. 3.2.1). Guess, Nyhan, and Reifler (2018), using a
nationally representative survey matched with web traffic data (N = 2,525), found
selective exposure mainly by Trump supporters and/or older adults (60+) of fake
news during the October to November period in the 2016 U.S. presidential cam-
paign. This seeking out of fake news sites seemed to occur via Facebook as a signifi-
cant conduit, and predominantly involved Trump supporters seeking out pro-Trump
fake news sites.
Flaxman et al. (2016) defined four channels through which news stories can be
discovered: direct, aggregator, social, and search. Direct discovery means a user has
gone directly to a news domain (such as nytimes.com); the aggregator channel
refers to platforms like Google News or Apple News where users are presented with
a set of links of related news topics hosted on other sites; social involves the use of
a social media platform, like Facebook, Twitter or an e-mail service; and search
involves the use of a web query on a search engine like Google, Bing or Yahoo. In a
study that analyzed web-browsing records using a data set of 2.3 billion distinct
page views, Flaxman et al. (2016) found that much of news consumption comes
from individuals simply visiting the homepage for their preferred news outlet,
which tended to be mainstream media sources. Their findings echoed other studies
(e.g., Bakshy et al., 2015) that the use of social networks and search engines are
associated with the highest levels of segregation by ideology. Thus, although social
media users often obtain their news directly from news sites rather than from their
social contacts, the users remain ideologically isolated (Flaxman et al., 2016). Given
that news sources themselves tend to link to similar perspectives in the stories they
post (Turetsky & Riddle, 2017), this finding means that active gathering does not
remove the possibility of echo chambers.
That noted, selective exposure and homophily do not always lead to blind accep-
tance of information. In an interview study of 58 people who had just chosen to
watch a film on the Vietnam War in a movie theater, 28 disliked it, with 9 consider-
ing it propaganda and 7 saying they had become more sympathetic to America’s war
in Vietnam because they had viewed the film (Paletz et al., 1972). The researchers
determined qualitatively that the American audience was annoyed and frustrated by

1
There is a significant difference between our model and the Information Search Process model
(Kuhlthau et al., 2008): Our cognitive and affective factors are reactions to information rather than
reactions to the process of going through information search.
2.4 Summary of Sources of Messages 13

the foreign film’s unconventional structure and style, as well as its hectoring tone.
This study illustrates that even with homophily, reactions to source material cannot
be taken for granted.

2.4 Summary of Sources of Messages

Social media users may create content, observe a message or narrative, or seek one
out. What people view is influenced by what they search for and what is being shared
already in their social networks. Once they receive, create, or find information, gen-
uine actors then have some kind of reaction, be it affective, cognitive, or both.
Chapter 3
Reactions to the Message and Messenger

Abstract Genuine actors will react to the message they read and the messenger
they encounter. We categorized these reactions into those related to affect and
engagement (e.g., high arousal-specific emotions such as surprise or disgust) and
those related to cognitive factors that influence belief, including factors that prompt
individuals to engage in heuristic thinking. These affective and cognitive factors
often interact in complex ways. We also categorized entertainment, humor, and
intellectual engagement as inherently both related to affect and cognition. Believing
in the content of the message is not necessary for individuals to share it online.

Keywords Social media · Social media users · Psychology · Emotion · Cognition ·


Affect · Heuristic thinking · Systematic thinking · Individual differences · Humor ·
Intellectual engagement · Entertainment · Social media sharing · Repetition

Genuine actors react to the messages and messengers they encounter. Psychology,
particularly the fields of social influence, persuasion, and decision making, has gen-
erated many findings regarding how human beings process and judge messages
(Brock & Green, 2005). We divide this section into primarily affective and cognitive
reactions with the caveat that for at least two decades, researchers have increasingly
understood how these two can impact each other and are interconnected (e.g.,
Loewenstein & Lerner, 2003; Sharot, Delgado, & Phelps, 2004). The factors
described in the affect and cognitive sections will influence each other, often in
subtle ways, even if they were often studied in isolation. In particular, affect is
related to ideology and belief in complex ways (Papacharissi, 2017). For instance,
beliefs are more likely to be changed if the piece of news is positive rather than
negative (Sharot & Garrett, 2016). In both the United States and the Netherlands,
sensitivity to feelings of disgust is associated with conservativism (e.g., Brenner &
Inbar, 2015; Inbar, Pizarro, Iyer, & Haidt, 2012). Experiencing a threat may make
liberals shift to conservativism, and a recent study suggests that inducing feelings of
safety and security may shift some conservatives to more socially progressive
stances (Napier, Huang, Vonasch, & Bargh, 2017). Given that political ideology can

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 15


S. B. F. Paletz et al., A Multidisciplinary Framework of Information
Propagation Online, SpringerBriefs in Complexity,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16413-3_3
16 3 Reactions to the Message and Messenger

Fig. 3.1 Reactions to the Affect &


message and messenger Engagement Cognition

High Arousal
Belief in Original
Emotions
Message
Other Affective
Belief Unnecessary
Engagement

influence what types of arguments may be persuasive (Jost & Krochik, 2014), affect
and cognition are not truly separate in this domain. We therefore also discuss factors
that are inherently and conceptually both cognitive and affective (e.g., intellectual
engagement).
The affect section is further divided into high arousal emotions and other affec-
tive engagement, and the cognition section is divided into factors that encourage
belief and attitudes, and those cognitive reactions unrelated to belief (or such that
belief is unnecessary; see Fig. 3.1).

3.1 Affect and Engagement

Affect, generally defined as emotions or feelings that may influence behavior, is


likely a central factor in online engagement and sharing in social networks
(Papacharissi, 2017). In this review, we conceptualize affect as a combination of
two dimensions: arousal (engagement) and pleasure/valence (positive vs. negative
affect or pleasure vs. displeasure; Russell, 2003; Watson & Tellegen, 1985). Affect
can also include basic, discrete emotions such as anger, sadness, disgust, and happi-
ness (Ekman, 1992a, b), as well as blends of these discrete emotions and longer-­
lasting moods (Ekman & Cordaro, 2011). Despite rival theories in psychology over
the nature of emotions and affect, the main theories agree that affect and emotions
are universal human physiological processes; are influenced by culture in many
ways; and involve appraisals, or the interpretation of the context in which the emo-
tion occurs (Barrett, Mesquita, Ochsner, & Gross, 2007; Elfenbein & Ambady,
2002; Russell, 2014). Affective reactions to initial narratives and messages will
likely influence individuals’ willingness to pass along those messages.
Communications scholars also identify affect as an element of information shar-
ing. Papacharissi (2017) defines “affective publics” as both the space enabled by
network technologies for the interaction between people, technology, and practices,
as well as the perceived community that results from that interaction. She claims
that sharing is a core function of affective publics. When actors in a social network
share information, they essentially become visible to others. Affect may impact
engagement and the widespread sharing of certain content online and within social
networks, such that affect “presents a way of incorporating intensity into our inter-
pretations of experiences, both qualitatively and quantitatively, as intensity
­augments, but it also drives and suggests” (p. 17). Affect is thus deeply intertwined
with networked contagion and virality.
3.1 Affect and Engagement 17

3.1.1 High Arousal-Specific Emotions

Past research has suggested that emotion is a factor in sharing behavior (e.g., Berger
& Milkman, 2012; Hasell & Weeks, 2016; Peters, Kashima, & Clark, 2009). High
arousal emotions are those that feel more intense and may entail greater physiologi-
cal arousal. A high-arousal, positive emotion might be intense joy; fury is a high-­
arousal, negative emotion. Contentment is a low-arousal, positive emotion, and
light sadness is a low-arousal, negative emotion. In general, stories and articles that
elicit emotions are more likely to prompt an intention to share than stories and
articles that do not elicit emotions. Theory and research on rumors, a type of actively
shared narrative, suggest that they tend to fall into four types: those that express fear
of a negative outcome, those that express hope for a positive outcome, those that
express hostility toward a group of people, and those that express curiosity about
intellectually puzzling rumors (Bordia & DiFonzo, 2007; Silverman, 2015). Three
of these types involve strong, arousing emotions, and the fourth is an intellectually
engaging state. Rumors are thought to spread due to a combination of threat man-
agement and sensemaking, and high arousal rumors are more likely to be shared
(Silverman, 2015).
In researching the valence of hundreds of New York Times articles that made the
most emailed list, Berger and Milkman (2012) found that positive content was
shared more than non-positive content. The researchers also found that content with
high arousal emotions like anger and anxiety boosted the likelihood that something
might be shared, regardless of a positive or negative valence.
Research on non-digital information-sharing behavior suggests that emotions
play a significant role in sharing and participants’ willingness to pass along infor-
mation offline, as well (Berger, 2011; Peters et al., 2009). In particular, the level of
arousal of an emotion may make a difference. In a non-digital study of intention to
share information, emotionality had a significant effect on participants’ willingness
to pass along anecdotes (N = 160; Peters et al., 2009). Anecdotes that had high or
medium emotionality were more likely to be shared than anecdotes with low emo-
tionality, a finding that the authors replicated with high versus low emotionality in a
smaller sample that actually shared the anecdotes (N = 40). In addition, anecdotes
that aroused interest, surprise, disgust and happiness were rated as being likely to be
shared, whereas anecdotes with fear, contempt, or sadness were not significantly
likely to be shared. In their second, smaller study, Peters et al. (2009) did not find
any differences for the specific emotions of happiness, sadness, or disgust, control-
ling for emotionality. In a separate study, arousal, but not positive or negative
valence, had a significant effect on intention to share news stories (N = 93; Berger,
2011). In that study, low arousal emotions were contentment or sadness, whereas
high arousal emotions were amusement or anxiety.
In an example of how content triggering high-arousal emotions may impact shar-
ing, a false story from the English corpus about Australia becoming the “most
microchipped nation” was shared multiple times on Facebook (Appendix A, Table
A1, story #433). In a public post on the user’s personal profile in 2017, one Facebook
user shared a link to a version of the story on YouTube. The user added the
18 3 Reactions to the Message and Messenger

Fig. 3.2 Facebook posts about fake story of Australia microchipping citizens

c­ ommentary, “Do these people realise what they are actually doing to there body’s
[sic].this.is soooooo worrying …” (see Fig. 3.2, post on left).
Another Facebook user posted a link to a version of the story on a site called sur-
vivaldan101.com. The Facebook user added commentary by writing, “And Apocalypse
is already upon them ♥ Excellent job!! Everybody will see what will happen to them
for accepting to be slaves of satan!! Stupids [sic] miserable animals!! They are not
people any more!!” (see Fig. 3.2, post on right). These comments illustrate the find-
ings by Peters et al. (2009): The information presented in this article could arguably
arouse interest, surprise and disgust in the user. By evaluating the commentary added
by Facebook users, we observed that this story invoked worry and anger.
There has also been extensive research on online sharing behavior and inten-
tions. Students were more likely to email an article if they had been jogging lightly
in place, a task that increases physiological arousal (Berger, 2011). Although the
sample was small (N = 40), the effect was large, with 75% of those who jogged
versus 35% of those who did not sharing the article. This study suggests that it is the
interpretation of the feelings of physiological arousal that encourages sharing,
rather than the specific emotions that may accompany the physiological arousal. A
separate study examined the motivations and behaviors of sharing by using semi-­
structured interviews with 40 consumers born between 1978 and 1994 (Generation
Y, and mostly university students) who forwarded video content (viral messages) in
their online networks (Botha & Reyneke, 2013). The researchers showed both
content-­specific (applicable to a certain group) and general videos to participants in
order to understand their emotional responses and to gauge whether or not the par-
ticipants would share the content. The general video, which was described with the
words “funny” or “laugh” was more likely to be shared; however, participants who
did not find it funny did not feel compelled to pass it along. In addition, the more
familiar the participants were with the content, the more likely they were to have an
emotional reaction and to pass it on. Valence in this study also proved important: If
participants had a positive emotional reaction to the video, they were more likely to
pass it on, but if they had a negative (or no) emotional reaction to the video, they
were not likely to share the video. However, the negative emotions captured in this
study were disinterest or boredom, rather than high-arousal negative emotions like
anger. Thus, although this study highlights the potential importance of positive
affect, it also confounded arousal and affect valence.
3.1 Affect and Engagement 19

Another way to examine the influence of affect on whether information is shared


on social media is to examine the content of the messages themselves. Stieglitz and
Dang-Xuan (2013) examined over 168,000 tweets related to several parliament
elections in Germany in 2011. They used a sentiment analysis tool to categorize the
tweets’ content as positive sentiment, negative sentiment, mixed sentiment, and
emotionally charged. They found that regardless of sentiment, tweets with a high
degree of emotionality were retweeted more, and more quickly, than neutral tweets.
When they examined the positive and negative sentiment of tweets and their retweet-
ability, the researchers got mixed results between the different samples of tweets
drawn from different parliamentary elections. However, the authors concluded that
emotion-filled tweets were more likely to be disseminated, and disseminated
quickly, than those with neutral sentiment. The use of such a large data set makes
this research invaluable to the literature on share behavior. A different study using
fictitious news sites and stories found that story valence had no effect on a user’s
likelihood to share news (N = 307; McIntyre & Gibson, 2016). This research used
fictional stimuli, which may impact the findings of their research. Nevertheless, the
mixed or null findings for valence suggest that emotion intensity/arousal may have
a stronger and more consistent effect than valence on information-sharing behavior
and intentions.
Similarly, a series of studies about the spread of tweets regarding polarizing top-
ics (i.e., gun control, same-sex marriage, and climate change) suggested that emo-
tional language and moral-emotional language predicted the retweet of messages
within ideological networks (Brady, Wills, Jost, Tucker, & Van Bavel, 2017). Moral
language alone did not predict retweets for gun control or same-sex marriage, but
did for climate change (Ns of entire tweet samples, including retweets, for gun con-
trol = 563,312; same-sex marriage = 47,373; and climate change = 413,611). All of
these studies point to the importance of emotional intensity, even more so than
valence, on sharing behavior.

3.1.2 Other Affective Engagement

Intense emotions are not the only type of affect related to sharing information and
narratives. Another affective reaction involves positive valence and may entail mod-
erate physiological arousal: the feeling one has when presented with something
cute. Information, narratives, and pictures may get shared on the internet simply
because they are cute (Abad-Santos, 2017; Nittono, Fukushima, Yano, Moriya, &
Paterson, 2012). Some scholars suggest that cute things are popular because they
produce positive feelings (Nittono et al., 2012). Here, we are making a distinction
between cute as adorable and cute as sexy or pretty, with the focus on the former.
Creatures are identified as cute when they have infantile (babyish) features such as
large eyes and large foreheads, heads large relative to bodies, and round cheeks
(Alley, 1981; Glocker et al., 2009). Humans are thought to instinctively respond
with caregiving desires to cute creatures (Glocker et al., 2009), even if those crea-
tures aren’t baby humans (Golle, Lisibach, Mast, & Lobmaier, 2013). In an attempt
20 3 Reactions to the Message and Messenger

to understand the fanfare and propagation of memes online surrounding a porg, a


creature in the latest Star Wars movie, a writer for the news and opinion website Vox
described the charismatic minifauna effect (Abad-Santos, 2017) based on the con-
cept of charismatic animals (megafauna) from conservation biology (e.g., Ducarme,
Luque, & Courchamp, 2013). The writer defines charismatic minifauna as “an
umbrella term for small animals that capture the imagination and affection of
humans.” Abad-Santos (2017) notes that porgs are the top-searched character from
the movie, according to Reuters, and the toy version has also been successful.
However, very little research exists around the “cute-emotion,” and no single term
exists in English for this emotional response, although it is sometimes referred to as
“cuteness response“ (Sherman & Haidt, 2011) or represented by the vocalization
“aww,” according to Buckley (2016).
Kama muta (Sanskrit for ‘moved by love’) is a social-relational emotion that
describes being heart-warmed, moved, or touched, and may include the emotions
that arise from viewing adorable cute creatures (Steinnes, 2017). Research explor-
ing reactions to cute videos found that watching such content evoked kama muta in
participants (N = 135; Steinnes, 2017). When watching a cute video, participants
also felt a stronger motivation to engage in communal sharing; had more intense
bodily sensations; had more subjective feelings of being moved, touched, and heart
warmed; and had more positive feelings than they did when watching the control
video (Steinnes, 2017). These affective reactions may tie into fulfilling deeper needs
and motivations. For example, even though ISIS tends to show images intended to
intimidate, they also released photographs of soldiers with kittens (Whitehead,
2016). These images may have the dual purpose of communicating warmth as well
as being a historical reference to a companion of the Prophet Mohammed, who was
fond of cats (Farwell, 2014).
Emotions related to general enjoyment in the act of sharing itself may also con-
tribute to an individual’s motivation to share information. Research aimed at identi-
fying motivations for sharing information on social networking sites found a positive
relationship between sharing enjoyment and information-sharing behaviors
(N = 308; Kim, Lee, & Elias, 2015). Also, Syn and Oh (2015) examined ten motivat-
ing factors for sharing on social media. They found that enjoyment was indeed a
motivating factor when sharing information on social media, but it was not the
strongest motivation, which was learning. Another aspect of psychology that pro-
motes deep engagement is human needs. The topic of fundamental needs will be
covered in the chapter on motivation.

3.2 Cognition

In addition to individuals being influenced to share because of the emotionally


intense nature of the content, cognitive reactions to the content and source also play
a role. Cognition is not, of course, entirely free of or isolated from affect (e.g.,
Loewenstein & Lerner, 2003). The movie viewers in the Paletz, Koon, Whitehead,
3.2 Cognition 21

and Hagens (1972) study had a negative emotional reaction to the movie’s tone and
style, which influenced how persuasive they found its message. This section focuses
on summarizing the sizable literature on factors that influence belief in an original
message, which has been assumed to promote sharing online (e.g., Broniatowski,
Hilyard, & Dredze, 2016). However, belief is not always necessary for why indi-
viduals share narratives online. In a second subsection, we touch on those situations,
which we observed in our qualitative research and anecdotally.

3.2.1 Belief in the Original Message

There are several factors that influence readers to believe the content they read (see
Table 3.1). These factors involve source and message credibility; confirmation and
related biases; message availability, accessibility, and fluency; framing; deliberate
persuasive techniques; and individual differences of the target audience, or in this
case, potential sharer. Two theories of persuasion—the elaboration likelihood model
and the heuristic-systematic model—converged in their identification of two sepa-
rate modes of persuasion and processing social information: heuristic (or periph-
eral) and systematic modes (or central; e.g., Chaiken & Maheswaran, 1994; Chen &
Chaiken, 1999; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Petty, Cacioppo, Strathman, & Priester,
2005). Whereas systematic or central processing involves logically, attentively, con-
sciously, and effortfully weighing the pros and cons of information, heuristic (or
peripheral) processing entails using fast, simple heuristics and cues. Heuristic pro-
cessing can only occur if the relevant heuristics are both available in memory and
relevant (accessible) to the situation, with frequent use likely resulting in chronic
readiness of the heuristic to be used (Chen & Chaiken, 1999). The scientific litera-
ture on cognition identifies these two modes as System 1 (heuristic) and System 2
(systematic). These modes have also been argued to be fundamentally different
types of reasoning and memory in general, even beyond the processing of social
information, and to have biological bases (e.g., Evans, 2003; Smith & DeCoster,
2000). Many, but not all, of the factors listed below involve activating one of these
types of information processing. Although many of these factors involve heuristic
processing, it would be inaccurate to assume that relying solely on systematic pro-
cessing would inure people from spreading fake news. Many of the factors below

Table 3.1 Selected cognitive Cognitive factors


reactions to messages
Source and message credibility
Confirmation and related biases
Message availability, accessibility, and fluency
Framing
Deliberate persuasive techniques
Individual differences of the target audience
22 3 Reactions to the Message and Messenger

entail both types of processing, and systematic processing is less helpful when the
information available is incorrect or misrepresented.
Source and Message Credibility
The first set of factors, which generally but not exclusively involves heuristic think-
ing, entails credibility and attractiveness of the source, as well as message credibil-
ity (e.g., Heesacker, Petty, & Cacioppo, 1983; Pornpitakpan, 2004; Schwarz, Sanna,
Skurnik, & Yoon, 2007; Swire, Berinsky, Lewandowsky, & Ecker, 2017). For exam-
ple, one of the inaccurate news stories in our qualitative analysis was titled “NPR:
25 Million Votes For Clinton ‘Completely Fake’ – She Lost Popular Vote” (see
Appendix A, Table A1, story #106 for more detail). National Public Radio (NPR) is
commonly considered a high-standard and generally nonpartisan news source,
though the American right considered it leftist and biased in favor of Clinton, or at
least non-independent (Langlois, 2016). In this context, NPR may have been cited
to either identify the source as credible or to imply that the story must be true
because it conflicted with the perceived liberal bias of NPR. Facebook users repost-
ing this story explicitly raised the issue of NPR as source credibility for liberals,
such as “NPR? Wow! I think we all knew this to be true” and “My liberal friends
will break their butts saying this is ‘fake News.’”
Both source attractiveness and credibility have consistent effects on persuasive-
ness, making a message more appealing (Petty et al., 2005; Pornpitakpan, 2004).
Physical attractiveness seems to have a positive effect when perceived expertise of
a source is low (Pornpitakpan, 2004). Source credibility is similarly often linked to
message credibility. In a study of 220 students at a journalism school, individuals
judged online information, but not advertisements, based on the perceived credibil-
ity of the web source (New York Times versus a personal home page; Greer, 2003).
Quick cues and heuristics may indicate credibility even when the cues are not indic-
ative of accuracy. For example, non-native speakers of English were rated as less
credible than native speakers when stating trivia facts (Lev-Ari & Keysar, 2010).
Although the participants were able to correct this bias when the accents were mild,
they were unable to overcome this bias when the accents were heavy. In another
study, claims were more likely to be believed when the individuals to whom they
were attributed had easily pronounced names, even controlling for region of origin
of those names (Newman et al., 2014). Source credibility can be judged by per-
ceived authority (power), trustworthiness, and/or expertise (Pornpitakpan, 2004).
For example, in our Russian corpus, the story on foreign nationals collecting bio-
logical material in Russia had a huge resonance in social media, possibly due to the
fact that it was originated by President Putin and aired on national TV, and thus
considered highly credible (see Appendix A, Table A2, story #1).
Expertise entails whether the source is perceived as making accurate statements
(Pornpitakpan, 2004). A series of studies suggested a small but consistent effect of
having citations in a text on judgments of the truth of claims (Putnam & Phelps,
2017). The citations may serve as a heuristic for perceived correct expertise.
Credibility can also be attributed because of a contrast to nearby information. In a
large study (N = 877), a news story embedded in an impolite partisan blog appeared
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
Kiitos huolenpidostasi, arvoisa juutalainen. Takaisin — tahdon
nähdä kansalaiset vielä kerran illan hämärässä.

ÄÄNI PUIDEN VÄLISTÄ.

Hamin poika toivottaa hyvää yötä vanhalle auringolle.

ÄÄNI OIKEALTA.

Maljasi, sinä vanha vihollisemme, joka olet ajanut meidät työhön ja


helteeseen. Kun huomenna nouset, tapaat orjasi lihapatojen ja
kannujen ääressä — ja nyt, lasini, joudat helvettiin.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Joukko talonpoikia tulee tänne päin.

MIES.

Et saa hievahtaa. Seiso tuon puun takana ja ole vaiti.

TALONPOIKIEN KUORO.

Menkäämme, menkäämme telttojen suojaan, veljiemme luo —


menkäämme, menkäämme vaahterain varjoon, uinumaan,
hupaisasti tarinoimaan illalla — siellä tytöt odottavat meitä — siellä
ovat tapetut härät, entiset auranvetäjät odottavat meitä.

ERÄS ÄÄNI.

Minä vedän häntä ja laahaan, se kyyristelee ja vastustelee —


mars rekryytiksi, mars!
HERRAN ÄÄNI.

Hyvät lapsukaiseni, armoa, armoa.

TOINEN ÄÄNI.

Anna minulle takaisin kaikki verotyöhön menneet päiväni.

KOLMAS ÄÄNI.

Herätäppäs eloon, herra, kasakkaruoskan iskuihin nääntynyt


poikani.

NELJÄS ÄÄNI.

Moukat juovat sinun maljasi, herra, pyytävät sinulta anteeksi,


herra.

TALONPOIKIEN KUORO (ohikulkien).

Vampyyri on imenyt veremme ja hikemme. Nyt se on


vankinamme, emme päästä vampyyriä. Hitto vieköön, hitto vieköön,
sinä saat korkean lopun, — herra kun olet ja suuri herra, niin sinut
vedetään meitä kaikkia korkeammalle. Surma tyranniherroille. Meille
köyhille, meille nälkäisille ja uupuneille, syömistä, lepoa ja juomaa
meille. — Heidän ruumiitaan on oleva kuin lyhteitä pelloilla. Kuin
akanoita puimakoneesta, jää tuhkaa heidän linnoistaan.
Viikatteittemme, kirveittemme ja puintivarstaimme nimessä,
eteenpäin, veljet.

MIES.
En voinut eroittaa hänen kasvojaan joukon keskeltä.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Kenties on siellä joku jalosukuisen herran tuttava tai sukulainen.

MIES.

Häntä minä halveksin ja teitä minä vihaan — runous kultaa vielä


joskus sen kaiken. — Menkäämme, juutalainen, menkäämme.

(Laskeutuu pensaikkoon.)

*****

Toinen kohta havumetsää. Kunnaita, joilla leimuaa nuotioita.


Kansaa koolla tulisoihtujen valossa.

MIES (sukeltaen esiin alhaalta puiden takaa kastetun juutalaisen


kanssa).

Oksat ovat repineet riekaleiksi vapaudenlakkini. — Mikä


punertavain loimujen helvetti nousee tuolta kahden metsänseinämän
keskeltä, kahden pimeysröykkiön lomasta.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Olemme eksyneet etsiessämme pyhän Ignatiuksen rotkoa.


Takaisin pensaikkoon, sillä täällä toimittaa Leonard uuden uskon
juhlamenoja.

MIES (tullen esiin).


Jumalan nimessä, menkäämme — sitä juuri olen halunnut. Älä
pelkää, ei kukaan tunne meitä.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Varovasti, hitaasti!

MIES.

Kaikkialla jonkin suurrakennuksen raunioita, joka on saanut kestää


vuosisatoja ennenkuin on kukistunut, pylväitä, jalustoja, otsikkoja,
kappaleiksi lyötyjä kuvapatsaita, sikin sokin piirtokoristeita, joita
kierrettiin muinaisten kaariholvien ympärille. Jaloissani välähti juuri
survottu lasilevy — on kuin Pyhän Neitsyen kasvot olisivat hetkeksi
tulleet näkyviin varjosta ja taas häipyneet — tuossa, katso, on
kokonainen kaariholvi — tuossa on soraan uponnut rautaristikko —
ylhäältä välähti tulisoihdun valo — näen puolet ritarista, joka nukkuu
keskellä hautaa — opas, missä olen?

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Väkemme teki veristä työtään neljäkymmentä päivää ja yötä. Nyt


he vihdoinkin ovat saaneet hävitetyksi viimeisen kirkon näiltä
tasangoilta. — Nyt juuri kuljemme hautausmaan ohi.

MIES.

Teidän laulunne, uudet ihmiset, kaikuvat katkerilta korvissani —


tummia ihmishaamuja tunkeilee takaa, edestä ja sivuilta, loimut ja
varjot kulkevat tuulen ajamina joukkojen yli kuin elävät henget.

OHIKULKIJA.
Vapauden nimessä onnittelen teitä molempia.

TOINEN.

Herrojen surman nimessä tervehdin teitä kumpaakin.

KOLMAS.

Miksi ette kiiruhda, tuolla laulavat vapauden papit.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

On mahdotonta panna vastaan. Kaikkialta sysivät meitä.

MIES.

Kuka on tuo nuori mies, joka seisoo rakennuksen raunioilla?


Kolme roviota palaa hänen allaan, keskellä savua ja hiillosta hän
seisoo, kasvot hehkuvat ja äänessä on mielettömyyden kaiku.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Se on Leonard, vapauden intomielinen profetta. Ympärillä seisovat


meidän uhripappimme, filosofimme, runoilijamme, taiteilijamme,
heidän tyttärensä ja lemmittynsä.

MIES.

Haa! teidän ylimystönne. Näytä minulle hänet, joka sinut lähetti.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.
En näe häntä täällä.

LEONARD.

Antakaa hänet minun suudeltavakseni, rintaani vasten


puristaakseni, syleilykseni häntä kaunokaistani, riippumatonta,
vapautunutta, verhoista ja ennakkoluuloista paljastunutta vapauden
valittua tytärtä, kihlattuani.

NEIDON ÄÄNI.

Minä riennän sinun luoksesi, rakkaani!

TOINEN NAIS-ÄÄNI.

Katso, minä ojennan sinulle käteni — olen vaipunut maahan


uupumuksesta — olen tahrautunut kulkiessani pitkin suitsuavia
raunioita, armaani.

KOLMAS NAIS-ÄÄNI.

Olen päässyt heidän edelleen. Läpi tuhkan ja helteen, läpi tulen ja


sauhun tulen luoksesi, armaani.

MIES.

Hiukset hajallaan, läähättävin rinnoin kapuaa hän raunioille


intohimoisin liikkein.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Tällaista on joka yö.


LEONARD.

Tule luokseni, tule, oi hekumani, vapauden tytär. Sinä vapiset


jumalaisessa tulessa — pyhä innostus, ota valtaasi minun sieluni.
Kuulkaa kaikki, nyt minä ennustan teille.

MIES.

Naisen pää vaipui, hän menee tainnoksiin.

LEONARD.

Katsokaa, me seisomme molemmat vapautetun, ylösnousseen


ihmissuvun kuvana vanhojen muotojen, vanhan Jumalan raunioilla.
Kunnia meille että olemme Hänen jäsenensä repineet, nyt ovat ne
tomuna ja tuhkana. Ja Hänen henkensä me olemme voittaneet
omalla hengellämme, hänen henkensä on suistunut tyhjyyteen.

NAISTEN KUORO.

Onnellinen, onnellinen on profetan kihlattu. Me seisomme alhaalla


ja kadehdimme hänen kunniaansa.

LEONARD.

Minä julistan uuden maailman, uudelle jumalalle luovutan taivaat.


Vapauden ja hekuman Herra, rahvaan Jumala, jokainen koston uhri,
jokainen tyrannin ruumis olkoon sinun alttarinasi. Verimeriin
hukkukoot ihmissuvun vanhat kyyneleet ja kärsimykset — sen
elämänä olkoon tästä lähtien onni — sen oikeutena tasa-arvoisuus
— ja joka muuta luo, sille hirttonuora ja kirous.
MIESTEN KUORO.

Romahtanut on sorron ja ylpeyden rakennus. Ken siitä yhden


kivenkään korjaa, sille kuolema ja kirous.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN (syrjään).

Jehovan häpäisijät, kolmasti syljen teidän perikadoksenne.

MIES.

Kotka, pidä lupauksesi, niin minä nostatan tähän heidän


niskoilleen uuden kirkon Kristukselle.

ÄÄNIÄ SEKAISIN.

Vapaus — onni — hurraa — hei — hellerei — hurraa — hurraa.

PAPPIEN KUORO.

Missä ovat herrat, missä kuninkaat, jotka vielä äsken kuljeskelivat


maan päällä valtikkoineen ja kruunuineen, korskeina ja tuikeina.

MURHAMIES.

Minä olen tappanut kuningas Aleksanterin.

TOINEN.

Minä kuningas Henrikin.

KOLMAS.
Minä kuningas Emanuelin.

LEONARD.

Kulkekaa pelottomina ja murhatkaa ilman tunnonvaivaa, sillä te


olette valituista valitut, pyhistä pyhimmät, sillä te olette vapauden
marttyrejä, vapauden sankareja.

MURHAMIESTEN KUORO.

Lähtekäämme yön pimeyteen pusertaen tikareja kourissamme,


lähtekäämme, lähtekäämme.

LEONARD.

Herää, sulottareni.

(Kuuluu ukkonen.)

No, antakaa vastaus elävälle Jumalalle. Kohottakaa laulunne,


tulkaa jälestäni kaikki, kaikki. Vielä kerran kierrämme ja tallaamme
maahan kuolleen Jumalan temppelin.

Ja sinä, nosta pääsi, nouse ja herää.

NEITO.

Palan rakkautta sinuun ja Jumalaasi, koko maailmalle jaan


rakkauteni — palan — palan.

MIES.
Joku on juossut hänen luokseen, vaipunut polvilleen, ponnistaa
voimiaan, sopertaa jotain ja voihkii.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Minä näen, minä näen, se on kuuluisan filosofin poika.

LEONARD.

Mitä tahdot, Herman?

HERMAN.

Ylipappi, anna minulle pyhä voitelu murhatöihin.

LEONARD (uhripapeille).

Antakaa minulle öljy, tikari ja myrkky.

(Hermanille.)

Öljyllä, jolla ennen on voideltu kuninkaita, voitelen nyt sinut


kuninkaita surmaamaan — entisten ritarien ja herrojen aseet panen
herrojen hävittämiseksi sinun käsiisi — rintaasi ripustan medaljongin,
myrkkyä täyden — minne ei rautasi ylety, siellä jäytäköön ja
polttakoon myrkky tyrannien sisuksia. — Mene ja hävitä vanhat
sukupolvet kaikista maan ääristä.

MIES.

Hän läksi liikkeelle ja nousee joukon etunenässä mäelle.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.
Väistykäämme tieltä.

MIES.

Ei, minä tahdon nähdä loppuun tämän unen.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Kolmasti sylkäisen sinua.

(Miehelle.)

Leonard saattaa tuntea minut, jalosukuinen herra. Katso miten


suuri puukko riippuu hänen ryntäisillään.

MIES.

Peitä itsesi minun vaipallani — Mitä naisia ne ovat, jotka tanssivat


edessämme.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Kreivittäriä ja ruhtinattaria, jotka ovat jättäneet miehensä ja


siirtyneet meidän uskoomme.

MIES.

Muinoin ne olivat enkeleitäni. — Joukko on tulvinut kaikkialta


hänen ympärilleen — hän on nyt hävinnyt näkyvistäni tungokseen,
vain soitosta arvaan, että hän etenee meistä. Tule jälestäni, tuolta on
meidän helpompi nähdä.

(Vetäytyy muurin jätteelle.)


KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Voi, voi, voi, kuka hyvänsä voi huomata meidät täältä.

MIES.

Minä näen hänet taas. Toiset naiset tunkeilevat hänen jälestään


kalpeina, mielettöminä, kouristuksissaan. Filosofin poika suu
vaahdossa pudistelee tikaria. — He tulevat nyt pohjoisen tornin
raunioille.

He pysähtyivät — tanssivat soraläjässä — repivät maahan


pystyynjääneitä holvikaaria — heittävät kipunoita kaatuneille
alttareille ja risteille. Liekit nousevat ja ajavat savupatsaita edellään.
Voi teitä, voi teitä.

LEONARD.

Voi ihmisiä, jotka vielä kumartavat kuollutta Jumalaa.

MIES.

Mustat peikot kääntyvät tänne ja tulevat kiireesti meitä kohti.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Voi Abraham!

MIES.

Kotka, eihän toki hetkeni liene vielä tullut?

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.
Me olemme hukassa.

LEONARD (pysähtyy kulkiessaan ohi).

Mikä mies sinä olet, veli, jolla on kasvot noin korskeina? Miksi et
liity seuraamme?

MIES.

Olen kiiruhtanut kaukaa kuultuani teidän kumousliikkeenne


herätyshuudon. Olen espanjalaisen klubin murhaaja ja vastikään
saapunut.

LEONARD.

Entä tuo toinen, miksi hän on piilottanut päänsä viittasi poimuihin?

MIES.

Hän on nuorempi veljeni. Hän on antanut sanan, ettei näytä


kasvojaan ihmisille ennenkuin on surmannut vähintään jonkin
paronin.

LEONARD.

Kenen kuolemasta voit sinä itse ylpeillä?

MIES.

Vasta kaksi päivää ennen matkalle lähtöä antoivat vanhemmat


veljeni minulle pyhän voitelun.

LEONARD.
Kuka sinulla sitten on mielessä?

MIES.

Sinä ensimäisenä, jos olet meille uskoton.

LEONARD.

Veli, sitä varten saat tästä tikarini.

(Vetää tikarin vyönsä alta.)

MIES (ottaa esiin oman tikarinsa).

Veli, siihen työhön omanikin riittää.

VÄKIJOUKON ÄÄNI.

Eläköön Leonard. Eläköön espanjalainen murhamies.

LEONARD.

Saavu huomenna johtaja-kansalaisen teltan luo.

PAPPIEN KUORO.

Tervehdimme sinua, vieraamme, vapauden hengen nimessä —


sinun kädessäsi on osa pelastuksestamme. Ken taistelee
taukoamatta, ken murhaa arkailematta, ken uskoo voittoon päivin ja
öin, se vihdoin voittaa.

(Menevät ohi.)
FILOSOFIEN KUORO.

Me olemme kohottaneet ihmissuvun lapsuudestaan. Me olemme


temmanneet totuuden pimeyden povesta kirkkauteen. Taistele sen
puolesta, murhaa ja kaadu.

(Menevät ohi.)

FILOSOFIN POIKA.

Toveri ja veli, muinaisen pyhimyksen vadista juon sinun maljasi.


Näkemiin.

(Heittää vadin menemään.)

TYTTÖ (tanssien).

Murhaa minulle ruhtinas Juhana.

TOINEN.

Minulle kreivi Henrik.

LAPSET.

Me pyydämme kiltisti ylimyksen päätä.

TOISET.

Onnea ja menestystä tikarillesi.

TAITEILIJAIN KUORO.
Tähän goottilaisen temppelin raunioille me rakennamme uuden
temppelin. Siinä ei saa olla kuvia eikä kuvapatsaita — holvit pitkistä
tikareista, pylväät kahdeksasta ihmisen päästä, ja kunkin pylvään
huippu kuin hiukset, joista veri tihkuu. Alttari yksin olkoon valkea ja
vain yksi merkki sen päällä: vapauden lakki — hurraa!

TOISET.

Eteenpäin, eteenpäin, aamu jo sarastaa.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Hirttävät meidät heti. Missä on hirsipuu?

MIES.

Vaiti, juutalainen. He lentävät jo Leonardin jälestä eivätkä enää


katsele meitä. — Luon viimeisen silmäyksen, kokoan vielä kerran
ajatuksiini tuon kaaoksen, joka nousee ajan syvyyksistä, pimeyden
helmasta minua ja kaikkia veljiäni tuhoamaan. Mielettömyyden
ajamat, epätoivon repimät ajatukseni kiertävät koko voimallaan.

Jumalani, anna minulle voimaa, jota et ole koskaan minulta


kieltänyt, ja minä suljen yhteen sanaan tämän uuden, äärettömän
maailman, joka ei itse ymmärrä itseään. Mutta se sanani on tuleva
koko tulevaisuuden runoudeksi.

ÄÄNI ILMASTA.

Sinä sepität draamaa.

MIES.
Kiitos neuvostasi. — Kostoa isieni häväistystä tomusta, kirous
uusille
sukupolville. Niiden pyörre ympäröi minut, vaan ei vie mukaansa. —
Kotka, kotka, pidä lupauksesi. — Mutta nyt seuraa minua laaksoon
pyhän
Ignatiuksen linnahautaan.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Päivä on jo lähellä. En lähde enää kauemmas.

MIES.

Näytä minulle tie, minä päästän sinut sitten.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Minne kuletat minua keskellä sumua ja raunioita, ohdakkeita ja


tuhkaa?
Armahda minua, armahda.

MIES.

Eteenpäin, eteenpäin ja alas minun kanssani. Joukkojen viimeiset


laulut vaikenevat takanamme. Siellä täällä enää liekehtii tulisoihtu.
Näetkö noiden kalpeiden usvahöyryjen, noiden kosteiden puiden
välissä menneisyyden varjoja, kuuletko noita valittavia ääniä?

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Usva peittää kaikki. Me kiidämme yhä alemmas.


HENKIEN KUORO METSÄSTÄ.

Itkekäämme Kristuksen tähden, poisajetun ja piinatun Kristuksen


tähden.
Missä on jumalamme, missä on hänen kirkkonsa?

MIES.

Pian, pian miekan kahvaan ja taisteluun. Minä annan Hänet teille


takaisin. Tuhansiin risteihin ristiinnaulitsen Hänen vihollisensa.

HENKIEN KUORO.

Me vartioitsimme alttareja ja pyhiä muistomerkkejä, kellojen kaiun


kannoimme siivillämme uskoville, urkujen sävelissä soivat meidän
äänemme, tuomiokirkon ikkunalasien väikkeessä, sen pilarien
varjoissa, pyhän pikarin loisteessa, Herran Ruumiin siunaamisessa
oli elämämme. Minne me nyt painamme päämme.

MIES.

Päivä kirkastuu kirkastumistaan. Heidän haamunsa haihtuvat


aamuruskon säteissä.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Tuonne menee tiesi, siellä alkaa linnahauta.

MIES.

Hoi! — Jesus ja sapelini.


(Ottaen lakkinsa ja pistäen rahaa siihen.)

Ota muistoksi tämä ja tunnussana samalla kertaa.

KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.

Olethan, jalosukuinen herra, sanallasi taannut turvallisuuden sille,


joka tänään puoliyön aikaan…

MIES.

Vanha aatelismies ei toista sanaansa kahta kertaa. — Jesus ja


sapelini.

ÄÄNI PENSAIKOSTA.

Maria ja sapelimme. — Eläköön herramme.

MIES.

Usko, tule minuun! — Hyvästi, kansalainen.

Usko, tule minuun! —Jesus ja Maria.

*****

Yö. Pensaikko. Puita.

PANKRATIUS (väelleen).

Asettukaa kasvot nurmea vasten, maatkaa ääneti, tulta ei saa


raapaista, ei edes piippuun. Ja heti ensimäisestä laukauksesta
rientäkää minulle avuksi. Jollei laukausta kuulu, älkää liikahtako
ennen selvää päivää.

LEONARD.

Kansalainen, vannotan sinua vielä kerran.

PANKRATIUS.

Pysy tuossa petäjässä kiinni ja ajattele siinä.

LEONARD.

Ota ainakin minut mukaasi. Hän on herra, hän on aristokratti ja


petturi.

PANKRATIUS (käskien kädellään hänen jäämään).

Vanhat aatelismiehet pitävät joskus sanansa.

*****

Pitkähkö huone. Vallasnaisten ja ritarien kuvia siellä täällä seinillä.


Perällä pilari, jolla riippuu vaakuna kilpi. Mies istuu pienen
marmoripöydän ääressä, jolla on lamppu, pari pistolia, ratsusapeli ja
kello. Vastapäätä toinen pieni pöytä, hopeisia kannuja ja pikareja.

MIES.

Muinoin tähän samaan vuorokauden aikaan keskellä uhkaavia


vaaroja ja samallaisia ajatuksia ilmestyi Brutukselle Cesarin henki.
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