The Watercooler Effect

By Virginia Prescott on Monday, September 8, 2008.

It was one week ago today that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin announced that her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant. The news rebutted nasty speculation that Palin’s five-month-old son is actually her grandchild.

Political campaigns are fertile ground for rumors - remember the Obama-is-a-Muslim emails? - but beyond damaging reputations, unverifiable rumors can destroy livelihoods, destabilize markets, bolster sterotypes and drive wedges into communities. If we consider that Saddam Hussein spread rumors about having WMDs to intimidate his enemies, hearsay can even contribute to disaster on an international scale.

The 24-hour news cycle and widespread access to the Internet now fuel idle watercooler conversation and spread unverifiable information like wildfire. How and why rumors spread, and why it’s so difficult to squelch them is the subject of a new book, The Watercooler Effect, by Nicholas DiFonzo. He’s professor of psychology at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and he joins Word of Mouth from WXXI in Rochester.

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I did not catch the whole segment, but what I heard was interesting. Just tonight, I found that UAL stock was halted from trading after the stock plunged as a result of a five year old news story being picked up by Bloomberg. This according to MarketWatch.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/ual-shares-hit-years-old-bankruptc...
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Submitted by Laura Ellum on Mon, 09/08/2008 - 22:00.

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Word of Mouth is all about what's new. Online and on-air, the show looks at our fascinating and ever-changing world, and puts the latest ideas under a microscope. Word of Mouth investigates everything from science and technology, to health and the environment, to new trends in popular culture. The show airs Monday through Thursday at noon and is hosted by Virginia Prescott.