Credibility Evaluation Research Articles

CHILDREN AND TESTIMONIAL INJUSTICE: A RESPONSE TO BURROUGHS AND TOLLEFSEN

ABSTRACTMichael Burroughs and Deborah Tollefsen (2016) claim that children are subject to widespread testimonial injustice. They argue that empirical data shows that children are prejudicially accorded less epistemic credibility in forensic contexts, and that this in turn shows that the same is true in broader contexts. While I agree that there is indeed testimonial injustice against children, I argue that Burroughs and Tollefsen exaggerate its severity and extent, by exaggerating children's testimonial reliability. Firstly, the empirical data do not quite support their claim about children's performance in forensic contexts. Secondly, while they advocate a relational conception of children's agency which emphasizes the role of adults in realizing their testimonial abilities, Burroughs and Tollefsen miss the full implications of such a conception for our evaluation of children's credibility, and for our behavior towards them in testimonial contexts. Thirdly, they underestimate the significance of children's limited general knowledge.

The cognitive authority of user-generated health information in an online forum for girls and young women

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the role of one particular online discussion forum as a potentially authoritative health information source for its users. The concept of cognitive authority is used as a starting point for understanding information evaluation in this context. The focus is placed on the types of information users seek for from this forum, the ways they assess the credibility of information obtained, and their views on the impact of this information.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical data were collected with a questionnaire survey from the users of a Finnish online forum for girls and young women (n=290). The data were analyzed qualitatively with content analytic techniques and quantitatively by using descriptive analysis.FindingsThe forum was found to offer girls and young women the possibility to receive health information from peers. It was viewed as an appropriate source for experiential rather than factual health information and used to find information on sexuality, bodily functions and diets, for example. Author-related cues, argumentation and tone, veracity and verification were recognized as means to evaluate information credibility. Credibility evaluation was found to be linked with conceptions of the forum and the type of information sought. A share of the respondents recognized the information obtained to have influence on their thinking or behavior.Originality/valueBased on the findings, it can be argued that the members of the online forum – individually or collectively – can act as cognitive authorities for other users. The findings cannot be generalized beyond this online forum, to Finnish girls or young women, or even the users of the online forum. However, they provide insights into the ways young people evaluate user-generated information in a particular online setting and domain of knowledge and as such contribute to research on cognitive authority, credibility evaluation and information literacy.

E-COMMERCE CREDIBILITY IN SAUDI ARABIA: CONSUMER PERSPECTIVE

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the e-commerce credibility factors affecting the perception of users in Saudi Arabia and, moreover, to investigate whether the variation of credibility factors in Saudi Arabian e-commerce websites influence users' performance. Website credibility, which refers to the believability of the website and its content, plays an important role in consumers’ successful online shopping experience and satisfaction. This investigation is conducted by employing two credibility evaluation methods: heuristic evaluation and performance measurement. This study adopts Fogg's 10 Stanford credibility guidelines as a starting point for the heuristic evaluation. In the performance measurement method, two measurements are used: the amount of time needed to finish the task and the total number of clicks taken to finish the task. A frequency analysis of the comments and a one-way ANOVA test are used to establish the results. Three e-commerce websites in Saudi Arabia are selected. The findings show that Fogg’s 10 Stanford credibility guidelines can be implemented in the Saudi Arabian e-commerce context with minor modifications and expansions by adding reputation, endorsement, security, and service diversity guidelines. Another important finding is that professional website design plays a vital role in users' first impression of websites, while usability is the most important credibility factor investigated used to evaluate the credulity of an e-commerce website. Lastly, the results of this study indicate a relationship between the e-commerce credibility level and users’ performance. This paper contributes to the literature by providing a set of credibility guidelines associated with specific criteria, which can be assessed to improve the future of e-commerce in Saudi Arabia.

Fake images: The effects of source, intermediary, and digital media literacy on contextual assessment of image credibility online

Fake or manipulated images propagated through the Web and social media have the capacity to deceive, emotionally distress, and influence public opinions and actions. Yet few studies have examined how individuals evaluate the authenticity of images that accompany online stories. This article details a 6-batch large-scale online experiment using Amazon Mechanical Turk that probes how people evaluate image credibility across online platforms. In each batch, participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 28 news-source mockups featuring a forged image, and they evaluated the credibility of the images based on several features. We found that participants’ Internet skills, photo-editing experience, and social media use were significant predictors of image credibility evaluation, while most social and heuristic cues of online credibility (e.g. source trustworthiness, bandwagon, intermediary trustworthiness) had no significant impact. Viewers’ attitude toward a depicted issue also positively influenced their credibility evaluation.

WHY DO WE LIKE COMMENTING AND SHARING IN SOCIAL MEDIA? AN ONLINE APPROCH OF LUXURY BRAND COMMUNICATION

WHY DO WE LIKE COMMENTING AND SHARING IN SOCIAL MEDIA? AN ONLINE APPROCH OF LUXURY BRAND COMMUNICATION

Credibility Evaluation in the Context of Event-type Messages from Sensors

Credibility Evaluation in the Context of Event-type Messages from Sensors

Exploring relationships among brand credibility, purchase intention and social media for fashion brands: A conditional mediation model

ABSTRACTSocial media have opened up a whole new era for fashion companies and brands, encouraging them to identify innovative relationship with consumer. In order to face these new challenges, understanding the combinatory mechanism of brand credibility and brand image in the formation of brand purchase intention is strategic for fashion brands practitioners. The main purpose of this study is to examine the moderating effect of social media on the relationship between brand credibility, brand image and purchase intention of fashion brands. A conditional process analysis methodology is employed to describe the mediation and moderation effects of the variables analyzed. The findings show that brand credibility has a positive influence on brand image and purchase intention. In addition, social media activity is positively influential on the direct relationship between brand image and purchase intention. However, the results show that, over social media activity, the direct influence of brand credibility on purchase intention decreases. From a managerial point of view, the study helps fashion brand managers in executing marketing decisions through the evaluation of brand credibility and the understanding of the impact of social media activity to increase the brand image and consumer purchase.

Exploring the dual-role of cognitive heuristics and the moderating effect of gender in microblog information credibility evaluation

Purpose Although microblogs have become an important information source, the credibility of their postings is still a critical concern due to the open and unregulated nature. To understand the antecedents of microblog information credibility, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the dual-role of cognitive heuristics (i.e. the additivity and bias roles) and the effect of gender differences. Design/methodology/approach This study collected data via an online field survey of active microblog users, and a total of 204 valid responses was received. Findings This study demonstrates the dual-role of source credibility and vividness, the additivity role of microblog platform credibility, and the bias role of social endorsement. Furthermore, this study also found out gender difference that the additivity role of cognitive heuristics was stronger for men while bias role was stronger for women. Research limitations/implications This research enriches the microblog literature by examining the cognitive heuristic determinants as key predictors of microblog information credibility, and contributes to the information credibility literature by identifying and analyzing the dual-role effect of cognitive heuristics and corresponding gender differences. Practical implications This study can help organizations better manage their reputation, especially during the reputation crises, and also serves as a reminder to microblog platform operators of the importance of their microblog platform credibility. Social implications This study can help organizations better manage their reputation, especially during the reputation crises, and serves as a reminder to the microblog platform operators of the importance of their microblog platform credibility. Originality/value This study investigates the dual-role effect of cognitive heuristics (i.e. the additivity role and bias role) and corresponding gender differences that are less touched on before, and thus provides a more nuanced understanding of the more complex effects of cognitive heuristics.

Shilling attack detection for recommender systems based on credibility of group users and rating time series.

Recommender systems are vulnerable to shilling attacks. Forged user-generated content data, such as user ratings and reviews, are used by attackers to manipulate recommendation rankings. Shilling attack detection in recommender systems is of great significance to maintain the fairness and sustainability of recommender systems. The current studies have problems in terms of the poor universality of algorithms, difficulty in selection of user profile attributes, and lack of an optimization mechanism. In this paper, a shilling behaviour detection structure based on abnormal group user findings and rating time series analysis is proposed. This paper adds to the current understanding in the field by studying the credibility evaluation model in-depth based on the rating prediction model to derive proximity-based predictions. A method for detecting suspicious ratings based on suspicious time windows and target item analysis is proposed. Suspicious rating time segments are determined by constructing a time series, and data streams of the rating items are examined and suspicious rating segments are checked. To analyse features of shilling attacks by a group user’s credibility, an abnormal group user discovery method based on time series and time window is proposed. Standard testing datasets are used to verify the effect of the proposed method.

Making political leaders king: Enacted credibility in times of elections

Political leaders need to be persuasive to acquire support from citizens in elections and in office. Credibility is essential in this respect. Due to the mediated nature of political communication, citizens base their credibility evaluation on leaders’ media presentations and the public debate in the media that develops in response to it. The source credibility approach suggests that leaders are credible if citizens consider them competent, trustworthy, and caring. What remains underexplored is how these evaluations of leaders’ source credibility come about and how changes in them can be understood. To this end, we introduce the concept of enacted credibility. Enacted credibility entails the framing and reframing of leaders’ credibility in the interaction between political leaders’ performance, citizens, and other participants in the public debate in the media. Empirically we explore the relevance of this concept by studying the case of Dutch Social Democratic leader Job Cohen. We found that the interplay among and between participants in the public debate in the media and his media performance is key to understanding the substantial decline in his source credibility during the 2010 parliamentary election campaign. Our analysis shows that some dimensions of credibility became more salient in the public debate in the media than others, impacting the overall evaluation of his source credibility.

Students' evaluation of digital information: The role teachers play and factors that influence variability in teacher behaviour

Students deal with large amounts of digital information each day, which, clearly, they need to be able to evaluate. Teachers can play pivotal roles in fostering students' evaluation of digital information. Here, using Norwegian data drawn from 1158 teachers in 116 schools, we report on an investigation into ways in which variables interact and influence such fostering. Overall, most teachers are found to report that student skills in evaluating digital information are a focus of instruction, especially in respect of the evaluation of accuracy, credibility and relevance. In addition, the results show moderate to high positive associations among the use of information communication and technology (ICT) in teaching generally, ICT self-efficacy for instructional purposes, collegial collaborations and the teacher fostering (of students' capabilities to evaluate digital information). Finally, a structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis indicates that the use of ICT in teaching and ICT self-efficacy for instructional purposes are positive predictors of variations in teaching practices related to fostering students’ abilities to evaluate digital information.

The vicarious and source credibility grid across cultures

AbstractThe manuscript offers an expansion of a traditional view of source credibility based on evaluation of a message source with inclusion of vicarious credibility (evaluation by members of a social network). The move reflects the need to consider differing cultural perspectives on how a message source might become evaluated. Data from 1,149 participants (US, Spanish, Japanese) identify vicarious and source credibility as significantly different. Classification results from discriminant analysis, where vicarious and source become a single function to create new grounds for cross-cultural communication research. The new paradigm requires the examination of both vicarious credibility in conjunction with source credibility that produce a credibility grid.

Impact of online word-of-mouth on sales: the moderating role of product review quality

ABSTRACTFacing with thousands of online product reviews, consumers usually pay close attention to those valuable ones which provide more specific and credible evaluations on products. Whether a close association exists between product review quality and sales is thus examined in this paper. By employing text mining techniques on multiple review features, a review is measured as one of the following two levels: high-quality or low-quality. In doing so, aggregate quality level of product’s whole reviews is also identified. Then, a two-level econometrical analysis is conducted on the real datasets from Amazon.cn. The results reveal that aggregate quality level of positive reviews and negative reviews interactively influence sales. In the situation the aggregate quality level of positive reviews is high meanwhile that of negative reviews’ is low, product sale is the highest, while in the opposite situation product sale is the lowest. The results also reveal that consumers understand product’s value from weighting positive and negative reviews of high-quality level, which then positively relates to product sales and exerts a dynamic effect on sales by the moderating role of product selling stage and popularity. The paper innovatively integrates the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of reviews to estimate their economic effect.

Fake News and its Credibility Evaluation by Dynamic Relational Networks: A Bottom up Approach

The world has become flat through the Web and the recent proliferation of social network services, allowing anyone to be a news writer without requiring much effort, thus creating an epidemic of fake news (microblogs in particular). This note proposes a bottom up approach with relative, mutual, and dynamic credibility evaluation using a dynamic relational network (or mutual evaluation model), where each node can evaluate and in turn be evaluated by other nodes for credibility based on the consistency of the content of the node. Our stance is that 1) it would be difficult to evaluate credibility of news solely on the content of the news (except obvious ones using fake photos and images); 2) hence, allow related news articles to mutually evaluate each other based on the facts’ (5W1H— who, what, where, when, why, and how) consistency; 3) however, this poses the problem of fake evaluation, thus allowing any users to build their own evaluation network for fairness.

Fake Images: The Effects of Source, Intermediary, and Digital Media Literacy on Contextual Assessment of Image Credibility Online

Fake or manipulated images propagated through the Web and social media have the capacity to deceive, emotionally distress, and influence public opinions and actions. Yet few studies have examined how individuals evaluate the authenticity of images that accompany online stories. This paper details a 6-batch large-scale online experiment using Amazon Mechanical Turk that probes how people evaluate image credibility across online platforms. In each batch, participants were randomly assigned to one of 28 news-source mockups featuring a forged image, and they evaluated the credibility of the images based on several features. We found that participants’ internet skills, photo-editing experience, and social media use were significant predictors of image credibility evaluation, while most social and heuristic cues of online credibility (e.g., source trustworthiness, bandwagon, intermediary trustworthiness) had no significant impact. Viewers’ attitude towards a depicted issue also positively influenced their credibility evaluation.

Selected predictors of the evaluation of credibility of information on food packaging among processors and distributors

Celem artykulu jest zbadanie problemu wiarygodności informacji umieszczanych na opakowaniach produktow zywnościowych z perspektywy przetworcow i dystrybutorow zywności w Polsce. Z wykorzystaniem metodyki CAWI uzyskano 78 wypelnionych kwestionariuszy. Posluzono sie korelacjami, statystykami t, analizami ANOVA oraz prostymi i wielorakimi regresjami. W modelu regresji wielorakiej przetestowano serie predyktorow wiarygodności. Otrzymano model z piecioma statystycznie istotnymi zmiennymi niezaleznymi. Obejmują one: 1) przekonanie, ze liczba oświadczen zywieniowych jest odpowiednia; 2) zrozumialośc informacji na opakowaniu; 3) udzial produktow z oświadczeniami zdrowotnymi w ofercie badanych przedsiebiorstw; 4) samoocene zdrowotności wlasnego sposobu odzywiania sie i 5) staz pracy respondentow w badanych firmach. Zauwazono, ze postrzegana wiarygodnośc wzrasta wraz ze wzrostem wartości zmiennych 1, 2 i 4, a spada przy wzroście zmiennych 3 i 5.

Credibility Evaluation of Operational Test Simulation Data under Small Sample Circumstance

It is highly necessary to study how to analyze the reliability of simulation data under small sample circumstance when the number of times live operational test is strictly limited. Based on the analysis of existing test ideas and methods, combined with the characteristics of sequence statistics of uniform distribution, a new method of consistency verification is proposed by constructing the variable-scale differential quotient sequence statistic. The research shows that this method is not limited by the sample size, and the credibility of the simulation data can be quickly judged by MATLAB programming.

THE INTERNET ADDRESSES OF AGROTOURISTIC FARMS AND THEIR INFORMATIVE VALUE

Purpose. The analysis of information available in the Domain Name Registry and the digital archive on selected internet domains of agrotouristic farms. The answer to the question whether this information can be helpful in choosing a specific offer. Method. The analysis of the domain’s history – digital copies of websites of chosen agrotouristic farms recorded in the Wayback Machine web archive. The analysis of data available in the WHOIS database. Findings. The analysis of data available in the Research and Academic Computer Network (NASK) does not allow to clearly assess a counterparty’s credibility. Tracking the domain’s history enables to record how artwork, contents and technique of performing agrotouristic farm websites have changed and also how their business type has evolved. Irregularities connected, among others, to the operator being the domain’s customer were noticed in the set of analysed websites. Research and conclusion limitations. 10 addresses of agrotouristic farm websites accessed on 19 December 2016 from the first tab of searching results in one of public website catalogues were examined. As the Wayback Machine web archive collects copies of archival websites regardless of the domain where they are available, the WHOIS database only contains information about national domains of the highest level (.pl). Practical implications. Survey methods used in the paper are universal – they can be helpful in evaluation of credibility of any subject promoting services on the website within a national domain of the highest level. They can be also used to verify history of any web domain which can be helpful before its registration. Originality. The concept of using the Wayback Machine digital archive to evaluate a counterparty’s credibility and potential value of an internet domain. The concept of using the WHOIS registry to estimate credibility of an agrotouristic offer. Type of paper. The paper presents the results of empirical surveys. A case study.

Promoting Public Health or Underlying Business Interests? The Effectiveness (or Ineffectiveness) of Responsible Drinking Social Causes by the Alcohol Industry Versus Non-Profits

ABSTRACTThis study examined differences in the effectiveness of responsible drinking campaigns in promoting public health or facilitating underlying interests between the alcohol industry and non-profit organizations. We examined college students' perception of advertisers' motives and evaluation of sponsors' credibility and explored the effects of this perception on multiple strategic goals established by alcohol responsibility campaigns. The results showed that participants perceived industry-sponsored campaigns as self-serving, and this affected sponsor credibility, which influenced attitudes toward sponsors and campaign messages in both sponsor types. These attitudes were significantly associated with intention. The effects of sponsor credibility on attitudes toward drinking differed according to sponsor types. Positive perception of sponsor credibility following exposure to an industry-sponsored campaign enhanced positive attitudes toward drinking, which strengthened intention to drink. When exposed to a non-profit organization's message, positive perception of credibility led to negative attitudes toward drinking and weaker intention to drink.

Comprehensive Decision of Distribution Network Line Selection Based on Credibility Evaluation Index

小电流接地的配电系统故障选线技术是保证配电网安全可靠运行的重点。关于配电网选线技术研究主要集中于选线原理，且受配电系统网架结构、中性线接地方式、出线类型、负荷等因素影响，各方法均有局限性，目前缺乏对选线方法的综合评价的研究。本文针对三种不同选线方法，包括零序电流比幅法、谐波法和零序电流有功分量法，将每种选线方式的影响因素进行量化分析，定义了不同方法能够正确选线的可信度评价指标，并对其进行可信度等级划分，通过构造欧式距离量化指标评价体系，建立了综合评价指标，给出基于可信度评价的选线方式综合决策。最后，采用算例验证了该方法的可行性和实用性。 The fault line selection technology of distribution system with small current grounding is the key to ensure the safe and reliable operation of distribution network. The research on the technology of line selection in distribution network mainly focuses on the principle of line selection. Due to the influence of the grid structure of distribution system, the way of neutral grounding, the outlet type, load and other factors, each method has its limitations. Currently, there is a lack of the study on comprehensive evaluation methods of line selection. In this paper, three different line selection methods, including zero-sequence current amplitude method, harmonic method and zero-sequence current active component method, are used to quantitatively analyze the influencing factors of each line selection method. The credibility evaluation index of different methods is defined and classified according to the credibility level. The comprehensive evaluation index is established through the construction of Euclidean distance quantitative index evaluation system, and the comprehensive selection of line selection method based on credibility evaluation is given. Finally, an example is given to verify the feasibility and practicability of this method.