Credibility Factors in Professional Journalists' Versus User-Created Blogs

Abstract

During the past decade the professional news industry has continued to lose ground to citizen journalists and other alternative forms of news in the war for credibility and readers. At the same time, the Internet has exploded and many people get most or all of their news online. The rapid growth and ease of access to information online makes it critical that we gain an understanding of what creates credibility online. In this study I use four credibility factors established by recent research in this new medium to do a manifest content analysis of blogs. The findings of these factors may be used more in user-generated (a generic term for online content created by regular people) blogs than those maintained by professional journalists. This may explain why, even when employing a popular medium, professional journalists are rated less credible than non-professionals. The analysis of credibility factors merits further study in the field of credibility research.