On September 22, 2018, the 2018 Annual Conference of Computational Communication Research Association of the Chinese Association for Journalism and Mass Communication (CCRA 2018) is held at Jingshi Building of Beijing Normal University. The paper titled Emotional Contagion of Netizens in the Process of Rumor Refutation and Its Simulation Study written by Researcher Zeng Runxi from the School of Journalism in collaboration with Zhu Di, a postgraduate, wins the third prize of Excellent Paper Award for teachers of 2018.

At the event, 23 papers submitted by City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan University, Nanjing University, Beijing Normal University and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications are included in the poster session, and 25 are included in the oral presentation session. After review by the experts, 1 paper of the first prize, 2 papers of the second prize and 3 papers of the third prize are eventually selected respectively for teachers and students.

This paper centers on the emotional contagion of netizens in the process of rumor refutation. In the paper, the calculation method of subject emotion value and conversion rules are improved based on the existing emotion model, so as to simulate the process of transmission of emotions from individuals to the group in the process of rumor refutation. The research findings will play a positive role in further understanding of the evolution of netizens’ emotion, and may also serve as the basis for early discovery and conversion of negative emotions.