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The privacy calculus established that online self-disclosures are based on a cost-benefit tradeoff. For the context of SNSs, however, the privacy calculus still needs further support as most studies consist of small student samples and analyze self-disclosure only, excluding self-withdrawal e.g., the deletion of posts, which is essential in SNS contexts. Thus, this study used a U.S. representative sample to test the privacy calculus' generalizability and extend its theoretical framework by including both self-withdrawal behaviors and privacy self-efficacy. Results confirmed the extended privacy calculus model. Moreover, both privacy concerns and privacy self-efficacy positively predicted use of self-withdrawal. With regard to predicting self-disclosure in SNSs, benefits outweighed privacy concerns; regarding self-withdrawal, privacy concerns outweighed both privacy self-efficacy and benefits.

This study investigated the effects of message and social cues on selective exposure to political information in a social media environment. Based on the heuristic-systematic model, we hypothesized that readers' selective consideration of specific cues can be explained by situational motivations. In an experiment (N = 137), subjects primed with motivational goals (accuracy, defense, or impression motivations, as well as a control group) were asked to search for information. Participants preferred attitude-consistent information and balanced information over attitude-inconsistent information, and also preferred highly recommended articles. Defense-motivated partisans exhibited a stronger confirmation bias, whereas impression motivation amplified the effects of social recommendations. These findings specify the conditions under which individuals engage in narrow, open-minded, or social patterns of information selection.

Selective exposure research indicates that news consumers tend to seek out attitude-consistent information and avoid attitude-challenging information. This study examines online news credibility and cognitive dissonance as theoretical explanations for partisan selective exposure behavior. After viewing an attitudinally consistent, challenging, or politically balanced online news source, cognitive dissonance, credibility perceptions, and likelihood of selective exposure were measured. Results showed that people judge attitude-consistent and neutral news sources as more credible than attitude-challenging news sources, and although people experience slightly more cognitive dissonance when exposed to attitude-challenging news sources, overall dissonance levels were quite low. These results refute the cognitive dissonance explanation for selective exposure and suggest a new explanation that is based on credibility perceptions rather than psychological discomfort with attitude-challenging information.

Taking the logic of online connective action from an information-processing viewpoint, an online experiment ( N = 208) was done to examine whether individuals’ cognitive elaboration on messages received from different sources (personal: friends, family, vs. impersonal: organization) mediates their willingness to engage in connective-type collective activities on social media (e.g., commenting, “Liking”); and whether this indirect influence is biased by perceived source credibility. Results revealed significant influence from personal sources. Cognitive elaboration positively mediates this influence and was conditionally affected by high source credibility. Direct influence from personal issue involvement and perceived self and technological efficacy was also observed. Theoretical contributions (i.e., cognitive demands at individual level) and practical implications (i.e., enhancing organizational credibility, popularity of easy-to-do acts) are discussed.

The perceived credibility of information plays a major role in information selection and influence (Metzger & Flanagin, 2015). Accordingly, past research has examined people's information selection and their decision outcomes, in both web and social media environments (e.g., Knobloch-Westerwick, 2015; Winter & Kramer, 2012). Yet, in spite of this research, the specific processes of people's information selection and credibility assessment are not fully understood. To better specify credibility evaluation behaviors, we employed eye-tracking methods as a means to determine precisely which web page cues (i.e., author, introduction, short advance summary, social media information, pro & con arguments, peer comments, poll on the topic) people attend to as they form opinions about web site credibility. Additionally, we induced participants' information search motivations (i.e., accuracy, defense, impression motivation, or a control). 87 participants in our study viewed a web page for 3.5 minutes while their eye movements were tracked. Think-aloud techniques and post-hoc credibility ratings were used to assess their approaches. Surprisingly, although author information has been shown to have an important impact on both selection and credibility assessment (Winter & Kramer, 2012), results showed that it is consulted last. Primary attention is given to arguments on the web page, and the introduction and short advance summary. Social information appears to be less relevant. Moreover, there is no correlation between duration of browsing various cues and credibility assessment. Also, the patterns of observation are not dependent on information search motivations.

This study investigates comparative optimism—whereby people perceive themselves as relatively invulnerable to risks as compared to others—in the evaluation of online information credibility by children and their parents. Results of a representative national survey of Internet users revealed significant antecedents of children's and parents' comparative optimism, including demographic characteristics, cognitive thinking style, and perceived self-efficacy. Parental optimism was also found to relate to the mediation strategies used to regulate children's Internet use, and comparative optimism in children was associated with tendencies to believe online information and specific evaluation behavior. Findings are considered in terms of their theoretical implications and with regard to the role of parents in children's digital information literacy development.

Young people are increasingly turning to the Internet more than to traditional media and information sources to find information. Yet, research demonstrates suboptimal online information literacy among youth today, suggesting potential shortcomings in young people's information consumption behaviors. To assess this, this study investigates several predictors of young people's success in online information evaluation, including their awareness of credibility problems associated with digital information, their use of specific information evaluation practices, and their accuracy in credibility assessment. Results from a study of 2,747 11–18-year-old Internet users indicate both expected and surprising influences of young people's cognitive development, decision-making style, demographic background, and digital information literacy training on their information evaluation awareness, skills, and practices. Theoretical implications and those for redesigning online information literacy interventions are discussed.

This entry provides an overview of research findings and theories regarding trust and privacy in electronic commerce. Trust and privacy are particularly important in the area of e-commerce given the considerable risk associated with the commercialization of products and services via the internet and mobile technology. The entry reviews key concepts from the trust and privacy literature, including the antecedents and outcomes of e-commerce trust, the impact of privacy concern on consumer behaviors, and privacy policies and regulations. Keywords: consumer behavior; e-commerce; internet; mobile communication; privacy; risk; trust

As networked information and communication technologies have enabled nearly instant access, from virtually anywhere, to almost inconceivably large information repositories, people have come to rely upon web-based information resources in a wide variety of ways. For example, even as early as 2006, nearly half of users in the United States said that the Internet played a crucial or important role in at least one major decision in their lives, such as attaining additional career training, helping themselves or someone else with a major illness or medical condition, or making a major investment or financial decision (Horrigan & Rainie, 2006). Yet, the credibility of information obtained online can be problematic, which raises concerns about how people obtain, interpret, and evaluate this information.

Our understanding and perceptions of source credibility significantly drive how we process health and risk messages, and may also influence relevant behaviors. Source credibility is believed to be impacted by both perceptions of source trustworthiness and expertise, and the effect of credibility on changes in attitudes and behavior has been studied for decades in the persuasion literature. However, how we understand and define source credibility—particularly the dimension of expertise—has changed dramatically as social media and other online platforms are increasingly used to design and disseminate health messages. While earlier definitions of source credibility relied heavily on the source’s credentials as indicators of expertise on a given topic, more recent conceptualizations must also account for expertise held by laypeople who have experience with a health concern. This shifting conceptualization of source credibility may then impact both why and when people select, as well as how they perceive, process, and judge, health messaging across both novel and more traditional communication contexts.

© 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.Proficiency in digital literacy refers to the ability to read and write using online sources, and includes the ability to select sources relevant to the task, synthesize information into a coherent message, and communicate the message with an audience. The present study examines the determinants of digital literacy proficiency by asking 150 students who had 50 min of access to the Internet and a word processor to produce a research report on whether or not their college should require all students to own a laptop computer. The resulting essay received a holistic rating from 1 to 5. Concerning knowledge underlying digital literacy, the major predictors of digital literacy proficiency (as measured by essay rating) were academic experience (undergraduate versus graduate status) and domain knowledge (based on a questionnaire), rather than technical knowledge about how to use computers (based on a questionnaire). Concerning processing during the task, the major predictors of digital literacy proficiency were integrating processes (such as number of unique sources, citations, or supporting details) rather than search processes (such as number of actions, web pages, websites, links, or search terms). In short, proficiency in digital literacy depended mainly on academic experience rather than technical experience, and on how learners organize and integrate the information they find rather than on how much information they peruse. Findings from this study suggest that the basic tenets of good scholarship apply to digital media.

This panel addresses information credibility issues in the context of social media. During this panel, participants will discuss people's credibility perceptions of online content in social media f ...

Networked digital media present new challenges for people to locate information that they can trust. At the same time, societal reliance on information that is available solely or primarily via the Internet is increasing. This article discusses how and why digitally networked communication environments alter traditional notions of trust, and presents research that examines how information consumers make judgments about the credibility and accuracy of information they encounter online. Based on this research, the article focuses on the use of cognitive heuristics in credibility evaluation. Findings from recent studies are used to illustrate the types of cognitive heuristics that information consumers employ when determining what sources and information to trust online. The article concludes with an agenda for future research that is needed to better understand the role and influence of cognitive heuristics in credibility evaluation in computer-mediated communication contexts.

Using Shrum's (1996) heuristic processing model as an explanatory mechanism, we propose that people who hold vivid autobiographical memories for a specific past experience with media violence will overstate the prevalence of real-world crime versus individuals without vivid memories. We also explore the effects of frequency and recency on social reality beliefs. A survey was administered to 207 undergraduate students who were asked to recall one violent television program or movie seen in the past. Participants were asked to write essays describing the violence, which were coded for vividness. Results support not only cultivation theory, but also the effects of memory vividness: participants with more vivid memories of blood and gore gave higher prevalence estimates of real-world crime and violence than participants with less vivid memories. Findings also suggest that females had more vivid memories for prior media violence than males. Implications for cultivation, the heuristic processing model, and vivi...

This study examined the perceived credibility of user-generated (i.e. Wikipedia) versus more expertly provided online encyclopedic information (i.e. Citizendium, and the online version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica) across generations. Two large-scale surveys with embedded quasi-experiments were conducted: among 11–18-year-olds living at home and among adults 18 years and older. Results showed that although use of Wikipedia is common, many people (particularly adults) do not truly comprehend how Wikipedia operates in terms of information provision, and that while people trust Wikipedia as an information source, they express doubt about the appropriateness of doing so. A companion quasi-experiment found that both children and adults assess information to be more credible when it originates or appears to originate from Encyclopaedia Britannica. In addition, children rated information from Wikipedia to be less believable when they viewed it on Wikipedia's site than when that same information appeared on eith...

The tremendous amount of information available online has resulted in considerable research on information and source credibility. The vast majority of scholars, however, assume that individuals work in isolation to form credibility opinions and that people must assess information credibility in an effortful and time-consuming manner. Focus group data from 109 participants were used to examine these assumptions. Results show that most users rely on others to make credibility assessments, often through the use of group-based tools. Results also indicate that rather than systematically processing information, participants routinely invoked cognitive heuristics to evaluate the credibility of information and sources online. These findings are leveraged to suggest a number of avenues for further credibility theorizing, research, and practice.

This study examines the relationship between young people's exposure to media violence and their aggressive political opinions (APO), which were defined as support for positions that involve forceful resolution to social or political issues. Students from 2 U.S. universities completed surveys assessing their APO, exposure to violent media, authoritarianism, trait aggressiveness, political leaning, personal experience with crime, and demographics. Results revealed that violent television exposure significantly predicted several forms of APO above and beyond the control variables. Playing violent video games, however, predicted only a few aggressive political opinions. The results of this study support the reliability and validity of the APO measure, shed light on the relationship between exposure to violent media content and political opinions, and suggest some important differences between television and video game content in the effects process.

An experiment assessed the effects of exposing college students to beer commercials with images of activities that would be dangerous to undertake while drinking. Those exposed to the ads were more likely to believe in the social benefits of drinking than those not exposed, particularly among males. Those participants who reported seeing people engaged in risky activities as well as drinking beer had an increased tolerance for drunk driving. The findings suggest that the imagery in beer commercials can contribute to beliefs about alcohol that predict drinking and to an increased acceptance of dangerous drinking behavior.

Although a significant amount of research has focused on traditional media choice and use, and even on some ‘new’ media, these studies have either neglected the Internet and World Wide Web or were conducted prior to their recent popularity. This study offers a novel exploration of individuals' use of three Internet functions (information retrieval, information giving, and conversation capabilities) in the context of the use of other communication media. Data from 684 individuals demonstrate that the Internet is a multidimensional technology used in a manner similar to other, more traditional media. Specifically, conversation features of the Internet align with mediated interpersonal technologies (the telephone and electronic mail), whereas the Internet's information-retrieval and information-giving features are used in ways similar to mass media channels (newspapers, television, and books and magazines). In addition, needs fulfilled by these channels cluster in ways consistent with past research, regardless of the technologies employed to meet them.

Following Gouran (1994), the authors proposed four hypotheses that predict the probability of computer-mediated groups (CMGs) endorsing proposals based on (a) the number of reasons offered for them, (b) the number of members advancing these reasons, (c) the net number of positive reactions to the reasons advanced, and (d) the development of support for the reasons. Results from 11 groups that had long collaborated exclusively through computer-mediated means indicated that members in support of a proposal relative to those in opposition as well as the development of their arguments were significant predictors of decision outcomes. Moreover, the number of responses for/against a proposal and the difference in the positive and negative reactions to decision proposals were good independent predictors of decision outcomes.

Concerns about the potentially dubious nature of online information and users' ability to evaluate it appropriately prompted this research on college students' use of Web-based information, their perceptions of information credibility, and their online verification behaviors. Two studies were conducted to address these issues. Results of the first study show that college students rely very heavily on the Web for both general and academic information, and that they expect this usage to increase over time. Results of the second study indicate that students find information to be more credible than do those from a more general adult population, across several media and considering many different types of information. Nonetheless, students verify the information they find online significantly less. Implications are discussed in light of current efforts of educators to improve Internet literacy.

The ability to monitor and record Internet users' personal information has raised fears about online privacy. Consequently, consumers have put pressure on the federal government and the online industry to respond appropriately to their privacy concerns. This study uses Edelma''s theory of symbolic politics to assess the congruence between public concern about online privacy and recent legislative and industry efforts to address this concern.

Technological capabilities and features of the Internet and World Wide Web have prompted concerns about the verity of online information, the credibility of new media, and the new responsibilities placed on media consumers. Reflecting these concerns, scholars have shown a renewed interest in the credibility of sources, their messages, and the media that carry them. Nonetheless, researchers who are currently reengaging the issue of information credibility have yet to take full advantage of the rich heritage left by credibility research conducted over the last half century. The primary aim of this chapter is to show how past research can inform present attempts to understand credibility in the new media environment, focusing particularly on Web-based information. Toward that end, this chapter reviews, synthesizes, and integrates the substantial literature on source, message, and media credibility; addresses issues of credibility conceptualization, operationalization, and measurement; suggests strategies to ...

The proliferation of new communication technologies over the last 2 decades has increased opportunities for audience activity by offering more choices and greater control aver the communication process for media consumers. However, extant research on the degree of user activity with new media portrays conflicting views of audience members as more active or more passive. This study attempts to sort out this issue by exploring audience activity levels among users of new and traditional media, as indicated by instrumental or ritualized orientations toward media use. Results indicate that new communication technologies are motivated by both instrumental and ritualized motives, but are used more instrumentally than traditional channels, particularly among older users.

This chapter explores the question of the continuing relevance of “mass media” due to recent technological changes in the media landscape. The chapter traces the history of media content production, distribution, and consumption from broadcasting to narrowcasting, and considers recent trends toward “hyperpersonalization” afforded by digital networked media. The chapter examines what these changes mean for politics and for political communication theory, and concludes by posing some questions about the future of mass media that serve as a call for research into the changing nature, circumstances, and effects of mass communication in the contemporary media environment.

The rich research heritage on source credibility is fundamentally linked to processes of political communication and the provision of political information. Networked digital technologies, however, have recently complicated the assessment of source credibility by modifying people’s ability to determine source expertise and trustworthiness, which are the foundations upon which credibility evaluations have traditionally rested. This chapter explores source credibility in online contexts by examining the credibility of digital versus traditional channels, the nature of political information conveyed by social media, and the dynamics of political information online. In addition, this chapter considers related research concerns, including the link between credibility and selective exposure, the potential for group polarization, and the role of social media in seeking and delivering credible political information. These concerns suggest challenges and opportunities as information consumers navigate the contemporary information environment in search of the knowledge to make them informed members of a politically engaged citizenry.

Although extremely popular, electronic commerce environments often lack information that has traditionally served to ensure trust among exchange partners. Digital technologies, however, have created new forms of "electronic word-of-mouth," which offer new potential for gathering credible information that guides consumer behaviors. We conducted a nationally representative survey and a focused experiment to assess how individuals perceive the credibility of online commercial information, particularly as compared to information available through more traditional channels, and to evaluate the specific aspects of ratings information that affect people's attitudes toward ecommerce. Survey results show that consumers rely heavily on web-based information as compared to other channels, and that ratings information is critical in the evaluation of the credibility of online commercial information. Experimental results indicate that ratings are positively associated with perceptions of product quality and purchase intention, but that people attend to average product ratings, but not to the number of ratings or to the combination of the average and the number of ratings together. Thus suggests that in spite of valuing the web and ratings as sources of commercial information, people use ratings information suboptimally by potentially privileging small numbers of ratings that could be idiosyncratic. In addition, product quality is shown to mediate the relationship between user ratings and purchase intention. The practical and theoretical implications of these findings are considered for ecommerce scholars, consumers, and vendors. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York.

(2001). The End of Mass Communication? Mass Communication and Society: Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 365-379.

Mobile networking researchers have long searched for large-scale, fine-grained traces of human movement, which have remained elusive for both privacy and logistical reasons. Recently, researchers have begun to focus on geosocial mobility traces, e.g. Foursquare checkin traces, because of their availability and scale. But are we conceding correctness in our zeal for data? In this paper, we take initial steps towards quantifying the value of geosocial datasets using a large ground truth dataset gathered from a user study. By comparing GPS traces against Foursquare checkins, we find that a large portion of visited locations is missing from checkins, and most checkin events are either forged or superfluous events. We characterize extraneous checkins, describe possible techniques for their detection, and show that both extraneous and missing checkins introduce significant errors into applications driven by these traces.

Using Feenberg's (1995a, 1995b) concept of the technical code of technological artifacts, this essay examines the evolution and current status of the Internet/World Wide Web. The idea of technical code—the cultural and social values and choices that become manifest in a technology's physical and structural forms—helps to isolate and uncover issues of design, usage, and policy that guide the Internet. In turn, the Internet/WWW can be seen in terms of the values, priorities, and assumptions that have literally become built into it. Based on this analysts, implications of the Internet's technical code and alternative outcomes are discussed.

Evidence reviewed here suggests that people are motivated to achieve closure on news stories that are left unresolved by retrospectively inferring a plausible resolution to the issue or event using their cognitive schemata. Data from 264 respondents revealed that people do infer closure under certain circumstances, particularly when they are less involved in an issue. Interestingly, the results also show that when closure inferences are made, people tend to believe that the issue improved rather than worsened, lending support for the claim that people have a natural “positivity bias” and that, literally, no news is good news.

The vast amount of information available online makes the origin of information, its quality, and its veracity less clear than ever before, shifting the burden on individual users to assess information credibility. Contemporary youth are a particularly important group to consider with regard to credibility issues because of the tension between their technical and social immersion with digital media, and their relatively limited development and life experience compared to adults (Metzger & Flanagin, 2008). Although children may be highly skilled in their use of digital media, they may be inhibited in terms of their ability to discern quality online information due to their level of cognitive and emotional development, personal experience, or familiarity with the media apparatus compared to adults. This chapter presents the findings of a large-scale survey of children in the U.S. ages 11-18 years examining young people’s beliefs about the credibility of information available online, and the strategies they use to evaluate it. Findings from the study inform theoretical, practical, and policy considerations in relation to children’s digital literacy skills concerning credibility evaluation.

Recent technological changes have created a radically different information environment from the one that existed even a few decades ago. Rather than coming from a small number of sources, each with a substantial investment in the information production and delivery processes, information is increasingly provided by a wide range of sources, many of which can readily provide and deliver information to large audiences worldwide. One consequence of this evolution in information production is an almost incomprehensibly vast information repository in the form of the Web and other online resources. A variety of social media have extended this information and source fecundity even further by connecting individuals to one another and by providing significant opportunities to share myriad types of information generated by users themselves. This shift in information dissemination challenges longstanding models of the provision of credible information by suggesting circumstances under which sources that are not understood as “experts” in the traditional sense are in fact in the best position to provide the most credible information.

A deep understanding of user social interaction in social network sites (SNSs) can provide important insights into questions of human social and relational behavior, as well as shape the design of new social platforms and applications. Recent studies have shown that a majority of user interactions on SNSs are latent interactions—passive actions such as profile browsing that cannot be observed directly by traditional research methods. This chapter presents a new technique to capture natural latent social interaction in Renren, the most popular SNS in China. As such, it offers a better understanding of both visible (e.g., comments and wall posts) and latent (e.g., passive profile browsing) user social interactions in SNSs than has been possible to date. We show that latent interactions are much more prevalent and frequent than visible interactions, are somewhat nonreciprocal in nature, and that visits by non-friends make up a significant portion of profile views. Our results augment earlier findings on such concepts as lurking and interpersonal electronic surveillance, and in some cases, shed new light on these phenomena.

This article invokes research on information seeking and evaluation to address how providers of evidence-based medical information can use Web 2.0 technologies to increase access to, enliven users' experiences with, and enrich the quality of the information available. In an ideal scenario, evidence-based medical information can take appropriate advantage of community intelligence spawned by Web 2.0 technologies, resulting in the ideal combination of scientifically sound, high-quality information that is imbued with experiential insights from a multitude of individuals. To achieve this goal, the authors argue that people will engage with information that they can access easily, and that they perceive as (a) relevant to their information-seeking goals and (b) credible. The authors suggest the utility of Web 2.0 technologies for engaging stakeholders with evidence-based medical information through these mechanisms, and the degree to which the information provided can and should be trusted. Last, the authors discuss potential problems with Web 2.0 information in relation to decision making in health contexts, and they conclude with specific and practical recommendations for the dissemination of evidence-based health information via Web 2.0 technologies.

Although extremely popular, electronic commerce transactions often lack information that has traditionally served to ensure trust and credibility among exchange partners. The capacity of digital media to aggregate information and connect individuals to one another, however, offers new potential for determining information quality and credibility. To understand people''s perceptions of the credibility of commercial web site information and the factors they find important in their evaluative processes, a nationally representative survey and quasi-experiment were conducted. Survey results showed that while people engage in ecommerce regularly, they do not contribute consumer-generated information very often. They do, however, rely heavily on ratings to evaluate the credibility of commercial information they find online Experimental results further indicate that people attend to aggregate product ratings, but not to the number of ratings when evaluating the quality of products sold online. We conclude with implications of these findings for system designers.

Findings from a survey of youthful Internet users that was designed to assess kids' beliefs about the credibility of online information. How well do children navigate the ocean of information that is available online? The enormous variety of Web-based resources represents both opportunities and challenges for Internet-savvy kids, offering extraordinary potential for learning and social connection but little guidance on assessing the reliability of online information. This book reports on the first large-scale survey to examine children's online information-seeking strategies and their beliefs about the credibility of that information. This Web-based survey of 2,747 children, ages 11 to 18 (and their parents), confirms children's heavy reliance on the Internet. They are concerned about the credibility of online information, but 89 percent believe that “some” to “a lot” of it is believable; and, choosing among several options, they rate the Internet as the most believable information source for entertainment, commercial products, and schoolwork (more credible than books for papers or projects). Most have more faith information found on Wikipedia more than they say others should; and they consider an article on the Web site of Encyclopedia Britannica more believable than the identical article found on Wikipedia. Other findings show that children are appropriately skeptical of trusting strangers they meet online, but not skeptical enough about entertainment and health information found online. Older kids are more rigorous in their assessment of online information than younger ones; younger children are less analytical and more likely to be fooled.

This study proposes and tests a model of online information disclosure to commercial Web sites, which is an important component of e-commerce. Based on social exchange theory and research on self-disclosure in interpersonal contexts, the model emphasizes the role of trust and past online behavior in the disclosure of personal information to a commercial Web site created for this study. Data collected to test the model confirmed all predicted paths. A second aim of this exploratory research was to examine the nature and quality of online disclosure. Data show differences in online information disclosure depending on the characteristics of Internet users and the type of information requested from commercial Web sites.