To Trust Or Not To Trust
Possibly the most common critique of citizen journalism is that it does not have sufficient credibility to be taken seriously as a contributor to media. This is an argument that countless media analysts harp on, and so it could be a serious question to citizen journalism’s effectiveness. After all, one might declare, how can any journalist be effective if he is not credible or believable? No media audience will sit idly by and listen to someone they do not believe. So, it may appear that citizen journalism has been presented with a seeming insurmountable obstacle.
However, in reality, citizen journalism’s “lack of sufficient credibility” is nonexistent. Assistant professor Eunseong Kim and his colleagues explicitly state that their study found that people find bloggers more trustworthy than the media (169). Along the same lines, another study found that in a survey, social trust was positively correlated with citizen journalists (Nah and Chung, “When Citizens” 726). These statistics clearly indicate that citizen journalists are in actuality perceived as credible. The reasons for their credibility can be understood through an analysis of the criticisms posed against the three factors of credibility: skill, resources, and authority. |
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