Credibility Of Online News Research Articles

Exploring the effects of location information on perceptions of news credibility and sharing intention

In recent years, the integration of location-based services into social media platforms has seen a significant surge, coinciding with the growing challenges posed by the proliferation of fake news online. However, the influence of location data on readers’ perceptions of online news credibility, particularly in relation to the reporters’ whereabouts, remains unclear. To investigate this relationship, we conducted a 3 (Topics: crime, science, health) × 2 (Location anchor: event-anchored or participant-anchored) × 4 (Proximity to location anchor - no, same, close-by or faraway location) mixed-method online study (N = 288) on Prolific. Our data collection involved presenting participants with news articles and assessing their credibility assessments and sharing intentions based on the proximity of those disseminating the news to both the subject matter of the news and the audience consuming it. Our findings reveal that the proximity of the reporter’s location to the readers’ location had a noticeable adverse impact on perceptions of news credibility and the likelihood of sharing it. Furthermore, we also identified a weak positive correlation between sharing intentions and trust in social media platforms. In addition, we observed that crime news were generally perceived as less credible compared to health and science news. Our research contributes significantly to a nuanced understanding of how location-based cues impact user behaviour when interacting with online news articles. Furthermore, it provides design insights for social media platforms aiming to enhance user trust and promote pro-social behaviours.

Sourcing against misinformation: Effects of a scalable lateral reading training based on cognitive apprenticeship

The pervasive problem of misinformation requires fostering Internet users' information literacy. Existing interventions raise the question of how the skills enabling the discernment of truthful vs. fake news can be efficiently trained, and which training approaches may be scalable. We conducted a lateral reading training based on cognitive apprenticeship and assessed its effects on N = 312 participants using an online news credibility test. The quantitative, 3 × 2 experimental design included the factors training type (no training vs. cognitive apprenticeship with written instructions vs. cognitive apprenticeship with human trainers) and trainer education (undergraduate freshmen vs. graduate students of education). Overall, we found significant effects of the training type and marginal effects of the trainer education, but no significant differences between cognitive apprenticeship with written instructions and cognitive apprenticeship with human trainers. The training effects pertained mainly to participants' fake news identification ability, whereas their truthful news evaluation was changed little. In sum, participants’ discernment of truthful vs. fake news was improved. Consequently, lateral reading training based on written instructions appears to be an effective and scalable media education intervention.

Think before you share: building a civic media literacy framework for everyday contexts

PurposeIn response to concerns about fake news (Allcott et al., 2019) and polarization (Wollebaek et al., 2019), youth media literacy interventions have emerged to teach strategies for assessing credibility of online news (McGrew et al., 2018) and producing media to mobilize others for civic goals (Kahne et al., 2016). However, in light of evidence that practices learned in classroom contexts do not reliably translate to the context of sharing social media (Middaugh, 2018), this study aims to provide a better understanding of youth social media practices needed to design meaningful and relevant educational experiences.Design/methodology/approachSemistructured interviews with a think-aloud component were conducted with a diverse sample of 18 California youth (15–24) to learn about factors that guide behavior as they access, endorse, share, comment and produce civic media.FindingsFindings suggest a shift toward reliance on incidental exposure and noninstitutional sources when accessing information and a tendency toward endorsement and circulation of posts (vs producing original posts) when engaging with civic issues on social media. As participants engaged in these practices, they not only applied judgments of credibility and civic impact but also concerned for personal relevance, relational considerations and fit with internet culture.Originality/valueThe authors recommend moving beyond models that reflect linear processes of effortful search, credibility analysis and production. Instead, the authors propose a new dynamic model of civic media literacy in which youth apply judgments of credibility, relational considerations, relevance to lived experience, civic impact and fit with internet culture as they receive, endorse, share, comment on and produce media in a nonlinear fashion.

Analisis Isi Berita Media Online Radar Bogor terhadap Kepercayaan Pembaca

Online mass media is one of the preferred sources of information because of its speed in conveying information. Despite its advantages, issues have emerged about the lack of credibility of online news due to the news being presented concisely and not providing perspective. Readers do not get actual information because the title and content of the news in the news script presented in online media do not match. This research will analyze the news content presented by the online mass media Radar Bogor to determine the extent to which this media provides news content that is trusted as a source of information using qualitative methods. Radar Bogor media news content analysis will be carried out by selecting 10 news stories published on Radar Bogor's Instagram feed for the period May 2021-June 2021 regarding information on cross-border bans during the Covid-19 pandemic situation. Based on the analysis carried out, news values ​​(characters, closeness, interesting, actual, impact) influence the level of reader trust in the news presented, readers do not like inappropriate headlines and news content.

When classification accuracy is not enough: Explaining news credibility assessment

Dubious credibility of online news has become a major problem with negative consequences for both readers and the whole society. Despite several efforts in the development of automatic methods for measuring credibility in news stories, there has been little previous work focusing on providing explanations that go beyond a black-box decision or score. In this work, we use two machine learning approaches for computing a credibility score for any given news story: one is a linear method trained on stylometric features and the other one is a recurrent neural network. Our goal is to study whether we can explain the rationale behind these automatic methods and improve a reader’s confidence in their credibility assessment. Therefore, we first adapted the classifiers to the constraints of a browser extension so that the text can be analysed while browsing online news. We also propose a set of interactive visualisations to explain to the user the rationale behind the automatic credibility assessment. We evaluated our adapted methods by means of standard machine learning performance metrics and through two user studies. The adapted neural classifier showed better performance on the test data than the stylometric classifier, despite the latter appearing to be easier to interpret by the participants. Also, users were significantly more accurate in their assessment after they interacted with the tool as well as more confident with their decisions.

Perceptions of Online Academics’ and Al-Jazeera.net’s News Coverage of the Egyptian Political Transformation 2013-2014

The growth and expansion of the Internet has enabled many people to communicate and engage in different manners and it is easier than ever now to obtain news and information content via different online sittings. However, concerns grow about the effects of misinformation that has been circulated via different online media sites to influence public views. This research was aimed at exploring online academic news users’ behaviour and their attitudes towards news information given by Al-Jazeera.net during the Egyptian transformation (2013-2014) in Egypt. Based on an online survey (450 users) and focus-group interviews (six respondents) with Egyptian academics, the research discussed whether users were aware of the media interest or agenda and how users became informed about the political conflict and the transformation, their perceptions of news sites and their evaluation of information regarding this period. The research confirmed that every media has its own interest or agenda when delivering news content, which might favour one side over another. Users indicated that misinformation was found in different forms and, although others underlined the importance of freely accessing online content, there was concern about the spread of misinformation the morality and credibility of online news. Keywords : Misinformation, Al-Jazeera.net, Mohammed Mursi, Abdel Fattah el-sisi, propaganda, Egyptian elections .

News Stories on the Facebook Platform: Millennials’ Perceived Credibility of Online News Sponsored by News and Non-News Companies

ABSTRACT This experimental study examined whether stories presented on Facebook that appeared to be from a news organization were rated as higher in perceived credibility than stories that appeared to be from a non-news organization. One-hundred-and-seven participants took part in the online study. One group saw stories that appeared to be from a news organization and another group saw the same stories that appeared to be from a non-news organization. Both groups rated the stories the same in terms of perceived credibility. The study also found that the higher the participants rated the stories in terms of perceived credibility, the higher they rated the organization’s perceived credibility. These findings point to potential implications for traditional journalistic outlets regarding their ability to be seen as credible, reliable online news sources—particularly through a social media platform like Facebook.

Social credibility online: The role of online comments in assessing news article credibility

This 2 × 2 experimental study (N = 196) tested the effects of source expertise and opinion valence in readers’ comments on the credibility of an online news story about genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Source expertise had a significant influence on perceptions of article credibility; articles were judged more credible when public comments embedded in the story were from expert sources (e.g., scientists) rather than nonexpert sources (e.g., Twitter users). Effects were larger on high-frequency news users, regardless of whether comments were for or against GMOs. Results suggest that Internet users mainly use the peripheral or heuristic route of information processing to evaluate online news credibility. The importance for online journalism of social heuristics via opinions of other people is discussed.

A Review of New Media in Malaysia: Issues Affecting Society

Growth of new media plays a great role in society and political landscape in Malaysia. Thus, it is imperative to understand the main issues arising from development of new media, which affects the society. This paper therefore aims to explain how issues pertaining to new media has affected Malaysia. Three key issues will be discussed, namely, credibility, influence in the political landscape, and effectiveness in providing information to the public. Review of past literature and studies showed that credibility of online news is crucial whereby demand for reliable information is rising to compete with traditional media, which has been proven to be a credible source many decades ago. Moreover, in recent years, new media through online news has been influencing the political discourse in Malaysia with the help of many interesting features offered by that medium.

Presence of online reader comments lowers news site credibility

The authors raise questions about the effects of reader comments on online news credibility, and among their findings is that the same feature—readers’ comments—that makes online news more appealing also decreases the credibility of the news outlet. The commenting system and the way comments are moderated do not appear to affect a news outlet’s credibility.

Credible Online News? Yes or No

Dissemination of information medium are no longer limited to newspapers, television and radio but is extending to the online news. The number of online news readers is rapidly increasing along with the popularity of the Internet. However, only sources that emphasizes the element of credibility will be accepted by the readers. This study was conducted to determine the credibility of online news; to identify the relationship between online news credibility and youth acceptance. Using a quantitative approach, a total of 400 youth selected to participate in the study out of the 68,000 population in Selangor. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 21.0. This study shows that a group of young women were the common group who seek and read online information. Based on the findings too, online news in Malaysia are less credible. Although the online news is less credible, the results shows that youth read online news because the contents are current and up to date. Further, result of the Pearson’s correlation test shows that the more credible elements available in online news, the more that medium is accepted by youth

Cognitive Dissonance or Credibility? A Comparison of Two Theoretical Explanations for Selective Exposure to Partisan News

Selective exposure research indicates that news consumers tend to seek out attitude-consistent information and avoid attitude-challenging information. This study examines online news credibility and cognitive dissonance as theoretical explanations for partisan selective exposure behavior. After viewing an attitudinally consistent, challenging, or politically balanced online news source, cognitive dissonance, credibility perceptions, and likelihood of selective exposure were measured. Results showed that people judge attitude-consistent and neutral news sources as more credible than attitude-challenging news sources, and although people experience slightly more cognitive dissonance when exposed to attitude-challenging news sources, overall dissonance levels were quite low. These results refute the cognitive dissonance explanation for selective exposure and suggest a new explanation that is based on credibility perceptions rather than psychological discomfort with attitude-challenging information.

The Impact of Online Feedbacks on the Credibility of News Stories (A Study of Saharareporters.Com)

The new media have revolutionized human communication. The traditional means of gathering, processing and disseminating news has been greatly altered. Consequently, the news audience is now sophisticated and highly dynamic. With the new media, the audience members are now equal partners in news business. Though a welcome development, it has raised credibility question. This study, therefore, investigates how online feedbacks affect the credibility of online stories published by saharareproter.com. Using qualitative content analysis and focus group discussion, findings revealed that majority of online feedbacks in the audience platform of saharareporters.com raised the issue of credibility. In most cases, the audience questioned the accuracy of some news stories. It was also found that most of the feedbacks analyzed had ethnic, religious and political connotations. It was therefore, recommended that the managers of saharareporters.com should verify some stories sent in by citizen journalist before they are uploaded. Keywords: Fifth Estate ● saharareporter.com● Citizen journalism ● Free press● Online news credibility

Revealing the news

This paper describes an ongoing design project relating to online news and how alterations to news stories are hidden from the reader. As the delivery and consumption of news content online continues to overtake other channels in reader numbers and market penetration, so methods of transparency and reliability developed over centuries continue also to be tested by digital media. We have conducted content analysis on existing stories and examined how news organisations and channels handle rapidly evolving news stories. We have proceeded to develop low-fidelity prototypes and an interaction model to test our design approach. The outcomes are in production and will result in a digital artifact that reveals editorial changes to news items (the News Inspector). These changes will be made visible within the browser. The implications of the project relate to the wider question of news truth-telling, trust and online news credibility.

Exploring Online News Credibility: The Relative Influence of Traditional and Technological Factors

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. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

An evidence‐based iterative content trust algorithm for the credibility of online news

AbstractPeople encounter more information than they can possibly use every day. But all information is not necessarily of equal value. In many cases, certain information appears to be better, or more trustworthy, than other information. And the challenge that most people then face is to judge which information is more credible. In this paper we propose a new problem called Corroboration Trust, which studies how to find credible news events by seeking more than one source to verify information on a given topic. We design an evidence‐based corroboration trust algorithm called TrustNewsFinder, which utilizes the relationships between news articles and related evidence information (person, location, time and keywords about the news). A news article is trustworthy if it provides many pieces of trustworthy evidence, and a piece of evidence is likely to be true if it is provided by many trustworthy news articles. Our experiments show that TrustNewsFinder successfully finds true events among conflicting information and identifies trustworthy news better than the popular search engines. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Online News Credibility: An Examination of the Perceptions of Newspaper Journalists

This study examines print and online daily newspaper journalists’ perceptions of the credibility of Internet news information, as well as the influence of several factors—most notably, professional role conceptions—on those perceptions. Credibility was measured as a multidimensional construct. The results of a survey of U.S. journalists (N = 655) show that Internet news information was viewed as moderately credible overall and that online newspaper journalists rated Internet news information as significantly more credible than did print newspaper journalists. Hierarchical regression analyses reveal that Internet reliance was a strong positive predictor of credibility. Two professional role conceptions also emerged as significant predictors. The populist mobilizer role conception was a significant positive predictor of online news credibility, while the adversarial role conception was a significant negative predictor. Demographic characteristics of print and online daily newspaper journalists did not influence their perceptions of online news credibility.

Public Trust or Mistrust? Perceptions of Media Credibility in the Information Age

This article explores perceptions of news credibility for television, newspapers, and online news. A survey was administered to a randomly selected sample of residents in Austin, Texas, to assess people's attitudes toward these 3 media channels. Contingent factors that might influence news credibility perceptions, such as media use and interpersonal discussion of news, were incorporated into the analysis. Findings suggest that people are generally skeptical of news emanating from all 3 media channels but do rate newspapers with the highest credibility, followed by online news and television news, respectively. Furthermore, opinions about news credibility seem to be correlated across media outlets. The data also show a moderate negative linkage between interpersonal discussion of news and perceptions of media credibility for television news but not for newspapers. When controlling for basic demographics, a positive correlation was found between interpersonal communication and online news credibility. Finally, a marginal association was noted between media use and public perceptions of credibility across all 3 media channels.