Facts, frames, and (mis)interpretations: Understanding rumors as collective sensemaking

Kate Starbird

In brief

Kate Starbird presents an emerging theoretical framework for understanding rumors, misinformation, and disinformation as outputs of collective sensemaking—the process by which people work together to interpret ambiguous information during crises. She argues that misinformation often stems not from false evidence alone, but from how people use frames (mental schemas) to interpret evidence, and how political actors strategically manipulate those frames. Through examples from the Boston Marathon bombing (2013), Sharpie gate (2020 election), and Maricopa County voting issues (2022), she shows how disinformation campaigns succeed through collaboration between elites, influencers, and audiences rather than top-down coordination.

Key concepts

Collective sensemaking: During times of crisis or high information ambiguity, people come together to gather, share, synthesize, and interpret information. This is a natural human process that can produce both accurate and false understanding. Rumors are byproducts of this sensemaking—explanations or theories people construct to make sense of uncertainty.

Frames and evidence: Frames are mental schemas that help us interpret and give meaning to experiences. The same evidence can lead to different interpretations depending on which frame someone uses. A rigged-election frame, for example, might lead someone to interpret Sharpie bleed-through on ballots as intentional voter fraud, whereas an election-integrity frame would see it as a normal non-issue.

Misinformation as misinterpretation: More often than not, misinformation comes in the form of misperceptions, misinterpretations, and mischaracterizations—not just false evidence. The problem is not simply that people see bad information, but that they are using the wrong frame to interpret legitimate evidence.

Three types of rumors (from Boston Marathon analysis):

Clickbait rumors: Sensational false claims spread deliberately for attention/monetization (e.g., the viral false image of a girl killed during the marathon)
Sensemaking rumors: Well-meaning attempts to make sense of events that can go wrong when anchored on false theories (e.g., misidentifying suspects)
Conspiracy theories: Anchoring on conspiracy frames and assembling evidence to fit those frames rather than remaining open to revision

Participatory disinformation: A form of disinformation involving intentional manipulation of the collective sensemaking process through collaboration between:

Elites and political operatives (setting frames, seeding evidence)
Online influencers (amplifying selective evidence)
Everyday audiences (creating content, sharing, interpreting evidence through provided frames)

Participants often sincerely believe what they're spreading, blurring the line between misinformation and disinformation.

Historical examples

Boston Marathon bombing (2013): Early in the crisis, rumors spread as people attempted to identify the perpetrators. Some rumors turned out to be sensemaking gone wrong (e.g., a crowd misidentified a missing student as a suspect, causing harm to his family). Conspiracy theorists assembled existing evidence (authorities prepared for mass casualty events; Navy SEALs were conducting training exercises) into a false-flag conspiracy narrative.

Sharpie gate (2020 election): Starting with genuine concerns about Sharpie pen bleed-through on ballots in Arizona, this evolved into a voter-fraud narrative. Initial tweets reflected actual concern; later, social media influencers and political figures amplified the "voter fraud" interpretation. People misinterpreted screenshots of their canceled mail-in ballots (canceled by law when voting in person) as evidence of fraud, creating a collective false experience of being cheated.

Maricopa County voting issues (2022): When tabulation machines malfunctioned on Election Day, local reporters documented real problems and election officials provided remedies. However, political operatives and influencers (including Arizona GOP leaders) amplified this as evidence of intentional fraud, leading audiences to interpret normal voting contingencies through a rigged-election frame rather than an election-integrity frame.

The attention and influencer economy

Influencers profit by identifying content that fits their prevailing political frames and amplifying it. Everyday creators and local media generate content that resonates with those frames to gain attention. Political operatives build reporting infrastructures to collect evidence that can be assembled into pre-chosen narratives. This system incentivizes the production and selective amplification of evidence that fits predetermined frames, while reality gets filtered through a lens of political motivation.

Notes

This talk represents Starbird's emerging theoretical framework that moves beyond operationalizing misinformation as "false claims" toward understanding it as a social and cognitive process. Her emphasis on frames—how people interpret evidence—rather than evidence alone opens new pathways for understanding why fact-checking alone often fails: if someone's frame is wrong, correct facts get reinterpreted to fit the wrong frame. The collective sensemaking lens also helps explain the participatory nature of modern disinformation, where millions of people unknowingly contribute to coordinated campaigns simply by sharing content through their existing worldviews. The framework bridges crisis informatics, social psychology, and platform dynamics into a coherent account of how misinformation "works" in practice.