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Enhancing Perceived Credibility of Citizen Journalism Web Sites

Kirsten A. Johnson and Susan Wiedenbeck
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 2009 86: 332
DOI: 10.1177/107769900908600205
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ENHANCINGPERCEIVED CREDIBILITY
OF CITIZEN JOURNALISM W E B SITES
By Kirsten A. Johnson and Susan Wiedenbeck
This study examined whether information about a writer and hypwlinks on a citizen journalism Web site afected the perceived credibility of
stories. Participants read storiesfrom a popular citizen journalism Web
site and rated the stories in terms of perceived credibility. Results show
that hyperlinks and information about the writer do enhance perceived
story credibility. Credibility is enhanced most greatly when both hyperlink and writer information are included and, to a lesser extent, when
just hyperlink or writer information is present.
This study examines markers that can increase perceived credibility of stories on citizen journalism Web sites. Specifically this study
looks at stories posted online via the citizen journalism Web site
OhmyNews.com, and two markers of credibility- information about
the writer and hyperlinks included in the story.
A previous study investigating elements that help and hurt the
perceived credibility of Web sites indicated that including markers of
expertise can help boost perceived credibility. In particular, that study
found that Web sites can convey expertise through listing information
about the author, as well as citations of, and references to, the authors
work.
Building upon this studys additional exploration of such factors,
perhaps citizen journalism sites can improve perceived credibility by
providing information about those who write on the sites, as well as by
allowing visitors to their sites to verify information easily through the
use of hyperlinks embedded in the story.
Many studies have explored credibility perceptions of traditional
media. However, the credibility of citizen journalism is a relatively
new area. This study seeks to add to the body of literature on citizen
journalism, as well as to expand on previous research in the areas of
Web credibility and trust.

Antecedents to Citizen Journalism. The idea of allowing ordinary

Background
citizens to have a voice in news coverage is not new. The civic, or puband Related lic journalism movement, allows the concerns of citizens to help shape
Work
the news agenda? The presidential election in 1988 is often cited as
JbMC Quarterly
Vol. 66, No.2
Summer 2009
332-348
02w9 AEJMC

332

Kirsten A. Iohnson is an assistant professor in the Department of Communications at

Elizabethtown College, and Susan Wiedenbeck is a professor in the College of
Information Science and Technology at Drexel University.

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when civic journalism emerged. Journalists and others raised concerns

that the election news being covered was not news of interest to citizens,
and that journalists had not considered the public in their ~overage.~
Citizen journalism is an exemplar of Web 2.0 applications that typically include collaboration among users, information sharing, and creativity via the Web. Gill argued that the idea of news as conversation
has helped give rise to citizen journalism Web sites, because citizen journalism expands two-way communication between readers and media?
Citizen Journalism. Citizen journalism, also referred to as grassroots journalism and participatory journalism, is news content produced by ordinary citizens with no formal journalism training5 In their
paper titled We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of
News and Information, Bowman and Willis define citizen journalism as
citizens participating in the news process from the collecting of information through the dissemination of that information.6
Arguably the most well-known and popular citizen journalism
Web site in the world is OhmyNews.com, founded in February 2000.
0hmyNews.com has an international English-language site, as well as a
Korean site. Citizen journalists have flocked to these sites; the Korean
site alone has more than 42,000 registered citizen journalists and ninetyfive full-time staff.7 Editors review and post hundreds of articles a day
written by citizen journalists who contribute content. From February
2005 through July 2005 0hmyNews.com had anywhere from about 3
million to 18 million page views per day!
According to Outing, there are many different models of citizen
journalism? These models include readers commenting on already published articles, as can be found on the Northwest Voice and The Bakersjield
Californian sites. Another model has a professional journalist posting a
small story and then allowing citizens to post their experiences that pertain to the story. A news organization may also consider a stand-alone
citizen journalism site made up of contributions from citizens that is edited and is separate from the core news brand. Examples of these types of
sites are mymissourian, Westportnow, and ibrattleboro.com. A news
organization may also choose to create a stand-alone citizen journalism
site where stories are not edited before they are posted on the site, for
example getlocalnews.com and Dailyheights.com. The work of citizen
journalists can also be combined with the work of professionals.
0hmyNews.com is an example of this approach. Citizen reporters
account for about 70% of the sites content, but professional reporters create the rest. Not everything submitted by citizens is accepted for publication.
Media CredibiZiZty. Trust in mainstream media is eroding. A survey by the Pew Research Center For the People and the Press shows credibility in all major news media has fallen in recent years.l0 Media credibility soared following President Nixons resignation in 1974; public
opinion polls showed 68% of people had trust and confidence in the
news media. However, following this time of soaring public confidence,
trust in the media fell and continues to fall. Also according to the Pew
survey, among the major networks, 24% of people find NBC News to be
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highly credible, down from a high of 30% in 1998; 24% find ABC
news highly credible, down from 31% in 1996; and 24% of people find
CBS News highly credible, down from 32% in 1996.12 The same downward trend can be seen with newspapers, although the decline is not as
dramatic. The percentage of people who say they can believe most of
what they read in their daily newspaper has dropped from 84% in 1985
to 54%in 2004.13A similar pattern holds true for local and network television news. During the same period, TV news believability has fallen
from 85% to 62%, and network TV believability has fallen from 87% to
64%.
Simultaneously, news on the Web has developed and expanded.
Large numbers of people have turned to online news. In 2007,37% of
those surveyed reported that they had gone online for news, up from
30% two years ea11ier.I~A growing proportion of that online news is generated by citizen journalists. In 2007 the number of citizen journalism
Web sites approached 1,500, and professional journalists are turning
more often to citizens to help in reporting news.15However, lacking the
institutional credibility of long-established, professional media organizations, citizen journalism must find new ways to project credibility to
readers, who may be skeptical of news content provided by everyday
citizens.16
Defining Credibility in the News Media. In the 1950s the Roper
Center for Public Opinion Research began measuring media credibility
in its polls, sparking debate in the media community about the definition of credibility. Some of the earliest work in this area defined the
credibility of a news story as being synonymous with the believability
of the ~ t 0 r y . l ~
This definition is still widely used today in media
research.18 Some researchers make a distinction between receiver and
source credibility. Newhagen and Nass offer the following definition of
mass media credibility defined from a receiver-oriented perspective:
The degree to which an individual judges his or her perceptions to be
a valid reflection of reality.lgBut they point out that measuring media
credibility is complicated by the fact that another dimension is added to
the mix when technology, in the form of a television monitor or printing
press, is used in the transmission of the message. They go on to say that
because of this, mass media credibility is really ...the perception of
news messages as a plausible reflection of the events they depict.20
In terms of the source, there is usually not a clear distinction made
in many studies.2l A person, an organization, or even the channel being
used to transmit the message can be considered the source. A distinction
can also be made between an internal and external source, where
the internal source is the person who originated the message, and the
external source is the mass medium used to transmit the signal.
When source credibility was taken into account, Newhagen and Nass
found people judge television according to the on-air people presenting
the news (individuals), whereas newspapers are judged more as organizations
Hovland and Weiss found that when a statement
is made by someone perceived as a high prestige source there is a
higher level of agreement with the ~tatement.2~

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Credibility of citizen journalists may be called into question

because they are not part of the traditional media. One of the ways traditional media try to lend a measure of credibility to their information is by
adhering to a filter-then-publish model. This means that the information
that comes into a newsroom is edited prior to being released to a mass
audience. Conversely, citizen journalism Web sites tend to operate under
a publish-then-filter model, where information is released to the mass
audience and then it is edited.24In some cases people with journalism
experience are employed as editors, whereas in other cases, visitors to the
site can act as editors. The missing layer of editorial oversight may cause
credibility problems.25
Web Credibility. Including markers of expertise on a Web site
can improve the sites credibility. Fogg et al. used the following items as
markers of expertise for informational Web sites:
Site is by a news organization that is well respected
outside of the Internet.
Site lists authors credentials for each article.
Site has articles that list citations and references.
Site has few news stories, but gives detailed information for each.
Site says it is the official site for a specific topic.
Site has ratings or reviews of its content.
The site displays an award it has
A study of the credibility of political messages presented on the
Internet found that those who use the Internet heavily tend to rate online
information as credible.27The study also showed that when participants
were presented with three sources of political information (one that was
an expert, one that was trustworthy, and one that was a celebrity), participants found the celebrity to be the most credible.

The lack of research on markers that lead to higher levels of perceived credibility of stories on citizen journalism Web sites has led to this
studys three main hypotheses.

H1: Providing information about a writers background and providing a picture of the writer on a citizen
journalism site will increase the perceived credibility of the
story.
Previous studies show that providing information about the author
of online information as well as a picture may enhance the credibility of
the site.% We believe that this finding can be extended to individual stories on a citizen journalism Web site. We hypothesize that providing both
information about the writers background and providing a picture of
the writer will enhance the credibility of stories found on the citizen journalism site. In this study, information about a writers background is
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defined as information about the life and previous activities of the

author of a news article on the Web site. Citizen journalism is defined
as news content produced by ordinary citizens with no formal journalism trainir~g?~Perceived
credibility in this study will be assessed, as it
has been in a number of previous studies, by measuring believability,
accuracy, trustworthiness, bias, and completeness.30
HZ: Hyperlinks that allow users to verify information
contained in a story on a citizen journalism site will increase
the perceived credibility of the story.

Hyperlinks can be important in helping users form judgments

about online credibility? We hypothesize that stories on the citizen journalism Web site that contain hyperlinks will be rated by participants as
more credible than stories that do not contain hyperlinks. In this study
hyperlinks are defined as the blue underlined words in the text of the
stories presented to the participants via a computer connected to the
Internet. When clicked, they allow participants to go to different
Internet pages.
H3: Providing information about a writers background, a picture of the writer, and hyperlinks that allow
users to verify information contained in a story on a citizen
journalism site will affect the perceived credibility of the
story.

As stated above, previous research indicates that providing information about the writers background, a picture of the writer, and
hyperlinks that allow users to verify information enhance the credibility of Web sites. Providing all of this information to a user may further
enhance the credibility of not only the site, but also of the story on the
site. H3 seeks to examine the combination of all the factors. We hypothesize that the stories on the citizen journalism site containing all of these
pieces of information (writer information, a picture, and hyperlinks) will
be rated by participants as more credible than stories that do not contain
all of the above information.

Method

Ovemiew. This study was conducted using an experimental

method in a computer laboratory setting. Participants were assigned to
four groups: a control group that read just the story, a group that read
the story and saw information about the writer, a group that saw hyperlinks in the story, and a group that saw both writer information and
hyperlinks. Participants read three stories written by citizen journalists
and rated the perceived credibility of each story.
Pa+ticipants. One hundred and twenty undergraduate students
enrolled in a small college in the Eastern United States participated in
the study. The students were 18 to 23 years old, with a mean age of 20.
Eighty-two were females (68%)and 38 were males (32%). In this colDownloaded from jmq.sagepub.com at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on May 29, 2013

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TABLE 1
Questionnaires Used, Constructs in the Questionnaires, Cronbachs Alpha(a) Reliability
Statistic, and Use of the Questionnaires in Other Studies
Questionnaire

Constructs

Same Criteria Used in

Perceived Credibility

Believability, Accuracy,
Trustworthiness, Bias,
Completeness

.81

Abdulla et al., 2005; Bucy, 2003;

Flanagin & Metzger, 2000; Flanagin &
Metzger, 2003; Gaziano & McGrath,
1986; Johnson & Kaye, 1998; Johnson
& Kaye, 2004; Meyer, 1988; Newhagen
& Nass, 1989

Issue Salience

Relevance, Interest,
Enjoyment, Importance

35

Site Credibility

.86
Trustworthiness,
Believability, Reliability,
Authoritativeness,
Honesty, Bias of the Web
Site

Sponsor Credibility

Credibility, Integrity,
Reputation,
Successfulness,
Trustworthiness

.87

Internet Experience

Web Use, Expertise,

Experience

.79

Propensity to Trust

Usually Trust People,

.87
Give People Benefit
of the Doubt,
Trust New Acquaintances

Flanagin & Metzger, 2003

McKnight, Choudhury,& Kacmar,

2002; McKnight, Kacmar, &
Choudhury, 2004

lege, there are more females (1,295) than males (696), and this ratio of
males to females reflects that distribution. Mann-Whitney U tests
showed no significant gender difference on credibility or story engagement. Also, there were no significant differences between the responses
of males and females on questions about the writers picture, writers
background information, and number of links clicked. Twenty-three of
the participants were communications majors, and the other 97 participants were from a variety of majors ranging from hard sciences to
humanities.
The Participants reported being highly experienced in using the
Web (M = 18.21, sd = 1.85, out of a possible 21 points). Prior to this study,
28% of participants reported having heard about citizen journalism. In
terms of use, 73%of participants reported never having visited a citizen
journalism site, and 96% reported never having contributed content to a
citizen journalism site.
Questionnaires. All participants answered questions about the perceived credibility of the stories they read. Six scales were used in the
study: perceived credibility, issue salience (how engaged the reader was
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FIGURE 1
Example of Writer Information and Photo from the Web Site 0hMyNews.com lnternational

[)rv(d K e d T I s a t e e l a m mlermusdan whn enjoys traveling and unmvenng

nuggetsdrapUre along he way h he rvords of he Russan poet Vladlmlr Uayakmsky.
Wtlh me I anammy has gone mad I nobrlng but heanI mrlng evecywhere
He has &lW a boak on kading In Japan and has had wwk appear In R mrlety of
newspapersand magames C u m t y based In Hong Kmg. Dawd grew up In and amund
Vancouver. Canada His Web sle Is mm alidqbllss mm

in the story), site credibility, sponsor credibility, Internet experience, and

propensity to trust (a persons trusting nature in general). All responses
were measured using a 7-point scale. The scale ranged from Strongly
Agree to Strongly Disagree. Because it is a 7-point scale there is a neutral point. Reliability of the scales was measured with Cronbachs alpha
(see Table 1).
Procedures. The participants were divided into four groups of 30
participants each. Each group read the same three stories (one hard
news story, one feature story, and one sports story) from the
0hmyNews.com International Web site. After reading each story participants filled out the Perceived Credibility and Issue Salience scales. In
the groups that saw the writer information and picture, participants
responded to three specific questions about how the writer information
and picture affected credibility. The writer information in the study consisted of a few short paragraphs about each writer, taken with permission from the 0hmyNews.com Web site, as well as the photo of each
writer (see Figure 1). The stories were presented in a different order to
each group.
In the groups that saw the hyperlinks, participants responded to
three questions about how hyperlinks affected credibility. At the end of
the study, all participants completed demographic questions and three
scales: Site Credibility, Sponsor Credibility, and Propensity to Trust.
Non-parametric statistics, including the Mann-Whitney U test and
the Spearman rank correlation, were used to analyze the data. These
tests were chosen because the data were ordered, i.e., for each question,
participants chose responses on a 7-point scale in order from most positive to most negative. Also, a histogram showed that the data were not
normally distributed, which also pointed to the use of non-parametric
statistics. Comparisons of groups using the Mann-Whitney U were pairwise, with each group compared to the control group. Interactions were
not analyzed because the Mann-Whitney U test does not support interaction analyses.
For clarity, certain group designations will be used to distinguish
the groups from one another. The group that saw only the story (the
control group) will be referred to as the Story Only group. The group
that saw the story and the writer information (including the writers
photo) is the Story+Writer group. The group that saw the story and
the hyperlinks is the Story+Hyperlinks group. The group that saw

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TABLE 2
Perceived Story Credibility Means, Standard Deviations, and Results
of the Mann-Whitney U Test for Each Group
Group

sd

Story Only (Control)

71.33

13.02

-Story+WriterInfo

78.37

11.02

302.50

.029*

Story+Hyperlinks

76.90

9.18

320.00

.054

Story+Both

79.80

10.96

254.50

.004*

*p < .05
Note: The table shows the results of pair-wise comparisons between the group that saw the story
only and each of the other groups listed in the table. An asterisk indicates a significant difference
at the .05 level.

the story, plus both the writer information and the hyperlinks, is the
Story+Bothgroup.
The questionnaires in the study were analyzed to determine
whether providing additional information in the form of hyperlinks
and/or information about the writer impacts perceived story credibility. Results show that including this information does indeed increase
the perceived credibility of the stories, in particular for hard news stories. Study results also point to the importance of the picture of the
writer. The more positively participants rated the picture of the writer,
the more credible they rated the story.
Propensity to Tmst. As has been found in previous studies, disposition to trust plays a role in whether someone judges a Web site to
be
The more trusting a person is, the higher he or she tends
to rate sites in terms of perceived ~redibility.~~
Because individuals disposition to trust is a factor in the formation of credibility judgments,
this was measured in the study. No significant differences were found
between the groups in propensity to trust. This means that the differences measured between groups, in terms of their perceived credibility, were not due simply to the fact that one group had more trusting
people in it than another.
Not surprisingly, and as has been found in the studies mentioned
earlier, this study did support the finding that those who have a higher propensity to trust also rate items higher in perceived credibility. In
this study those who had a higher propensity to trust rated the stories,
the site, and the people who created the site as significantlymore credible than those with a lower propensity to trust.
Perceived Story Credibility. Perceived story credibility was
highest for the group that saw the story plus the writer information
and hyperlinks (see Table 2). The Mann-Whitney U test showed there
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Findings
and
Discussion

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TABLE 3
Perceived Stoy Credibility Means, Standard Deviations,
and Mann-Witney U Test for Each Group by S t o y Type
M

Group

Story Only (Control)

Hard News
sports
Feature
Story+WriterInfo
Hard News
Sports
Feature
Story+Hyperlinks
Hard News
sports
Feature
Story+Both
Hard News
Sports
Feature

sd

19.93
27.37
24.03

5.24
5.60
5.47

23.07
29.17
26.13

3.87
3.86
4.28

305.00
372.00
371.00

.030*
.247
.241

22.30
28.33
26.27

4.35
4.10
5.44

315.50
419.00
340.50

.046*

22.97
30.27
26.57

5.86
4.58
4.98

292.50
288.00
338.50

.020*
.016*
.098

,645
,104

were significant differences between the Story Only group and the
Story+Writer information group, as well as the Story Only group and
the Story+Both group.
Type of S t o y and Perceived Credibility. The mean perceived
credibility for the stories, when analyzed according to story type (hard
news, feature, and sports), was lowest for the story only group (see
Table 3). Perceived story credibility increased across all story types as
additional information, in the form of hyperlinks and writer information, was introduced. When the Story Only group was statistically compared pair-wise to the other groups, significant differences in perceived
credibility were found for the hard news story. For the sports story, only
the Story+Both group showed higher perceived credibility compared
to the Story Only group. There were no significant differences between
groups for the feature story.
Writer Information. The Importance of the Writer's Picture: The
picture of the writer played an important role in the assessment of the
credibility of the stories. Participants answered the question, "I thought
the writer in the picture looked credible" using a 7-point Likert scale.
The more participants believed the writer in the picture looked credible,
the higher they rated stories in terms of perceived credibility. The
Spearman rank correlation showed a significant result, rs= .47, p < .001.
Commonly cited guidelines for interpreting correlations are the following: .lo to .29 is a low correlation, .30 to .49 is medium, and .50 to 1.00 is

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large; therefore, this is a medium correlation.34There were also positive

significant relationships between how credible participants rated the
writers picture and how engaged they reported being in the story, rs =
.33, p < .009, as well as how credible they felt the people who created the
Web site were r, = .26, p < .042. The latter result is interesting in that the
participants did not have access to the sponsor information on the Web
site, yet still showed a significant correlation.
The Importance of the Written Information about the Writer: When
examining whether the written information about the writers background was helpful, a significant positive relationship was found
between perceived credibility of the stories and engagement in the stones. Participants were asked to rate the statement The information on
the writers background was helpful in determining whether or not the
story was credible. The correlation of writers information and perceived credibility of the story was rs= .28, p < .030. Getting to know the
writer of the story through the background information boosted story
credibility scores. Perhaps participants were able to ascribe more trust to
the storiesbecause, after reading the writer information, they now felt the
writer was qualified to write about the subject matter, based on the background information presented, which raised the participants credibility
perceptions. However, as discussed below, a hierarchical regression did
not find a strong effect of the writers background information when all
the factors (writers picture, writers information, links clicked) were
included.
Results also showed that information about the writers background correlated to the story engagement scores, r, = .31, p < . O H . It
appears that learning more about the person who wrote the article helped
participants become more engaged when reading the stories. It could be
that learning that the writer had written about a particular subject before,
or has an interest in the subject he is writing about, helped to spark interest in the participants.
Hyperlinks CIicked: Surprisingly few participants chose to click on
hyperlinks in the stories. The average number of hyperlinks clicked was
0.93 out of 17 total hyperlinks participants had the opportunity to click.
Also, just 31% of participants chose to click on hyperlinks. In the instructions at the beginning of the study, participants were not told whether
they should click on the hyperlinks, in order to capture natural online
behavior.
The Importance of the Presence of Hyperlinks: Participants who saw
stories with hyperlinks were asked several questions about the hyperlinks in the stories. Only the first statement was rated by all participants:
Just the fact that the story contained hyperlinks (even if you didnt click
on them) made the story seem credible. A correlation of this question
with participants perceived credibility scores showed a significantresult,
r. = 3,p < .009. Similarly, correlation showed that the presence of hyperlinks is related to engagement scores, rs= .38, p < .003.
Finally, a hierarchical regression was used to assess the additive
effect of four factors, propensity to trust, writers picture, writers background information, and number of links clicked, on the dependent variENHANCING PERCEIVED
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TABLE 4
Spearman Rank Correlations of the Variables in the Regression
Credibility

1.oo

Credibility
Propensity to Trust
Writers Picture
Writers Information

Correlation Matrix
Propensity
Writers
Writers
to Trust
Picture
Information

Links
Clicked

-.02

.49**

.06

.44*

1.00

.15

.23

.26

1.oo

.44*

.a*

1.00

Links Clicked

.49**
1.00

*p < .05; **p < .01

able, credibility. The correlations of the variables are presented in Table

4. Table 5 presents the standardized regression coefficients (B), the standard error of the coefficient (SE), the R2in each block, and the R2change
from one block to the next. The standardized regression coefficient tells
the number of standard deviations that the dependent variable will
change as a result of one standard deviation change in the predictor.
The R2tells how much of the variance in the dependent variable, credibility, is explained by the predictor variable(s) contributing to it.
In the first block propensity to trust was not significant. In the
second block the addition of the writers picture was significant (F[2,28]
= 3.23, p < .05) and accounted for 20%of the variance in credibility. In
the third block, contrary to our expectation, the addition of the writers background information was not significant, contributing only an
additional 3% beyond the writers picture. Finally, the result of the
fourth block, with all four variables included, was significant (F[4,28] =
4.23, p < .Ol), and accounted for 41% of the variance in credibility.
Notably, the number of links clicked contributed 19%to the variance in
credibility.
In sum, the propensity to trust and the writers background information had minor influences on the model. It appears that the image of
the writer and the hyperlinks are the key predictors in the credibility
decision.
Overall Story Engagement. Story engagement, measured by the
Issue Salience scale, was significantly higher for the Story+Hyperlinks
group and the Story+Both group, when compared to the Story Only
group (see Table 6). Providing the additional information in the form of
hyperlinks and writer information serves to engage the reader in the
story. This does not come as a surprise, since hyperlinks allow participants to more fully engage in what they are reading by finding out additional information. As suggested above, although relatively few participants reported clicking on hyperlinks in the study, perhaps it is just the
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TABLE 5
Hierarchical Regression of Credibility on Predictors
Block 1
B
SE
Propensity to Trust

.19

.58

Writers Picture

Regression Model
Block 2
Block 3
B
SE
B
SE
.55

.15

.58

.01

.54

.41

.57

.48

.62

.52

.55

-.19

.57

-.49

.59

.57

.54

Links Clicked

R2 change values

.04

Block 4
SE

.10

Writers Information

R2values

.20
.16*

.23
.03

.41
.19**

*p < .05; **p < .01

fact that the participants had the option of clicking on the hyperlinks that
caused them to become engaged.
A surprising result was that there was no significant difference in
story engagement between the Story Only group and the Story+Writer
information group. Hyperlinks are most influential in increasing story
engagement, as opposed to writer information. In the Story+Both group,
story engagement is significant and this may be mainly the influence of
hyperlinks as opposed to the writer information. Whether they are
clicked on or not, hyperlinks are a cue to the user that additional information is available, and that the writer of the article cared enough about
what he or she was writing to include a link to additional information.
The more participants reported being engaged in the stories, the
higher they rated those stories in terms of perceived credibility. A significant positive relationship was found between how credible participants
in all groups found the story to be and how engaged they reported being
in the story, rs= .29, p < .001. This finding is consistent with previous
studies that show the level of engagement does, in fact, impact perceived
~redibility.3~
The presence of writer information and hyperlinks increased the
perceived credibility of stories on the citizen journalism Web site
0hmyNews.com. These markers of credibility were more important in
forming credibility perceptions to people reading hard news, as opposed
to feature type stories. In hard news stories people cared more about
whether the information was correct than they did in stories that tended
to be more feature-like.
The information on the writer, particularly the presence of a picture of the writer, played an important role in terms of how credible participants perceived stories to be. The more credible participants thought
ENHANCING PERCEIVED
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ConcZusion

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TABLE 6
Perceived Stoy Engagement Means, Standard Deviations, and Results
of the Mann-Whitney U Test for Each Group

sd

38.10

9.48

-Story+WriterInfo

40.23

9.45

392.50

.394

Story+Hyperlinks

44.00

11.15

298.00

.024*

Story+Both

42.70

9.68

317.00

.049*

Group

Story Only (Control)

*p < .05

the writer looked, the higher they rated stories in terms of perceived
credibility. Due to the nature and scope of this study, no conclusions can
be drawn about the physical characteristicsthat made these writers look
credible. Previous research in this area indicates that people will rate
someone who is similar to themselves as more credible than someone
who is not.%People also tend to ascribe more credibility to people who
are more attractive in terms of physical appearan~e.3~
In terms of hyperlinks, contrary to expectations, very few participants chose to click on them in the study. Future studies may wish to
explore why this occurred. It could be that due to the experimental
nature of the study participants did not think the links were active. A
qualitative study could be undertaken to observe users reading the
story, and ask questions as to why they chose to click, or not to click, on
particular hyperlinks.
Including information about the writer and hyperlinks served to
engage the reader in the story more than if that information was not
included. Figuring out ways to engage users in a media landscape
where millions of choices constantly compete for users attention is no
easy task. Including the information about the writer and the hyperlinks is one way to do this.
In the study, the writers information and pictures chosen were
only those of Caucasian males to avoid uncontrolled variables.
Subsequent studies could examine whether varying gender and ethnicity of the writers impact the results.
Future studies could also explore negative impacts on perceived
story credibility. If a writer does not look credible (perhaps he/she
looks disheveled or very young) what impact does that have on the perceived credibility of the story? The same could be examined in terms of
background information about the writer. If the information presented
shows deficiencies in credentials or experience, what impact does this
have on perceived story credibility?
It would also be interesting to allow participants to further explore
the Web site. In this study, participants movements were tightly controlled so confounding variables were not introduced into the study.

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Links that were not directly related to the story were turned off so participants could not navigate to another page if they clicked on them. In
future studies participants movements on the site could be tracked to
see what they choose to click on and how that impacts credibility ratings.
Nearly all participants reported never contributing to a citizen
journalism Web site, which is not surprising since many were not familiar with citizen journalism or citizen journalism Web sites. However, in
the future, as community newspapers continue to disappear, citizen journalism sites are likely to increase in prominence and stimulate more
direct participation.
The results of this research can be used to improve the perceived
credibility of ones work not only by those who write stories on citizen
journalism Web sites, but also by those who generate other types of usercreated content. Including a picture of the person who created the content, information about the person, and hyperlinks are all important first
steps in improving credibility perceptions.
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