Open AccessExploring Online News Credibility: The Relative Influence of Traditional and Technological Factors
Author(s) -
Chung Chung Joo,
Nam Yoonjae,
Stefa Michael A.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of computer‐mediated communication
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.15
H-Index - 119
ISSN - 1083-6101
DOI - 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2011.01565.x
Subject(s) - credibility , interactivity , mainstream , affordance , perspective (graphical) , perception , index (typography) , source credibility , empirical research , empirical evidence , advertising , computer science , political science , psychology , business , world wide web , mathematics , law , philosophy , statistics , epistemology , human–computer interaction , artificial intelligence , neuroscience
This study investigates a range of traditional and technological factors that contribute to credibility perceptions for three categories of online news sources. These sources include mainstream (usatoday.com, nytimes.com), independent (thedrudgereport.com, axisoflogic.com), and index‐type (news.google.com, yahoo.news.com) websites. While traditional dimensions of credibility remain influential, results suggest that the hypertextuality of index‐type online news sources is of particular importance. Multimediality and interactivity did not influence credibility perceptions. These results support the perspective that online media differ based on credibility and users' perceptions are in part based on the technological affordances of media. A major contribution of this research lies in the empirical demonstration of the relationships between technological characteristics of various online news sources and subsequent credibility assessments.