Credibility Commons

Research Study Participants Needed: June 20 - July 30

peyina — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:50:18 +0000

The Credibility Commons project of the Information School at the University of Washington is seeking participants for a study to help us understand Internet users’ perceptions of search results based on two different website collections. To participate, you must: 1) be 18 to 65 years of age, and 2) be able to use a standard desktop computer and Web browser.

Upon completion, we will donate $25 in your name to TAF (Technology Access Foundation), or you may choose to receive a $25 gift card instead. Contact Peyina (206) 543-8510 or email credible@u.washington.edu (we cannot ensure the confidentiality of email.) For more information, see our flyer.

Research study participants needed (May 14 - June 30, 2008)

peyina — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:01:53 +0000

Upon completion, we will donate $25 in your name to TAF (Technology Access Foundation), or you may choose to receive a $25 gift certificate instead. Contact Yuan (206) 685-0196 or Peyina (206) 543-8510 or email credible@u.washington.edu (we cannot ensure the confidentiality of email.) For more information, see our flyer.

“False beliefs are not just hard to kill. They have an afterlife, too.”

peyina — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:31:26 +0000

John Bullock, a postdoctoral fellow at University of British Columbia, conducted a study that looks at the impact of false information on people’s political views. Two groups of people were detailed with the policy positions of a fictional Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate. One group received pretty middle-ground positions, while the second group received radical positions, such as abolishing the Department of Education. After the second group was told that the information provided to them was false, they were more likely to support the candidate than before they knew the information was false, but still, less likely to support the candidate than the first group. If candidates used this research finding to their advantage, we would have but a flood of distorted information, which would just be hurtful to all involved. Hopefully, what a psychology professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, Nicholas DiFonzo, says holds true as well. Based on studies of rumor, DiFonzo believes that when people realize that the reputations they have are at stake when spreading false information, they may act more reliably. The full article mentioning these studies can be found at The Vancouver Sun here.

A greater percentage of Canadians’ find traditional media more credible than new media

peyina — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:05:27 +0000

CanadaOne, a business information source, reports a study conducted by Leger Marketing about Canadians and their media preferences. Based on approximately 1500 adults, the study finds that the top five most credible information sources are: radio, television, newspapers and business magazines. There are gender and age differences. Women are more likely to trust national life style magazines than men (34% to 25%). In addition, 20 percent of 18 to 24 year olds believe a blog is a trustworthy source of information compared to 12 percent of 25 to 34 yearl olds. You can find the original article here, and the original marketing study by Leger Marketing here.

Deadline extended–Register for the Information Credibility iConference wildcard session today!

peyina — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:56:18 +0000

Space is still available for the iConference wildcard session “Information Credibility: Let’s Get Serious”.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to discuss research ideas and directions with key researchers in information credibility, including Miriam Metzger, Soo Young Rieh, David Lankes and Michael Eisenberg.

The session takes place at the iConference (UCLA) on Friday, February 29 (1:30pm to 3:00pm). More information is available at http://credibilitycommons.org/index.php/iconference2008_cfp_wildcard/

CFP: iConference 2008 Wildcard Session

peyina — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 03:30:42 +0000

The Credibility Commons Project invites you to pariticipate in a 90-min. long wildcard session at the 2008 iConference at UCLA (Feb. 28 - Mar. 1, 2008), titled “Information Credibility: Let’s Get Serious”. The sessions goals are to: 1) Discuss the new concerns and challenges of information credibility raised by new developments in search technology, online participatory publishing models, and social networking tools for both consumers and producers of information. 2) Envision potential research, design and development directions to address these new challenges.

Senior researchers on information credibility will briefly present their research and engage in discussions with participants to meet the sessions goals. Space is limited. Register by January 31!

Registration is very simple, and should take only 5 minutes. For more information, check out our call for participation page here.

Call for papers: Trust/credibility evaluation of Web documents using NLP

peyina — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 23:06:39 +0000

The 17th International World Wide Web Conference (April 21 - 25, 2008, Beijing, China) has a workshop session titled “Natural Language Processing Challenges in the Information Explosion Era” (NLPIX 2008). This workshop is calling for papers dealing with Natural Language Processing (NLP) issues on multiple topics, including trust/credibility evaluation of Web documents using NLP. The deadline for paper submissions is January 26, 2008.

new study reports on politically-interested internet users’ perception of blog credibility

peyina — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 21:22:51 +0000

Johnson, Kaye, Bichard, and Wong (2007) surveyed 1,399 internet users online during a four-week period surrounding the 2004 presidential election day (October 19 to November 16). The study applied uses and gratification theory to study credibility, which purportedly had not been widely used by credibility researchers. Amongst the hypotheses tested were whether motivations for using blogs and whether reliance on blogs for political information significantly predicted perception of blog credibility. Motivations were measured in terms of: 1) information seeking/media checking (searching about current issues), 2) convenience (using blogs because it’s more convenient and easier to reach than traditional media or other online sources), 3) personal fulfillment (fulfilling emotional needs and gathering information to use in discussion with others), 4) political surveillance, and 5) social surveillance (learning about others’ opinions).

Credibility was measured in terms of believability, fairness, accuracy, in-depth, and a combined index. After controlling for political and demographic variables, reliance on blogs was found to be a stronger predictor than motivation; and political information seeking was the strongest motivational predictor. In addition, participants found blogs to be higher in credibility for depth of information than traditional media or other online sources (p <.001, two tailed), albeit lowest in credibility for fairness of information. You can read the full article from this 2007 Journal of Computer Mediated Communication here.

social media can be a medium to gain credibility

peyina — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:19:17 +0000

Nick Haley’s YouTube “commercial” of iPod Touch was spotted by Apple’s ad executives. They bought his ad, which now airs on TV. While this piece of “news” is a few weeks old, it is worth mentioning here because it is an example of how social media can support anyone who is not an authority figure to be known based on skills and creativity per se. This example might underscore the relevance of the multiple dimensions of credibility pertaining to content, and perhaps raises the question of whether and how newness and creativity of content affect perceived credibility in new forms of social media–or whether these dimensions are about of “credibility” or not.

Nick Haley’s YouTube version of the iPod Touch commercial can be seen here. Additional news stories about it can be found in the New York Times and Wired blog.

“Avoidant Coping Styles” of HIV Predict Credibility Assessment

peyina — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 21:36:11 +0000

A study of information evaluation and coping styles of people living with HIV/AIDS reports that “assigning higher credibility to unfounded Internet information was predicted by lower incomes, less education, and avoidant copying styles.” You can read Kalichman, Cherry, Cain, Weinhardt, et al.. (2006)’s study abstract in this PubMed entry.