You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

Abstract

PreprintThis is the submitted version of a paper published in Journalism Studies. Citation for the original published paper (version of record):Karlsson, M., Clerwall, C., Nord, L. (2014) You ain´t seen nothing yet.: Transparency' s (lack of ) Effect on Source and Message Credibility. AbstractTransparency has been proposed to both change the way journalism is being produced and increase its credibility. However, little research has been conducted to assess the connection between transparency and credibility. This study utilizes an experimental setting (N=1320) to measure what impact transparency have on source and message credibility from the user perspective. The results reveals an almost absence of any transparency effect on both source and message credibility although some small significant effects could be observed primarily regarding internal hyperlinks, comments and contextual information. Although further research is desperately needed in this area the study suggest that transparency does not affect the credibility of journalism in the eyes of the contemporary audience and thus have limited appeal as a new norm in journalism.

Transparency to the Rescue?

“…Since the experiment has already been reported in full elsewhere (Karlsson, Clerwall, and Nord 2014), the main focus in this paper will be on the survey and focus groups with findings from the experiments used supplementarily. The three methods were carried out using the services of Swedish opinion research institute TNS/Sifo.…”

Do Not Stand Corrected

“…Thus, when asked to articulate their attitudes towards errors and corrections, respondents will be triggered to report ideal constructs -their own and societal. In our previous experimental study (Karlsson et al, 2014), we found no effect in content or source credibility when a news item was corrected Another strand of research worth further exploration is the stratification and 'net effect' of different kinds of corrections. As our results show, citizens' attitudes towards errors and corrections depend on the level of error and there are more kinds of errors and more nuances to apply than the ones measured in this study.…”

“…A previous study in an experimental setting (Karlsson, Clerwall & Nord, 2014) found that actual corrections did not have an effect on how citizens evaluated a news item. Thus, there may be a rather large gap between the idealized visions that citizens hold of journalism and the impact of actual journalistic performance on citizens' perceptions of credibility.…”

“…Furthermore, these results of self-reported attitudes also need to be considered in context. In a previous experimental sub study (Karlsson et al, 2014) we found that corrections had no effect and, thus, it is important to follow up citizens' attitudes to errors and corrections to see if the results match.…”

Gaining trust: the articulation of transparency by You Tube fashion and beauty content creators

“…Just like authenticity, transparency also aims to earn trust. Media transparency means providing an explanation of where the content presented originated, why it was selected and presented as it was (Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2007), and publicising the behind-the-scenes processes that shaped this content (Karlsson et al, 2014).…”