Email chain letters: the role of the known sender

Abstract

This research paper looks at the active role played by the known sender in the phenomenon of the transmission of email chain letters, examining the types of intervention carried out by recipients and the context of the technological and social conditioning factors that influence their spread on the internet and what could be called the natural selection of these messages. These conditioning factors include explanatory and conative functions of the message’s text, the general level of media disinformation of those involved in the forwarding process and the unidirectional relationships between the personal nodes in which this takes place.