{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,28]],"date-time":"2026-03-28T08:20:27Z","timestamp":1774686027423,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":53,"publisher":"Oxford University Press (OUP)","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,28]],"date-time":"2022-12-28T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1672185600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":54,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100012325","name":"National Social Science Fund of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["21CXW018"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["21CXW018"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100012325","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,4]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title><jats:p>There are growing concerns about the role of identity narratives in spreading misinformation on social media, which threatens informed citizenship. Drawing on the social identity model of deindividualization effects (SIDE) and social identity theory, we investigate how the use of national identity language is associated with the diffusion and discourse of COVID-19 conspiracy theories on Weibo, a popular social media platform in China. Our results reveal a pattern of identity communication contagion in public conversations about conspiracies: national identity language usage in original posts is associated with more frequent use of such language in all subsequent conversations. Users who engaged in discussions about COVID-19 conspiracies used more national identity expressions in everyday social media conversations. By extending the SIDE model and social identity theory to misinformation studies, our article offers theoretical and empirical insight into how identity\u2013contagious communication might exacerbate public engagement with misinformation on social media in non-Western contexts.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1093\/jcmc\/zmac034","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,28]],"date-time":"2022-12-28T13:51:41Z","timestamp":1672235501000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":19,"title":["When national identity meets conspiracies: the contagion of national identity language in public engagement and discourse about COVID-19 conspiracy theories"],"prefix":"10.1093","volume":"28","author":[{"given":"Anfan","family":"Chen","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Journalism and Communication, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, New Asia College , Shatin, Hong Kong SAR"},{"name":"Department of Science Communication, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei, Anhui, China"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5864-5333","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Kaiping","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Life Sciences Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison , Madison, Wisconsin, USA"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1733-6857","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jingwen","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Communication, University of California Davis , Davis, California, USA"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9120-2908","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jingbo","family":"Meng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Communication, The Ohio State University , Columbus, Ohio, USA"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1645-8211","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Cuihua","family":"Shen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Communication, University of California Davis , Davis, California, USA"}]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,28]]},"reference":[{"key":"2022122813512742200_zmac034-B1","volume-title":"2019 WeChat & Weibo data insights","author":"Alex","year":"2019"},{"key":"2022122813512742200_zmac034-B2","volume-title":"Breaking the social media prism","author":"Bail","year":"2021"},{"issue":"1","key":"2022122813512742200_zmac034-B3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"76","DOI":"10.1093\/pan\/mpu011","article-title":"Birds of the same feather tweet together: Bayesian ideal point estimation using Twitter data","volume":"23","author":"Barber\u00e1","year":"2015","journal-title":"Political Analysis"},{"key":"2022122813512742200_zmac034-B4","first-page":"212","volume-title":"Computational propaganda: Political parties, politicians, and political manipulation on social media","author":"Bolsover","year":"2017"},{"issue":"10","key":"2022122813512742200_zmac034-B5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1802","DOI":"10.1037\/xge0000532","article-title":"An ideological asymmetry in the diffusion of moralized content on social media among political leaders","volume":"148","author":"Brady","year":"2019","journal-title":"Journal of Experimental Psychology: General"},{"key":"2022122813512742200_zmac034-B6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.37016\/mr-2020-50","article-title":"Conspiracy and debunking narratives about COVID-19 origins on Chinese social media: How it started and who is to blame","author":"Chen","year":"2020","journal-title":"Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review"},{"issue":"6","key":"2022122813512742200_zmac034-B7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2162","DOI":"10.1177\/1461444817731923","article-title":"Demystifying \u201cLittle Pink\u201d: The creation and evolution of a gendered label for nationalistic activists in China","volume":"20","author":"Fang","year":"2018","journal-title":"New Media & Society"},{"issue":"7","key":"2022122813512742200_zmac034-B8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2450","DOI":"10.1177\/1461444817724170","article-title":"Are people incidentally exposed to news on social media? 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