China'S "Fake News" Problem: Exploring The Spread Of Online Rumors In The Government-Controlled News Media

This study examines the "fake news" problem in China where the media environment is tightly controlled. Focusing on online rumors that are not politically sensitive, this article seeks to shed light on a commercialized dimension of China's online media landscape in addition to a highly politicalized one that previous research has emphasized. Based on an intermedia agenda-setting analysis of the top ten rumors circulated on China's Internet in 2016, this study demonstrates that although the government-controlled news websites challenged the rumors to a great extent, they also contributed to the perpetration of misinformation. Even the national official media advanced some rumors themselves and induced other media outlets to do so.