Unverified information of uncertain origin often spread by the oral tradition, as well as by
phone, fax, broadcasting, or computer. Although rumors may be malicious or idle, they
thrive in most societies worldwide, in both urban and rural settings. Rumors affect all
facets of human experience, and almost every person has participated at one time in
either the simple form of rumor (gossip) or the more complex form that is closely akin to
the legend.
Rumor topics circulate around sex, love and marriage, murder, war, illness, religion,
crime, race, politics, and so on. In the United States, rumors thrive about California
falling into the sea, about Chinese restaurants serving chopped cat, and about President
John F.Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. Whatever the subject, once a potentially
dangerous or embarrassing rumor enters oral tradition, it gains powerfully in strength and
dominance. The more intriguing the subject or deed, the stronger the paths of
dissemination. While some rumors tend to remain extremely simplified in their recreations, many tend to grow until they reach proportional dimensions that are almost
unrecognizable to earlier renditions of the lore. Both creativity and exaggeration account
for the endless versions in this field. The creative energies of the tellers allow for a type
of subjectifying that reflects personal perception and remembrance and local
geographical and physical setting. Exaggeration, a common characteristic of rumor, often
takes the form of multiplication: One person becomes five; one incident becomes ten;
$100.00 becomes $1,000.00; and the midget becomes the giant.
Rumors are legitimate folkloric items, whether the contents of the rumor narrative are
true or contrived. Rumors almost always suggest to the folk that there must be some truth
involved: “Where there’s smoke there’s fire!” Folk members can readily point to cases
wherein initial rumors prove to be accurate. On the other hand, history teaches that the
most powerful and tragic rumors may be utterly baseless. The thousandfold repetition of
the scapegoat rumor that Adolf Hitler invented against the Jews of Germany proved to be
groundless but, nonetheless, highly effective in his campaign of He-braic genocide. The
stories in ancient Greece that Socrates was destroying the minds of the youth and causing
them to turn to violence resulted in his death. During the early 20th century, rape rumors
(the sexual assault of Whites by African Americans) triggered numerous race riots in
American cities.
While relatively little research has been done on rumor, folklorists, psychologists,
sociologists, political scientists, and anthropologists continue to probe this phenomenon
in an effort to understand better the origins, the dissemination process, and the effects that
rumor has had and continues to have on communities throughout the world.
Elon A.Kulii
References
Allport, Gordon W., and Leo Postman. 1947. The Psychology of Rumor. New York: H.Holt.
Knopf, Terry Ann. 1975. Rumors, Race, and Riots. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Rosnow, Ralph L., and Gary Alan Fine. 1976. Rumor and Gossip: The Social Psychology of
Hearsay. New York: Elsevier.
Shibutani, Tamotsu. 1966. Improvised News: A Sociological Study of Rumor. New York: Bobbs-Merrill.