A new way of spreading knowledge and collaborating with each other to achieve specific objectives has been introduced with the rise of social media, which is a useful communication tool. A growing number of people are using social media in search of information relating to religious learning and practices. The younger generation is one of the primary users of social media; therefore, many Islamic scholars are reaching out to Muslim youths using this channel. However, as people assimilate themselves to the use of social media in gaining knowledge, questions begin to emerge on the credibility of the Islamic information discovered. Anyone regardless of their background can post or share information or articles on social media, so much information is not always credible or true. Self-proclaimed Islamic scholars could use social media for their gains such as to support and propagate sentiments, misinform, spread rumors or startup conspiracies. This could confuse social media users, especially the younger generation, whose main information source is social media. Despite the significant importance of this area, limited research has empirically examined the factors that affect the credibility of social media information particularly relating to the Islamic context. In addressing this gap, this study inspects the factors obtained from the literature and classifies the dimensions of social media information credibility. Based on the established credibility theories of the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), Prominence-Interpretation theory, and Social Cognitive theory, a research model is developed to determine Islamic information credibility on social media platforms. It is imperative that the study classify the credibility dimensions, in order to further validate the factors that influence social media users in confirming the credibility of Islamic information. This study also aims to clear doubts and dispel misinformation regarding the Islamic religion by providing a basis for the society to ascertain Islamic information credibility and authenticity.
Social media platforms do not usually demonstrate responsibilities for published content. In recent years, an increasing number of individuals are now serving as sources of information that sparks public concern as it is considered to have lack of online quality control mechanisms. These mechanisms include the credentials of authors and information editorial teams. This paper aims to identify and develop an Islamic information credibility scale to examine the reliability of Islamic postings on social media, by acquiring the experts’ views and agreement on the elements in the proposed model by leveraging the Fuzzy Delphi process. A total of 15 experts from academic and related stakeholders participated in the verification of items through the questionnaire instrument's 7-point linguistic scale by purposive sampling. Outcome of the study indicate that the appropriate criteria to evaluate the credibility of Islamic information on social media incline on the top four indicators, which are of the source of writing, accuracy, authority and authenticity of information. The result demonstrates the importance for referring to the source and content of information i.e., Quran and authentic hadith in the process to evaluate authentic Islamic information posting on social media, as opposed to the influence of the social environment. This study's value lies in its contribution to the conceptualization and development of new Islamic information credibility scale through the screening and selection process of Fuzzy Delphi method approach. In future research, this scale should be explored to test new media credibility, as an emerging and promising approach to identifying and evaluating Islamic new media credibility.
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