AR – another take on blog credibility

Instead of trying to cope with strangely off-the-base articles, I will just return here briefly to the problem of blog credibility (looking at the pile of articles in the TO READ stack, this won’t be the last time, either).

In a 2008 article of the JCMC, the authors present a survey of blog readers, taken in the final stage of the 2004 US presidential elections. To sum it up very briefly, blogs were found moderately credible (credibility here has also been understood as a construct of believability, fairness, accuracy and depth), but as more credible than any other type of media. Blog reliance was found to be a strong predictor of perceived credibility. The authors also took a look on how various motivations for using blogs are related to perceptions of credibility, and they found that credibility was seen highest among those who were reading blogs often seeking political information, and lowest among those who mostly frequent blogs for entertainment.

A couple of quick notes, then.

AR; some more thoughts on online news credibility

Returning to the issue of credibility, here’s another article from the JCMC, by William P. Cassidy, with the title “Online News Credibility: An Examination of the Perception of Newspaper Journalists.”

Taking advantage of a sociology of news framework, Cassidy surveyed how online and offline journalists viewed “Internet news information”. The answer: it is viewed as “moderately credible.” Here, credibility was defined as a 4-dimensional construct, comprising fairness, believability, accuracy and comprehensiveness. Respondents were asked to rate these factors on a 7-point Likert-type scale (eg. 1 = not at all fair, 7 = extremely fair). Scores were summed up, and thus “Internet news information” in general received a credibility index of 17.15 (on a scale thus ranging from 4 to 28).

In addition, online journalists rated the credibility of online news sources significantly higher (19.05) than journalists who mostly work for the print media (16.57); and the moderate credibility score points, according to Cassidy, to a growing acceptance of the net as a credible information source among professional journalists. The article also cites detailed statistics on how demographical and other factors correlate with the respondents’ perception of credibility, which, if you’re conducting research into this field, you might find interesting.

I, for one, can only think of the point with which I concluded the previous entry on this blog. For about two years, I could officially consider myself as a journalist, having worked for the Budapest Business Journal and the Hungarian edition of the American Entrepreneur magazine. I was wondering how I would have rated “Internet news sources”, had I been asked by Cassidy. I would have given 4 points out of 7 to all the factors, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with any kind of qualifying statement about these news sources; because I don’t believe that the hugely varied and extremely large multitude of online sources could be meaningfully represented by a single number on a scale. Had he asked me about specific sources, the answer would have been quite different.

AR: [...] why war opponents perceived the internet as the most credible medium

The authors: Junho H. Choi, James H. Watt and Michael Lynch; the publisher: JCMC, the full title: “Perceptions of News Credibility about the War in Iraq: Why War Opponents Perceived the Internet as the Most Credible Medium”.

Choi, Watt and Lynch surveyed how bearers of different opinions about the Iraq war (“supporters,” “neutrals” and “opponents”) perceived various media’s credibility. Apparently, those opposing the war relied more heavily on the internet to gather news than war supporters and neutrals. Perhaps unsurprisingly, opponents also saw that the internet – in general – questioned the war-supporting attitude of mainstream, conventional media. War opponents also rated the internet more credible than did war supporters and neutrals.

In other words,

the internet was viewed as an alternative channel by those who could not otherwise get news or information from traditional media that accorded with their political attitudes towards the war in Iraq.

The authors also tried to explore the notion of credibility – and what it could mean in online settings. Participants of the survey were asked to rank various media types according to their perceived credibility, and also to define what “credibility” means for them. I think this is the most interesting part of the study.