johnson_wiedenbeck-2009-enhancing perceived credibility of citizen journalism web sites

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DOI: 10.1177/107769900908600205 2009 86: 332Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

Kirsten A. Johnson and Susan WiedenbeckEnhancing Perceived Credibility of Citizen Journalism Web Sites

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ENHANCING PERCEIVED CREDIBILITY OF CITIZEN JOURNALISM W E B SITES

By Kirsten A. Johnson and Susan Wiedenbeck

This study examined whether information about a writer and hypw- links on a citizen journalism Web site afected the perceived credibility of stories. Participants read storiesfrom a popular citizen journalism Web site and rated the stories in terms of perceived credibility. Results show that hyperlinks and information about the writer do enhance perceived story credibility. Credibility is enhanced most greatly when both hyperlink and writer information are included and, to a lesser extent, when just hyperlink or writer information is present.

Background and Related Work

This study examines markers that can increase perceived credibility of stories on citizen journalism Web sites. Specifically this study looks at stories posted online via the citizen journalism Web site OhmyNews.com, and two markers of credibility- information about the writer and hyperlinks included in the story.

A previous study investigating elements that help and hurt the perceived credibility of Web sites indicated that including markers of expertise can help boost perceived credibility. In particular, that study found that Web sites can convey expertise through listing information about the author, as well as citations of, and references to, the authors work.

Building upon this studys additional exploration of such factors, perhaps citizen journalism sites can improve perceived credibility by providing information about those who write on the sites, as well as by allowing visitors to their sites to verify information easily through the use of hyperlinks embedded in the story.

Many studies have explored credibility perceptions of traditional media. However, the credibility of citizen journalism is a relatively new area. This study seeks to add to the body of literature on citizen journalism, as well as to expand on previous research in the areas of Web credibility and trust.

Antecedents to Citizen Journalism. The idea of allowing ordinary citizens to have a voice in news coverage is not new. The civic, or public journalism movement, allows the concerns of citizens to help shape the news agenda? The presidential election in 1988 is often cited as

JbMC Quarterly Vol. 66, No. 2 Summer 2009 332-348 02w9 AEJMC

Kirsten A. Iohnson is an assistant professor in the Department of Communications at Elizabethtown College, and Susan Wiedenbeck is a professor in the College of Information Science and Technology at Drexel University.

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when civic journalism emerged. Journalists and others raised concerns that the election news being covered was not news of interest to citizens, and that journalists had not considered the public in their ~overage.~

Citizen journalism is an exemplar of Web 2.0 applications that typ- ically include collaboration among users, information sharing, and cre- ativity via the Web. Gill argued that the idea of news as conversation has helped give rise to citizen journalism Web sites, because citizen journalism expands two-way communication between readers and media?

Citizen Journalism. Citizen journalism, also referred to as grass- roots journalism and participatory journalism, is news content produced by ordinary citizens with no formal journalism training5 In their paper titled We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information, Bowman and Willis define citizen journalism as citizens participating in the news process from the collecting of information through the dissemination of that information.6

Arguably the most well-known and popular citizen journalism Web site in the world is OhmyNews.com, founded in February 2000. 0hmyNews.com has an international English-language site, as well as a Korean site. Citizen journalists have flocked to these sites; the Korean site alone has more than 42,000 registered citizen journalists and ninety- five full-time staff.7 Editors review and post hundreds of articles a day written by citizen journalists who contribute content. From February 2005 through July 2005 0hmyNews.com had anywhere from about 3 million to 18 million page views per day!

According to Outing, there are many different models of citizen journalism? These models include readers commenting on already published articles, as can be found on the Northwest Voice and The Bakersjield Californian sites. Another model has a professional journalist posting a small story and then allowing citizens to post their experiences that per- tain to the story. A news organization may also consider a stand-alone citizen journalism site made up of contributions from citizens that is edited and is separate from the core news brand. Examples of these types of sites are mymissourian, Westportnow, and ibrattleboro.com. A news organization may also choose to create a stand-alone citizen journalism site where stories are not edited before they are posted on the site, for example getlocalnews.com and Dailyheights.com. The work of citizen journalists can also be combined with the work of professionals. 0hmyNews.com is an example of this approach. Citizen reporters account for about 70% of the sites content, but professional reporters create the rest. Not everything submitted by citizens is accepted for publi- cation.

Media CredibiZiZty. Trust in mainstream media is eroding. A survey by the Pew Research Center For the People and the Press shows credibility in all major news media has fallen in recent years.l0 Media credibility soared following President Nixons resignation in 1974; public opinion polls showed 68% of people had trust and confidence in the news media. However, following this time of soaring public confidence, trust in the media fell and continues to fall. Also according to the Pew survey, among the major networks, 24% of people find NBC News to be

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highly credible, down from a high of 30% in 1998; 24% find ABC news highly credible, down from 31% in 1996; and 24% of people find CBS News highly credible, down from 32% in 1996.12 The same down- ward trend can be seen with newspapers, although the decline is not as dramatic. The percentage of people who say they can believe most of what they read in their daily newspaper has dropped from 84% in 1985 to 54% in 2004.13 A similar pattern holds true for local and network television news. During the same period, TV news believability has fallen from 85% to 62%, and network TV believability has fallen from 87% to 64%.

Simultaneously, news on the Web has developed and expanded. Large numbers of people have turned to online news. In 2007,37% of those surveyed reported that they had gone online for news, up from 30% two years ea11ier.I~ A growing proportion of that online news is gen- erated by citizen journalists. In 2007 the number of citizen journalism Web sites approached 1,500, and professional journalists are turning more often to citizens to help in reporting news.15 However, lacking the institutional credibility of long-established, professional media organi- zations, citizen journalism must find new ways to project credibility to readers, who may be skeptical of news content provided by everyday citizens.16

Defining Credibility in the News Media. In the 1950s the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research began measuring media credibility in its polls, sparking debate in the media community about the definition of credibility. Some of the earliest work in this area defined the credibility of a news story as being synonymous with the believability of the ~t0ry. l~ This definition is still widely used today in media research.18 Some researchers make a distinction between receiver and source credibility. Newhagen and Nass offer the following definition of mass media credibility defined from a receiver-oriented perspective: The degree to which an individual judges his or her perceptions to be a valid reflection of reality.lg But they point out that measuring media credibility is complicated by the fact that another dimension is added to the mix when technology, in the form of a television monitor or printing press, is used in the transmission of the message. They go on to say that because of this, mass media credibility is really ...the perception of news messages as a plausible reflection of the events they depict.20

In terms of the source, there is usually not a clear distinction made in many studies.2l A person, an organization, or even the channel being used to transmit the message can be considered the source. A distinction can also be made between an internal and external source, where the internal source is the person who originated the message, and the external source is the mass medium used to transmit the signal. When source credibility was taken into account, Newhagen and Nass found people judge television according to the on-air people presenting the news (individuals), whereas newspapers are judged more as organ- izations Hovland and Weiss found that when a statement is made by someone perceived as a high prestige source there is a higher level of agreement with the ~tatement.2~

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Credibility of citizen journalists may be called into question because they are not part of the traditional media. One of the ways traditional media try to lend a measure of credibility to their information is by adhering to a filter-then-publish model. This means that the information that comes into a newsroom is edited prior to being released to a mass audience. Conversely, citizen journalism Web sites tend to operate under a publish-then-filter model, where information is released to the mass audience and then it is edited.24 In some cases people with journalism experience are employed as editors, whereas in other cases, visitors to the site can act as editors. The missing layer of editorial oversight may cause credibility problems.25

Web Credibility. Including markers of expertise on a Web site can improve the sites credibility. Fogg et al. used the following items as markers of expertise for informational Web sites:

Site is by a news organization that is well respected

Site lists authors credentials for each article. Site has articles that list citations and references. Site has few news stories, but gives detailed informa-

Site says it is the official site for a specific topic. Site has ratings or reviews of its content. The site displays an award it has

outside of the Internet.

tion for each.

A study of the credibility of political messages presented on the Internet found that those who use the Internet heavily tend to rate online information as credible.27 The study also showed that when participants were presented with three sources of political information (one that was an expert, one that was trustworthy, and one that was a celebrity), participants found the celebrity to be the most credible.

The lack of research on markers that lead to higher levels of perceived credibility of stories on citizen journalism Web sites has led to this studys three main hypotheses.

H1: Providing information about a writers background and providing a picture of the writer on a citizen journalism site will increase the perceived credibility of the story.

Previous studies show that providing information about the author of online information as well as a picture may enhance the credibility of the site.% We believe that this finding can be extended to individual stories on a citizen journalism Web site. We hypothesize that providing both information about the writers background and providing a picture of the writer will enhance the credibility of stories found on the citizen journalism site. In this study, information about a writers background is

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defined as information about the life and previous activities of the author of a news article on the Web site. Citizen journalism is defined as news content produced by ordinary citizens with no formal journalism trainir~g?~Perceived credibility in this study will be assessed, as it has been in a number of previous studies, by measuring believability, accuracy, trustworthiness, bias, and completeness.30

HZ: Hyperlinks that allow users to verify information contained in a story on a citizen journalism site will increase the perceived credibility of the story.

Hyperlinks can be important in helping users form judgments about online credibility? We hypothesize that stories on the citizen journalism Web site that contain hyperlinks will be rated by participants as more credible than stories that do not contain hyperlinks. In this study hyperlinks are defined as the blue underlined words in the text of the stories presented to the participants via a computer connected to the Internet. When clicked, they allow participants to go to different Internet pages.

H3: Providing information about a writers background, a picture of the writer, and hyperlinks that allow users to verify information contained in a story on a citizen journalism site will affect the perceived credibility of the story.

As stated above, previous research indicates that providing information about the writers background, a picture of the writer, and hyperlinks that allow users to verify information enhance the credibility of Web sites. Providing all of this information to a user may further enhance the credibility of not only the site, but also of the story on the site. H3 seeks to examine the combination of all the factors. We hypothesize that the stories on the citizen journalism site containing all of these pieces of information (writer information, a picture, and hyperlinks) will be rated by participants as more credible than stories that do not contain all of the above information.

Method Ovemiew. This study was conducted using an experimental method in a computer laboratory setting. Participants were assigned to four groups: a control group that read just the story, a group that read the story and saw information about the writer, a group that saw hyperlinks in the story, and a group that saw both writer information and hyperlinks. Participants read three stories written by citizen journalists and rated the perceived credibility of each story.

Pa+ticipants. One hundred and twenty undergraduate students enrolled in a small college in the Eastern United States participated in the study. The students were 18 to 23 years old, with a mean age of 20. Eighty-two were females (68%) and 38 were males (32%). In this col-

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TABLE 1 Questionnaires Used, Constructs in the Questionnaires, Cronbachs Alpha(a) Reliability

Statistic, and Use of the Questionnaires in Other Studies

Questionnaire Constructs a Same Criteria Used in

Perceived Credibility Believability, Accuracy, .81 Abdulla et al., 2005; Bucy, 2003; Trustworthiness, Bias, Completeness

Flanagin & Metzger, 2000; Flanagin & Metzger, 2003; Gaziano & McGrath, 1986; Johnson & Kaye, 1998; Johnson & Kaye, 2004; Meyer, 1988; Newhagen & Nass, 1989

Issue Salience

Site Credibility

Relevance, Interest, 35 Enjoyment, Importance

Trustworthiness, .86 Believability, Reliability, Authoritativeness, Honesty, Bias of the Web Site Flanagin & Metzger, 2003

Sponsor Credibility Credibility, Integrity, .87 Reputation, Successfulness, Trustworthiness

Internet Experience Web Use, Expertise, .79 Experience

Propensity to Trust Usually Trust People, .87 McKnight, Choudhury, & Kacmar, Give People Benefit of the Doubt, Choudhury, 2004 Trust New Acquaintances

2002; McKnight, Kacmar, &

lege, there are more females (1,295) than males (696), and this ratio of males to females reflects that distribution. Mann-Whitney U tests showed no significant gender difference on credibility or story engagement. Also, there were no significant differences between the responses of males and females on questions about the writers picture, writers background information, and number of links clicked. Twenty-three of the participants were communications majors, and the other 97 participants were from a variety of majors ranging from hard sciences to humanities.

The Participants reported being highly experienced in using the Web (M = 18.21, sd = 1.85, out of a possible 21 points). Prior to this study, 28% of participants reported having heard about citizen journalism. In terms of use, 73% of participants reported never having visited a citizen journalism site, and 96% reported never having contributed content to a citizen journalism site.

Questionnaires. All participants answered questions about the perceived credibility of the stories they read. Six scales were used in the study: perceived credibility, issue salience (how engaged the reader was

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FIGURE 1 Example of Writer Information and Photo from the Web Site 0hMyNews.com lnternational

[)rv(d K e d T I s a t e e l a m mlermusdan whn enjoys traveling and unmvenng nuggets drapUre along he way h he rvords of he Russan poet Vladlmlr Uayakmsky. Wtlh me I anammy has gone mad I nobrlng but hean I mrlng evecywhere He has &lW a boak on kading In Japan and has had wwk appear In R mrlety of newspapers and magames Cumty based In Hong Kmg. Dawd grew up In and amund Vancouver. Canada His Web sle Is mm alidqbllss mm

in the story), site credibility, sponsor credibility, Internet experience, and propensity to trust (a persons trusting nature in general). All responses were measured using a 7-point scale. The scale ranged from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree. Because it is a 7-point scale there is a neu- tral point. Reliability of the scales was measured with Cronbachs alpha (see Table 1).

Procedures. The participants were divided into four groups of 30 participants each. Each group read the same three stories (one hard news story, one feature story, and one sports story) from the 0hmyNews.com International Web site. After reading each story participants filled out the Perceived Credibility and Issue Salience scales. In the groups that saw the writer information and picture, participants responded to three specific questions about how the writer information and picture affected credibility. The writer information in the study con- sisted of a few short paragraphs about each writer, taken with permis- sion from the 0hmyNews.com Web site, as well as the photo of each writer (see Figure 1). The stories were presented in a different order to each group.

In the groups that saw the hyperlinks, participants responded to three questions about how hyperlinks affected credibility. At the end of the study, all participants completed demographic questions and three scales: Site Credibility, Sponsor Credibility, and Propensity to Trust.

Non-parametric statistics, including the Mann-Whitney U test and the Spearman rank correlation, were used to analyze the data. These tests were chosen because the data were ordered, i.e., for each question, participants chose responses on a 7-point scale in order from most positive to most negative. Also, a histogram showed that the data were not normally distributed, which also pointed to the use of non-parametric statistics. Comparisons of groups using the Mann-Whitney U were pair- wise, with each group compared to the control group. Interactions were not analyzed because the Mann-Whitney U test does not support inter- action analyses.

For clarity, certain group designations will be used to distinguish the groups from one another. The group that saw only the story (the control group) will be referred to as the Story Only group. The group that saw the story and the writer information (including the writers photo) is the Story+Writer group. The group that saw the story and the hyperlinks is the Story+Hyperlinks group. The group that saw

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TABLE 2 Perceived Story Credibility Means, Standard Deviations, and Results

of the Mann-Whitney U Test for Each Group Group M sd U P

Story Only (Control) 71.33 13.02 - -

-Story+Writer Info 78.37 11.02 302.50 .029*

Story+Hyperlinks 76.90 9.18 320.00 .054

Story+Both 79.80 10.96 254.50 .004*

*p < .05

Note: The table shows the results of pair-wise comparisons between the group that saw the story only and each of the other groups listed in the table. An asterisk indicates a significant difference at the .05 level.

the story, plus both the writer information and the hyperlinks, is the Story+Both group.

The questionnaires in the study were analyzed to determine whether providing additional information in the form of hyperlinks and/or information about the writer impacts perceived story credibility. Results show that including this information does indeed increase the perceived credibility of the stories, in particular for hard news stories. Study results also point to the importance of the picture of the writer. The more positively participants rated the picture of the writer, the more credible they rated the story.

Propensity to Tmst. As has been found in previous studies, dis- position to trust plays a role in whether someone judges a Web site to be The more trusting a person is, the higher he or she tends to rate sites in terms of perceived ~redibility.~~ Because individuals dis- position to trust is a factor in the formation of credibility judgments, this was measured in the study. No significant differences were found between the groups in propensity to trust. This means that the differences measured between groups, in terms of their perceived credibility, were not due simply to the fact that one group had more trusting people in it than another.

Not surprisingly, and as has been found in the studies mentioned earlier, this study did support the finding that those who have a higher propensity to trust also rate items higher in perceived credibility. In this study those who had a higher propensity to trust rated the stories, the site, and the people who created the site as significantly more credible than those with a lower propensity to trust.

Perceived story credibility was highest for the group that saw the story plus the writer information and hyperlinks (see Table 2). The Mann-Whitney U test showed there

Findings and Discussion

Perceived Story Credibility.

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TABLE 3 Perceived Sto y Credibility Means, Standard Deviations, and Mann-Witney U Test for Each Group by S t o y Type

Group M sd U P

Story Only (Control) Hard News

Feature Story+Writer Info

Hard News Sports Feature

Story+Hyperlinks Hard News

Feature Story+Both

Hard News Sports Feature

sports

sports

19.93 27.37 24.03

23.07 29.17 26.13

22.30 28.33 26.27

22.97 30.27 26.57

5.24 5.60 5.47

3.87 3.86 4.28

4.35 4.10 5.44

5.86 4.58 4.98

305.00 372.00 371.00

315.50 419.00 340.50

292.50 288.00 338.50

.030*

.247

.241

.046* ,645 ,104

.020*

.016*

.098

were significant differences between the Story Only group and the Story+Writer information group, as well as the Story Only group and the Story+Both group.

The mean perceived credibility for the stories, when analyzed according to story type (hard news, feature, and sports), was lowest for the story only group (see Table 3). Perceived story credibility increased across all story types as additional information, in the form of hyperlinks and writer information, was introduced. When the Story Only group was statistically compared pair-wise to the other groups, significant differences in perceived credibility were found for the hard news story. For the sports story, only the Story+Both group showed higher perceived credibility compared to the Story Only group. There were no significant differences between groups for the feature story.

Writer Information. The Importance of the Writer's Picture: The picture of the writer played an important role in the assessment of the credibility of the stories. Participants answered the question, "I thought the writer in the picture looked credible" using a 7-point Likert scale. The more participants believed the writer in the picture looked credible, the higher they rated stories in terms of perceived credibility. The Spearman rank correlation showed a significant result, rs= .47, p < .001. Commonly cited guidelines for interpreting correlations are the following: .lo to .29 is a low correlation, .30 to .49 is medium, and .50 to 1.00 is

Type of Stoy and Perceived Credibility.

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large; therefore, this is a medium correlation.34 There were also positive significant relationships between how credible participants rated the writers picture and how engaged they reported being in the story, rs = .33, p < .009, as well as how credible they felt the people who created the Web site were r, = .26, p < .042. The latter result is interesting in that the participants did not have access to the sponsor information on the Web site, yet still showed a significant correlation.

The Importance of the Written Information about the Writer: When examining whether the written information about the writers background was helpful, a significant positive relationship was found between perceived credibility of the stories and engagement in the sto- nes. Participants were asked to rate the statement The information on the writers background was helpful in determining whether or not the story was credible. The correlation of writers information and perceived credibility of the story was rs = .28, p < .030. Getting to know the writer of the story through the background information boosted story credibility scores. Perhaps participants were able to ascribe more trust to the stories because, after reading the writer information, they now felt the writer was qualified to write about the subject matter, based on the background information presented, which raised the participants credibility perceptions. However, as discussed below, a hierarchical regression did not find a strong effect of the writers background information when all the factors (writers picture, writers information, links clicked) were included.

Results also showed that information about the writers background correlated to the story engagement scores, r, = .31, p < . O H . It appears that learning more about the person who wrote the article helped participants become more engaged when reading the stories. It could be that learning that the writer had written about a particular subject before, or has an interest in the subject he is writing about, helped to spark interest in the participants.

Hyperlinks CIicked: Surprisingly few participants chose to click on hyperlinks in the stories. The average number of hyperlinks clicked was 0.93 out of 17 total hyperlinks participants had the opportunity to click. Also, just 31% of participants chose to click on hyperlinks. In the instruc- tions at the beginning of the study, participants were not told whether they should click on the hyperlinks, in order to capture natural online behavior.

The Importance of the Presence of Hyperlinks: Participants who saw stories with hyperlinks were asked several questions about the hyperlinks in the stories. Only the first statement was rated by all participants: Just the fact that the story contained hyperlinks (even if you didnt click on them) made the story seem credible. A correlation of this question with participants perceived credibility scores showed a significant result, r. = 3, p < .009. Similarly, correlation showed that the presence of hyperlinks is related to engagement scores, rs = .38, p < .003.

Finally, a hierarchical regression was used to assess the additive effect of four factors, propensity to trust, writers picture, writers background information, and number of links clicked, on the dependent vari-

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TABLE 4 Spearman Rank Correlations of the Variables in the Regression

Correlation Matrix Credibility Propensity Writers Writers Links

to Trust Picture Information Clicked

Credibility 1 .oo -.02 .49** .06 .44*

Propensity to Trust 1.00 .15 .23 .26

Writers Picture 1 .oo .44* .a* Writers Information 1.00 .49**

Links Clicked 1.00

* p < .05; **p < .01

able, credibility. The correlations of the variables are presented in Table 4. Table 5 presents the standardized regression coefficients (B), the standard error of the coefficient (SE), the R2 in each block, and the R2 change from one block to the next. The standardized regression coefficient tells the number of standard deviations that the dependent variable will change as a result of one standard deviation change in the predictor. The R2 tells how much of the variance in the dependent variable, credibility, is explained by the predictor variable(s) contributing to it.

In the first block propensity to trust was not significant. In the second block the addition of the writers picture was significant (F[2,28] = 3.23, p < .05) and accounted for 20% of the variance in credibility. In the third block, contrary to our expectation, the addition of the writers background information was not significant, contributing only an additional 3% beyond the writers picture. Finally, the result of the fourth block, with all four variables included, was significant (F[4,28] = 4.23, p < .Ol), and accounted for 41% of the variance in credibility. Notably, the number of links clicked contributed 19% to the variance in credibility.

In sum, the propensity to trust and the writers background information had minor influences on the model. It appears that the image of the writer and the hyperlinks are the key predictors in the credibility decision.

Overall Story Engagement. Story engagement, measured by the Issue Salience scale, was significantly higher for the Story+Hyperlinks group and the Story+Both group, when compared to the Story Only group (see Table 6). Providing the additional information in the form of hyperlinks and writer information serves to engage the reader in the story. This does not come as a surprise, since hyperlinks allow participants to more fully engage in what they are reading by finding out additional information. As suggested above, although relatively few participants reported clicking on hyperlinks in the study, perhaps it is just the


TABLE 5 Hierarchical Regression of Credibility on Predictors

Regression Model Block 1 Block 2 Block 3 Block 4

B SE B SE B SE B SE

Propensity to Trust .19 .58 .10 .55 .15 .58 .01 .54

Writers Picture .41 .57 .48 .62 .52 .55

Writers Information -.19 .57 -.49 .59

Links Clicked .57 .54

R2 values .04 .20 .23 .41 R2 change values .16* .03 .19**

*p < .05; **p < .01

fact that the participants had the option of clicking on the hyperlinks that caused them to become engaged.

A surprising result was that there was no significant difference in story engagement between the Story Only group and the Story+Writer information group. Hyperlinks are most influential in increasing story engagement, as opposed to writer information. In the Story+Both group, story engagement is significant and this may be mainly the influence of hyperlinks as opposed to the writer information. Whether they are clicked on or not, hyperlinks are a cue to the user that additional information is available, and that the writer of the article cared enough about what he or she was writing to include a link to additional information.

The more participants reported being engaged in the stories, the higher they rated those stories in terms of perceived credibility. A significant positive relationship was found between how credible participants in all groups found the story to be and how engaged they reported being in the story, rs= .29, p < .001. This finding is consistent with previous studies that show the level of engagement does, in fact, impact perceived ~redibility.3~

The presence of writer information and hyperlinks increased the perceived credibility of stories on the citizen journalism Web site 0hmyNews.com. These markers of credibility were more important in forming credibility perceptions to people reading hard news, as opposed to feature type stories. In hard news stories people cared more about whether the information was correct than they did in stories that tended to be more feature-like.

The information on the writer, particularly the presence of a picture of the writer, played an important role in terms of how credible participants perceived stories to be. The more credible participants thought

ConcZusion

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TABLE 6 Perceived Sto y Engagement Means, Standard Deviations, and Results

of the Mann-Whitney U Test for Each Group

Group M sd U P

Story Only (Control) 38.10 9.48

-Story+Writer Info 40.23 9.45

Story+Hyperlinks 44.00 11.15

Story+Both 42.70 9.68

*p < .05

- -

392.50 .394

298.00 .024*

317.00 .049*

the writer looked, the higher they rated stories in terms of perceived credibility. Due to the nature and scope of this study, no conclusions can be drawn about the physical characteristics that made these writers look credible. Previous research in this area indicates that people will rate someone who is similar to themselves as more credible than someone who is not.% People also tend to ascribe more credibility to people who are more attractive in terms of physical appearan~e.3~

In terms of hyperlinks, contrary to expectations, very few participants chose to click on them in the study. Future studies may wish to explore why this occurred. It could be that due to the experimental nature of the study participants did not think the links were active. A qualitative study could be undertaken to observe users reading the story, and ask questions as to why they chose to click, or not to click, on particular hyperlinks.

Including information about the writer and hyperlinks served to engage the reader in the story more than if that information was not included. Figuring out ways to engage users in a media landscape where millions of choices constantly compete for users attention is no easy task. Including the information about the writer and the hyperlinks is one way to do this.

In the study, the writers information and pictures chosen were only those of Caucasian males to avoid uncontrolled variables. Subsequent studies could examine whether varying gender and ethnic- ity of the writers impact the results.

Future studies could also explore negative impacts on perceived story credibility. If a writer does not look credible (perhaps he/she looks disheveled or very young) what impact does that have on the perceived credibility of the story? The same could be examined in terms of background information about the writer. If the information presented shows deficiencies in credentials or experience, what impact does this have on perceived story credibility?

It would also be interesting to allow participants to further explore the Web site. In this study, participants movements were tightly con- trolled so confounding variables were not introduced into the study.

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Links that were not directly related to the story were turned off so participants could not navigate to another page if they clicked on them. In future studies participants movements on the site could be tracked to see what they choose to click on and how that impacts credibility ratings.

Nearly all participants reported never contributing to a citizen journalism Web site, which is not surprising since many were not famil- iar with citizen journalism or citizen journalism Web sites. However, in the future, as community newspapers continue to disappear, citizen journalism sites are likely to increase in prominence and stimulate more direct participation.

The results of this research can be used to improve the perceived credibility of ones work not only by those who write stories on citizen journalism Web sites, but also by those who generate other types of user- created content. Including a picture of the person who created the content, information about the person, and hyperlinks are all important first steps in improving credibility perceptions.

NOTES

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johnson_wiedenbeck-2009-enhancing perceived credibility of citizen journalism web sites

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