As previously defined by B.J. Fogg and his associates at Stanford University, credibility is a perceived concept instead of one that resides in an object (Fogg, Tseng 40, 1999). Something that is perceived is based on user opinion and discretion. Therefore, it is important to understand how users perceive web site credibility in order to judge the trustworthiness of new web sites.
Many reports and studies have been conducted on user-perceived credibility, but two of the most prominent come from Stanford University’s Persuasive Technology Lab and Judith Donath’s studies on user identity and signals of author credibility.
How
People View Web Sites | General
and News-Specific Web Sites
Author Identity and Credibility
| The Wikipedia Model
How People View Web Sites
Stanford University’s B.J. Fogg, Cathy Soohoo, David Danielson, Consumer WebWatch’s Leslie Marable, and Julianne Stanford and Ellen R. Tauber of Sliced Bread Design, LLC released a report in 2002 from a large-sample study on how people evaluate a web site’s credibility. This report addresses which points of assessment a web site’s viewers use to determine how credible the site is, from design look to information bias to site affiliation. Interestingly, the study found that the assessments of news sites did not reveal many comments about affiliation, which suggests that the surveyed viewers were not very concerned with the corporate affiliation affecting the site’s credibility (Danielson, Fogg et al. 58).
The study did find, however, that a large amount of the surveyed viewers saw design as an important aspect of user-defined credibility. Citing social psychology studies from the 1980’s and 1990’s, the study observes that visually attractive people and sources are perceived as more credible. While this example corresponds more to broadcast journalism, where anchors are used as the medium for news delivery, it can also be tied to the visual aspects of a web site. If a site’s layout and color scheme is pleasing to look at, it is likely to keep a viewer’s attention and interest. The look of a site gathered a relatively high result in the study, with 46.1% of the respondents remarking on design look as contributing to a web site’s credible image (Danielson, Fogg et al. 23). However, Fogg and his associates did take into account other studies that revealed design assessment as prominent in general site viewing, which means that regardless of the information provided, many people base perceptions of sites from what they see.
Other notable results from the study include how information is structured on a site and the focus of the information. When viewers are looking for something online, it is important that it be easy to find and understand. Results from the study show that viewers on a news site are more interested in information quality, including focus, accuracy, and bias, than they are on the visual design of the site (Danielson, Fogg et al. 71). Because most visitors to news web sites come in search of information, it follows that they would be more concerned with the quality of the information they find. Good information is well-researched, verified, and accurate, with little to no bias, depending on the situation (i.e., an editorial will contain some objective comments).
General and News-Specific Web Sites
Danielson and Fogg’s team also uncovered an interesting contradiction between respondents’ credibility judgments of general and news-specific web sites. Information bias ranked highly as a factor in user-perceived news site credibility, with 30.2% of news site comments mentioning bias as opposed to general sites’ 11.6%. In contrast, respondents commented less about company motive, with only 5.9% of comments on news sites mentioned motive as opposed to 15.5% on general sites (Danielson, Fogg et al. 71). This fact reveals something about viewers’ trust in news organizations, namely that viewers may have an ingrained sense of trust in mainstream news organizations. While this observation may reflect the interests of a generation that grew up with large-corporation news as its main source of information, it is an interesting concept to keep in mind as citizens begin to have more voice in the journalistic world.
Author Identity and Credibility
Message boards, forums, and comment sections for stories give readers the ability to add their own input. This concept allows readers to comment on the content of a story. Issues arise with the believability of what is said, however, due to the anonymity of the Internet. Judith Donath of the MIT Media Lab has researched the effects of identity and the Internet. Her research found that writers on the Internet have to go through a process of proving their own reputation in order to be believed. She says that there is a certain extent to which writers need to reveal their background and expertise to be perceived as credible on a subject, and that extent changes for every situation. Because the Internet allows anyone to say anything, there is almost no way to prove someone’s identity without their own input and evidence. As Donath notes about authorial identity,
The writer’s identity – in particular, claims of real-world expertise or history of accurate online contributions – plays an important role in judging the veracity of an article. Similarly, knowing the writer’s motivation – e.g. political beliefs, professional affiliations, personal relationships — can greatly affect how we interpret his or her statements. (Donath 2)
Donath cites evidence from studying posts on Usenet, a mass online forum with its own social hierarchy. She found that the posters who are trusted most by their peers have had to spend a lot of time building their reputation, including revealing some aspects of their identity. “No matter how brilliant the posting, there is no gain in reputation if the readers are oblivious to whom the author is" (Donath 3).
One way to discern something about a post author, says Donath, is through the user’s posted name. She provides an example of using a given email address to reveal something about the author. On a posting about brine shrimp, Donath notes that a posting from a person with a whoi.edu email address, which comes from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, is likely to be perceived more credible than a post from an anonymous user (Donath 6). As real-world neighborhood names are associated with a certain caliber of person (the Hamptons and Harlem), so too are email address providers with a poster’s background and monetary means. Donath gives examples of users with email addresses from America Online (AOL) and Freenet who are scorned by the Usenet community because they are perceived as uneducated and low-budget (Donath 6-7).
A commenter on a news story, especially an identity who hasn’t been established on the site previously, may find it hard to prove his or her identity, even if the information that he or she brings to the comment board is pertinent. Most message boards and comment areas do provide ways to add an email address or web site link to a comment, which does give posters the opportunity to give readers insight into their identity. Donath also says that the trusted posters in a news community often have good writing style and use of sources, while it is usually very easy to pick out deceptive identities that exist only to stir up controversy, called “trolling,” by their incendiary comments and lack of regard for other posters (Donath 15). She provides an example of a poster on a pet site who suggests spraying hydrogen peroxide on cats to deter furniture clawing, a solution which would cause a great deal of harm and injury to the animal. This poster apparently cast himself as an eighth-grade girl and was deliberately attempting to stir up consternation within the group. The group denizens were at first worried and helpful, and some were suspicious of the poster’s veracity, but when the cat-spraying poster continued to be incendiary, they all became doubtful of her (his) real motives. When his identity was revealed, the poster became extremely foul-mouthed and rude, and ultimately ended up banned from the group by the moderator (Donath 17). While trolling is often seen in user-contributed content, it is easily weeded out by a community, as in the cat postings, and the identities of informed posters are proven by the attitudes and styles with which they present information.
The Wikipedia Model
Perhaps the most well-known example of information teamwork is Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia has what its founder Jimmy Wales calls a “collaborative review process” where many online identities act as editors, constantly changing the information in the interests of being accurate (MacKinnon 20). This hive-mind approach to credible information often gets Wikipedia in trouble.
Donna Shaw’s article “Wikipedia in the Newsroom” cites many times when the anonymous crowd of Wikipedia editors has supplied faulty or flat-out erroneous information. Some of the journalists she interviewed such as Phillip Blanchard from the Washington Post often had derogatory things to say about Wikipedia’s entries, calling the entire operation “junk.” Jimmy Wales, however, says that Wikipedia can be an important springboard for story research, as many of the articles have an impressive list of sources. He says that he sees Wikipedia as a great way to search for background information, rather than as a quotable source. Shaw also interviewed some journalists, like David Cay Johnston of the New York Times, who have successfully used Wikipedia as a way to find credible information through article source lists, in his case, about thermodynamics. Johnston is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, and called Wikipedia a “road map to reliable sources" (Shaw 2008).
Since its inception in 2001, Wikipedia has been a controversial site (Shaw 2008). Donath’s study argues that author identity is important when a reader assesses an article or post made on the Internet, but Wikipedia’s almost-anonymous author base creates a different situation, where the hive mind constantly views and reviews articles. Wikimedia, which owns Wikipedia and is headed by Jimmy Wales, has recently released Wikinews.org, a news site with the same approach to information validation as Wikipedia. Wales sees three ways of building credibility: identity disclosure, as in Donath’s research, “organizational authority,” as in the editorial hierarchy approach of large established media corporations, and Wikimedia’s “collaborative review process" (MacKinnon 19-20). While Wikinews is relatively new, it will serve as an important case study of collaborative journalism.