Online Credibility Research Articles

Storifying instructional videos on online credibility evaluation: Examining engagement and learning

This study used video-based instruction to promote adolescents' online credibility evaluation skills and to examine whether storification of instructional videos can maintain students' situational interest and positive activating epistemic emotions during a four-lesson intervention better than non-storified instructional videos. The study also investigated whether storified instruction can enhance students' learning of online credibility evaluation skills better than non-storified instruction. The learning content of the videos was equivalent, differing only in terms of storification. Students participated in either a non-storified (n = 135) or storified (n = 115) video-based instruction (4 x 45-min lesson). In each of the first three lessons, students watched an instructional video explaining one credibility evaluation strategy. In the fourth lesson, the video introduced a case requiring students to apply the taught strategies. After watching the video, students' situational interest and positive activating epistemic emotions (i.e., curiosity and excitement) were measured. Then, students practiced the taught strategies with learning tasks. Students' credibility evaluation skills were measured before and after the intervention with an online credibility evaluation task. The latent growth curve model showed that non-storified and storified videos similarly maintained students' situational interest. No decline was observed. However, a small decline in positive activating epistemic emotions was observed in both instructional conditions. Students' credibility evaluation skills improved equally across instructions. The results underline that professionally produced videos following several multimedia design principles can trigger and maintain situational interest and enhance students’ online credibility evaluation skills without the need to incorporate additional storified elements.

Y AND Z GENERATIONS PREFERENCES FOR WORD-OF-MOUTH MARKETING

This article discusses the differences in generational preferences for word-of-mouth marketing. Differences between Generations Y and Z regarding different forms and sources of marketing are evaluated. The research objective was to discuss and analyze the results of the social-media campaign achieved by the non-governmental organization “Safari” through the developed strategy in a specific reporting period in order to find out whether the differences exist in the preferences of generation Y and Z for WOM marketing. To meet the research objective, the complete process of Word-of-Mouth (WOM) marketing planning and implementation was identified, each component of the communication activities cycle has been studied and the role of influencers in obtaining the desired responses from Gen Z toward the application “Safe YOU” has been evaluated. Applied method is the observation and content-analyses. The findings reveal that Generation Y exhibits a notable inclination toward seeking information via recommendations and evaluations predominantly from various sources, including Facebook. Among the various tools used, including Facebook, photo and video content are the most effective. This reliance on input from strangers signifies an evolving trend in trust dynamics, emphasizing the significance of online credibility and collective feedback in their decision-making process. In contrast, Generation Z demonstrates a marked preference for influence marketing, relying heavily on information sourced directly from influencers. Mirroring older generational behavior, Generation Z exhibits a parallel dependence on social networks as a primary information conduit. These findings underscore the importance of tailored marketing strategies that acknowledge and adapt to the unique preferences of each generation. Keywords: Influence Marketing, Generation Y, Generation Z, Consumer preferences, Marketing Strategies

How Online Travel Reviews Sources Affect Travelers’ Behavioral Intentions? Analysis with Source Credibility Theory

ABSTRACT This study used Source Credibility Theory (SCT) to examine the effect of the source credibility factors (SCFs) of travelers’ electronic word of mouth (eWOM) and their adoption on tourists’ hotel booking and review sharing intention. This study used Structure Equation Modeling (SEM) and artificial neural network (ANN) approaches to validate the effect of SCFs on tourists’ behavioral intentions. The study highlighted that all three source credibility factors, such as perceived sender trust, website trust, and organizational reputation, affected functional aspects like eWOM credibility and adoption. The study finds the dual-mediating effect of eWOM credibility and adoption between source credibility factors and eWOM outcomes. This study makes a unique attempt to analyze the roles of various aspects of SCT on tourists’ eWOM behavior. This study contributes to online trust literature by examining the effect of different online credibility factors (surface credibility, presumed credibility, reputed credibility) on online tourist behavior.

Examining the structure of credibility evaluation when sixth graders read online texts

AbstractBackgroundPrevious research indicates that students lack sufficient online credibility evaluation skills. However, the results are fragmented and difficult to compare as they are based on different types of measures and indicators. Consequently, there is no clear understanding of the structure of credibility evaluation.ObjectivesThe present study sought to establish the structure of credibility evaluation of online texts among 265 sixth graders.MethodsStudents' credibility evaluation skills were measured with a task in which they read four online texts, two more credible (a popular science text and a newspaper article) and two less credible (a layperson's blog text and a commercial text). Students read one text at a time and evaluated the author's expertise, the author's benevolence and the quality of the evidence before ranking the texts according to credibility. Four competing measurement models of students' credibility evaluations were assessed.ResultsThe model termed the Genre‐based Confirming‐Questioning Model reflected the structure of credibility evaluation best. The results suggest that credibility evaluation reflects the source texts and requires two latent skills: confirming the more credible texts and questioning the less credible texts. These latent skills of credibility evaluation were positively associated with students' abilities to rank the texts according to credibility.ImplicationsThe study revealed that the structure of credibility evaluation might be more complex than previously conceptualized. Consequently, students would benefit from activities that ask them to carefully analyse different credibility aspects of more and less credible texts, as well as the connections between these aspects.

World Health Organization is losing online credibility towards health-sensitive topics: Infodemiological analysis of Facebook users' reactions.

Background: The scientific infodemic constitutes one of the greatest threats to public health and safety today. The credibility of the main dissemination agencies is an essential tool for adhering to measures to preserve public health. Methods: The study is a longitudinal retrospective conducted on a web platform to investigate netizens' infodemic attitude towards World Health Organization. Reactions such as "like," "love," "affection," "surprise," "sadness," "anger," and "derision" were collected under World Health Organization (WHO) Facebook posts on climate change (from 2019 to 2022) and vaccines (from 2021 to 2022). Descriptive statistics, linear regression, and correlation methods were implemented to identify possible trends and relationships with the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. Results: These findings showed a worrying increase in derision reactions about climate change-related posts (up to 22% in November 2022, with a quadratically growing trend over time since December 2020). Furthermore, infodemic reactions such as anger and especially derision made up the majority of emotional reactions to vaccine-related posts since 2021 and up to 44% of total reactions in November 2022 (median since July 2021=9%, IQR: 4%-14%). Finally, there is evidence of a correlation between the start of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign and public distrust towards the WHO, even for issues unrelated to vaccines such as climate change. Conclusion: Based on what is known in the literature, these preliminary findings signal that the WHO is losing online public credibility towards extremely relevant issues for global health. Infodemiological interventions in accordance with the recent literature are urgently required.

Three Continua of Online Credibility Strategies Used by Eighth Graders

Three Continua of Online Credibility Strategies Used by Eighth Graders

A Study of Middle School Students’ Online Credibility Assessments: Challenges and Possibilities

A Study of Middle School Students’ Online Credibility Assessments: Challenges and Possibilities

Assessing the Credibility of Cyber Adversaries

Online communications are ever increasing, and we are constantly faced with the challenge of whether online information is credible or not. Being able to assess the credibility of others was once the work solely of intelligence agencies. In the current times of disinformation and misinformation, understanding what we are reading and to who we are paying attention to is essential for us to make considered, informed, and accurate decisions, and it has become everyone’s business. This paper employs a literature review to examine the empirical evidence across online credibility, trust, deception, and fraud detection in an effort to consolidate this information to understand adversary online credibility – how do we know with whom we are conversing is who they say they are? Based on this review, we propose a model that includes examining information as well as user and interaction characteristics to best inform an assessment of online credibility. Limitations and future opportunities are highlighted.

The Challenges of Identifying Dangers Online and Predictors of Victimization

This short paper will provide an overview of the impressive pieces included in this issue of the International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence and Cybercrime. This issue includes articles on the following pertinent topic, utilizing a range of approaches and methodologies: 1) online credibility; 2) cyberbullying; and 3) unauthorized access of information. An emphasis on the importance of policy development and better protection of potential victims is a common thread throughout the issue.

Theorizing Online Information Credibility among Teenagers

Theorizing Online Information Credibility among Teenagers

Evaluating Trustworthiness and Expertise of Information on Websites among the Undergraduate Students: The Role of Curiosity

Because of the necessity of assessing online resources and systems with reference to learning-related issues, this study aimed to investigate the impact of curiosity on evaluating websites’ information among university students. The study was an analytical survey and correlational. Based on Cochran sampling formula, the sample included 231 undergraduate students at the Faculty of Education and Psychology located at the Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran. Two highly validated questionnaires were used to measure the two main variables of curiosity and websites’ information credibility. The data gathered were then analyzed by software SPSS 24.0. Pearson’s correlation test showed a significant correlation between dimensions of web information credibility and the curiosity except for deprivation sensitivity. According to the findings of the general regression model, three phases for affecting trustworthiness evaluation were acceptable based on social curiosity, joyous exploration, and thrill seeking, respectively. Furthermore, three phases for affecting expertise evaluation were acceptable based on joyous exploration, social curiosity, and thrill seeking, respectively. Students with deprivation sensitivity and stress tolerance were unable to find credible sources because of the negative emotions and experiences impeding them to do it well. Curiosity factors influenced the online credibility evaluation highly in the sense that almost half of the students’ evaluations were based on their curiosity-related traits.

Entrepreneurial orientation, online credibility, and online performance: Evidence from SMEs in a B2B electronic market in China

ABSTRACT Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is a major strategy for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Prior studies have focused mainly on the EO-performance relationship in the traditional market. This article investigates the EO of online SMEs using a panel of secondary data for 149 SMEs from Alibaba.com over a three-month period. The results suggest that proactiveness and competitive aggressiveness have significant effects on online performance for SMEs in the business-to-business (B2B) electronic market. Online credibility plays an important role when SMEs adopt a strategy of proactiveness in the electronic market, but does not enhance the effectiveness of competitive aggressiveness. These findings offer managerial implications for online SMEs and suggestions for future research.

Malicious web domain identification using online credibility and performance data by considering the class imbalance issue

PurposeMalicious web domain identification is of significant importance to the security protection of internet users. With online credibility and performance data, the purpose of this paper to investigate the use of machine learning techniques for malicious web domain identification by considering the class imbalance issue (i.e. there are more benign web domains than malicious ones).Design/methodology/approachThe authors propose an integrated resampling approach to handle class imbalance by combining the synthetic minority oversampling technique (SMOTE) and particle swarm optimisation (PSO), a population-based meta-heuristic algorithm. The authors use the SMOTE for oversampling and PSO for undersampling.FindingsBy applying eight well-known machine learning classifiers, the proposed integrated resampling approach is comprehensively examined using several imbalanced web domain data sets with different imbalance ratios. Compared to five other well-known resampling approaches, experimental results confirm that the proposed approach is highly effective.Practical implicationsThis study not only inspires the practical use of online credibility and performance data for identifying malicious web domains but also provides an effective resampling approach for handling the class imbalance issue in the area of malicious web domain identification.Originality/valueOnline credibility and performance data are applied to build malicious web domain identification models using machine learning techniques. An integrated resampling approach is proposed to address the class imbalance issue. The performance of the proposed approach is confirmed based on real-world data sets with different imbalance ratios.

Prominence-Interpretation Theory: Membangun Kredibilitas Perusahaan di Media Digital

In this time of information is searchable and reachable, companies need to be more aware of their reputation and credibility online.Users always have the tendency of recheck and double check. In other occasions, users are looking for certain or needed information online or to a specific sites or company’s assets. It can be company’s websites, social media, forum, or simply search engine. Using prominence-interpretation theory, companies can be aware of their digital or online credibility evaluated by users. The theory explains and very much can be expanded to cope with current situation of credibility evaluation through various platforms online. Keyword: Prominence-interpretation theory, strategic communication, social media

<i>Online Review:</i> Indikator Penilaian Kredibilitas Online dalam <i>Platform E-commerce</i>

Online credibility, either for a company or a merchant, is an important thing that have to be considered in the era of e-commerce development. Online review and online rating are part of indicators that used to represent merchant or seller’s online credibility in e-commerce platform. The existence of online review and online rating in e-commerce platform may affect the prominence and interpretation aspects which is associated with online credibility. This is a conceptual paper which aims to describe the concept of online review and its relation with online credibility.
 
 

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.

Emergence of Online Reputation Management as a New Business Tactic in Corporate World: An Analytical Perspective

The introduction of the internet has ushered in a new era in business, when a company's reputation is now reliant not only on word of mouth but also on online reviews and comments. Online reputation management (ORM) as a result has grown in importance to a company's entire strategy. ORM entails tracking, evaluating, and changing internet information about a business, brand, or person. Because it enables companies to manage the narrative surrounding of brand and reduce unfavorable reviews or comments, ORM has recently gained popularity among corporations. Businesses are now spending money on ORM to enhance company’s internet visibility and safeguard brand reputation from harm. To develop a solid internet presence, ORM actively promotes positive material in addition to reducing negative content. Through ORM, businesses can interact with customers, forge enduring bonds, and raise company’s online credibility. In general, the introduction of ORM as a fresh business strategy has fueled a need for specialized companies that provide ORM services to companies. These businesses support businesses in managing their internet reputations and making sure that their online presence is in keeping with their brand image. ORM is probably going to become a more crucial component of a company's overall strategy as the significance of online reputation continues to rise.

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.

Online Buyer's Perspective of E-shops Credibility: Measurement Dimensions

Addressing the debated topic of credibility in online sales, the present study analyses buyer's perspective. The study develops from the literature to test and refine a multi-dimensional measurement of e-shops credibility. Consumer's criteria for assessing e-shops credibility are empirically examined with 817 Romanian student participants. Detailed approach and methodology, as well as the results obtained, research conclusions, limitations, and implications, are presented. The study advances an instrument which reveals new dimensions of establishing credibility although most aspects were found to be similar to results previously presented in other studies. The proposed instrument offers a new multidimensional measurement and knowledge resources for business committed to using Internet advantages, and it might be viewed as a strategic tool which enables e-shops owners to strengthen their market presence, e-sales and customer base through an adequate management of the knowledge regarding online credibility.

기능성 화장품의 온라인 사용 후기 신뢰도가 브랜드 선호도, 광고 신뢰도 및 구매의도에 미치는 영향 - 자외선 차단제의 긍정적 사용 후기를 중심으로 -

Considering that the effectiveness of ads varies according to the credibility of consumers, it is necessary to establish data regarding consumer credibility in relation to online reviews. To conduct a successful study on the marketing strategies of online reviews, it is also necessary to analyze the relationship between credibility and the various factors that influence the purchase intentions of consumers. Therefore, this study attempted to examine the relationship between consumer trust of on-line reviews, brand preference, ads credibility, and purchase intentions in relation to cosmetics. The study was conducted through a normative descriptive survey method using stimuli and a self-administered questionnaire. Analysis of the structural equation model was conducted for the data analysis. The results revealed that consumer reliance on online reviews of cosmetics influences brand preference, credibility of brand ads and purchase intentions. The results also revealed that consumers’ on-line reviews, brand preference, and trust of brand ads are important factors for increasing the purchase intentions. The mediation effect of brand preference and brands’ ads credibility were found in the process where on-line reviews exercise an influence on the purchase intentions. It was also found that brand preference has a stronger influence on purchase intention than credibility of brand ads. It was discovered that the credibility of on-line reviews directly influences purchase intentions more than indirectly influences. Considering the results of this study, programs that encourage customers to post on-line reviews, and strategies to promote brand preference by targeting groups that exhibit high trust in online reviews would be recommended.