The Relationship of Attitudinal Components to Trust in Media

Abstract

Past research has proposed that the receiver's relationship to the content of a message will affect credibility attributed to the source. Current literature proposes explanatory mechanisms that require empirical distinctions among the various components of attitude, yet researchers often employ measures of “attitude extremity” that confound these components. This study follows Guttman's mathematical theory of attitude and its distinctions between four attitude components: direction, intensity, closure, and involvement. In a survey of 358 adults, relationships between trust in television news and newspaper coverage and each of the four components were tested for six current issues. Significant relationships were found for all four components. Results suggest that existing hypotheses relating credibility to attitude have not anticipated that credibility might be related to more than one component. Interactions occur in which the relation of credibility to one component would be modified by the presence of some other component. Theorizing that introduces contingencies into the consideration of questions dealing with credibility is suggested.

Videoconferencing in the Field: A Heuristic Processing Model

“…Participants that are highly involved with the topic are more likely to engage in systematic processing of the new content than those that are less involved Chaiken 1993, Stamm andDube 1994). We therefore measured participants' perceptions of their involvement in the seminar topic to control for potential dual-process effects, using questions adapted from those used by Stamm and Dube (1994) and adapted by Sussman and Seigal (2003). In prior dual-process studies, involvement, when not manipulated, has tended to be randomly distributed across the sample.…”

The influence of structural and message features on Web site credibility

“…Although various characteristics of the source that make it believable have emerged from previous research, there is no consensus on a set of credibility dimensions (Self, 1996). Moreover, credibility judgments are contingent upon the type of source being evaluated and the context of the evaluation (Stamm & Dube, 1994). Such contigency suggests that a universal credibility scale is not theoretically useful.…”

“…Because credibility is a receiver assessment and not a source characteristic, audience factors are important determinants of source credibility (Gunther, 1988(Gunther, , 1992. Moreover, credibility is a relational construct in which credibility judgments are contingent on the receiver's relationship to the medium, source, and message (Stamm & Dube, 1994). An audience factor that is particularly relevant to perceptions of credibility within the online medium is Internet experience (Corritore, Kracher, & Wiedenbeck, 2003;Fogg, 2003).…”

Information Literacy on the Web: How College Students Use Visual and Textual Cues to Assess Credibility on Health Websites

“…Having heavy involvement with an issue has a strong effect on perceptions of credibility (Gunther, 1992;Stamm & Dube, 1994), as does heavy use of the medium in question (Johnson, Kaye, Richard & Wong, 2008;Kiousis, 2001). Studies looking at the message itself have found that credibility can be affected by disorganization and nonfluency in messages (McCrosky & Mehrley, 1969), message intensity (Hamilton & Stewart, 1993), and the writing quality and quantity, (Corrigan & Stephens, 2007;Jackson, 1992;Slater & Rouner, 1996).…”