Web Credibility in Online Journalism
A
Senior Thesis Showcase
Whitney Downing
Maryville College Class of 2009
Maryville College Class of 2009
In the past decade, the Internet has become more than just a means of communication. With the rise of social networking, interactive site features, and to-the-minute news updates, an entirely new social system has been born, existing solely in cyberspace. The stereotypical “computer nerd” is not the only demographic taking part in this computerization of the Western world—businesses, travel agencies, and artists, to name a few, all have a web presence.
Journalism has also made the leap to the world of the Internet. Large news corporations such as MSNBC, the New York Times, and CNN have set up online bases that deliver news to site viewers in an almost continual stream. Local newspapers and broadcasters have also started up their own sites, and in the past eight years, the Internet world was introduced to the newest contributor to online journalism, the web logger, or blogger.
Definitions
Many terms in the Internet industry have a parallel term in the English language that means something different, such as the term “hit.” A “hit” in conversational English means a physical blow to something or someone, while in Internet terms, a “hit” is a unit measuring a visitor’s view of a page, with one page view being one hit. There are many more examples, and the uninitiated user may find it difficult to understand the differences between similar terms. In order to effectively explain the concepts contained in this project, it is important to provide a basic overview of some of the terms used in the study.
Credibility
| Print source | Journalistic web sites | News Blog | Parallel news sites
Independent internet news sites
| Wikipedia | Web site terms
News media | Net news generations
Credibility has a parallel meaning in both everyday and Internet use. A print source is deemed as credible if it is trusted by the public and shows verifiable knowledge of the subject. A human source may be judged in the same manner; however, assessment of credibility may also be based on looks, attitude, and gut feeling. Web credibility is a mix of the two—verifiable knowledge, trust, and appearance may be used in order to make an assessment about the credibility of a web site. B.J. Fogg and Shawn Tseng say that credibility is an attribute that is perceived, rather than a quality that resides in an object, as every person makes his or her own assumptions based on the web site being viewed (Fogg and Tseng 40, 1999).
Credibility is also an attribute that is assigned based on several points that are assessed at the same time, most notably trustworthiness and expertise. Trustworthiness is the perception of the author as an ethical and truthful entity that consistently presents correct information. An author can be perceived as having expertise if he or she presents credentials or evidence of having experience or skill in the subject field (Fogg and Tseng 40, 1999). The ways in which credibility is determined can differ greatly from person to person and situation to situation. Research on web site evaluation has found that motivation greatly influences a viewer’s perception of credibility.
Casual web “surfers” click from page to page, lightly scanning the information presented to them on a home page. If something interesting makes an appearance, the web surfer may read deeper into the page, but there is no real motivation behind their interest. To these surfers, credibility is something perceived by light reading and visual appeal (Danielson, Fogg, et al. 58). A motivated web searcher, however, has a reason behind moving around on the web. A journalist looking for information on a possible story, for instance, will be more interested in thoroughly reading a page than the casual web surfer.
William P. Cassidy found in his research that journalists are influenced by routines in their profession, and are thus more critical with possible online sources due to the pressure to provide viable and current information (Cassidy 3). It is important to note that credibility also holds a subjective status due to differences in the individual users. Danielson, Fogg, and their associates covered this idea in 2002 with the Prominence-Interpretation theory (P-I Theory). This theory states that when people assess credibility, they base the interpretation of a site element on the size of its role on the site, and together these two occurrences result in the credibility impact of that element. The prominence of an element is evaluated from the user’s motivation, ability, and experiences, which inform the user as to whether the element is suitable to accomplish the necessary task. The interpretation is based on the user’s assumptions and knowledge about the element or topic. P-I Theory also says that an element that is not noticed, such as a broken link, will not have an effect on the overall perceived credibility of the site (Danielson, Fogg, et al. 85-86).
A print source refers to any written source that is not in web site format. Because the focus is on a credible web site, I am not taking into account the papers and journals that may be scanned in and available on the Internet through databases such as JSTOR and LexisNexis. These sources do not accurately represent the state of online reporting today, as they are merely scanned copies of papers and do not function as web sites.
The web sites that are the focus of this credibility project are journalistic news media sites. A journalistic site’s main priority is to provide the Internet community with news, whether local, national, global, or otherwise. The journalistic category is further broken into news blogs, parallel news web sites, and independent news web sites.
News blogs are the youngest, and thus, the least standardized form of news reporting on the Internet. A blog, or web log, is an online journal updated periodically by a user. The user does not have to possess any fancy software or coding knowledge, as most blogs are hosted on sites that do much of the work for the blogger, such as WordPress. Bloggers, or the users who run blogs, are usually focused on narrow topics and cater to a specific set of interested people. Although a blogger may provide commentary on a news story, most are not affiliated with large news associations (Yang, 2007).
Parallel news web sites present journalistic content also available in a print version. In many cases, such as the Knoxville News Sentinel, the print source existed first, and then the organization transformed it for the Internet. The majority of print news organizations have been around for many years and have proven themselves as credible news sources; the comparison between these established print news sources and the young Internet news sources will be an interesting part of this project.
Independent internet news site:
Independent Internet news sites are in many ways an amalgamation of news blogs and print sources. An independent news site has staff and writes on a broad array of stories; however, they do not have a print base and are often not proven in the professional journalism field due to their relative newness. An example of an independent news site is Talking Points Memo, a left-wing publication about political events, managed by Joshua Micah Marshall.
Another interesting part in the evolution of online information sources is the Wikipedia model. Wikipedia uses a “hive mind” organization, where anyone is allowed to edit the articles within the site. Wikipedia is generally banned from use in scholarly papers because of this fact. However, many students use Wikipedia and other hive mind sites as a basis for scholarly writing. Jimmy Wales, the creator of Wikipedia, states that the site endorses NPOV, or Neutral Point of View. When neutrality is enforced by thousands of article editors, the end result, he says, can be deemed as credible. This is an interesting argument because credible print sources go through multiple editing sessions with many editors (MacKinnon, 33).
As the topic is web sites, it is important to know a bit of terminology about web site makeup and maintenance. A site extension refers to any of the suffixes .org, .com, .edu, .tv, .news, etc. that make up the address of the site. The index page of a site is also often known as the “home page.” Web sites are normally coded using Hyper-Text Markup Language, or HTML, but can also include elements of coding such as JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and Flash, which enhance the web-viewing experience by providing visual and interactive elements.
Links are clickable text that leads the user to another page. They are used navigationally throughout a site, and are normally denoted by underlined text. Page layout refers to the way a page is set up visually. Visual layout is often the first thing that a web user notices, and an effective style can greatly enhance a site’s impact. A web site update means that the page was modified to correspond with new information or design. Most well-managed sites will have a date or time denoting the last time they were updated. Web users can then figure out what information is most current.
The term “news media” refers to journalism as a whole, including television and radio broadcasting, newspapers, blogs, and magazines. Traditional news media is print journalism that is physically distributed through mail, paper, television, or radio. The Internet is the newest medium to journalism, and the use of it as a publishing and distribution tool is the next step in news reporting.
Erik P. Bucy of Indiana University separates the use of the Internet as a distribution medium into three “generations.” The first is the passive model of distribution, or an online copy of the paper version of the news. Bucy sees a transition into more user control of content, interactivity, and speed of delivery as the second generation. The third generation, which began around the year 2000, includes enhanced user control, such as RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeds that allow users to control the format of their news. The idea of the third net news generation, says Bucy, is to bring users closer to the media by immersing them not only in the stories, but in allowing users to supply feedback and have the chance to contribute (Bucy 103-4).