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IDENTITY, TRUST, AND CREDIBILITY ONLINE:
EVALUATING CONTRADICTORY USER-GENERATED INFORMATION VIA THE WARRANTING PRINCIPLE
by
William Scott Sanders
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(COMMUNICATION)
August 2012
Copyright 2012 William Scott Sanders
Object Description
| Title | Identity, trust, and credibility online: evaluating contradictory user-generated information via the warranting principle |
| Author | Sanders, William Scott |
| Author email | sandersw@usc.edu;scott.sanders.usc@gmail.com |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Communication |
| School | Annenberg School for Communication |
| Date defended/completed | 2012-04-23 |
| Date submitted | 2012-07-05 |
| Date approved | 2012-07-06 |
| Restricted until | 2012-07-06 |
| Date published | 2012-07-06 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | McLaughlin, Margaret |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Hollingshead, Andrea Jian, Lian McLeod, Dennis |
| Abstract | Despite a renewed interest in credibility research over the past decade focusing on the evaluation of online information, very little research has been conducted concerning how people evaluate the credibility of user-generated content. This is a notable gap in the literature considering the growing importance of social media to e-commerce and everyday life. In this dissertation I use theories of online impression formation to examine how people use heuristic cues to evaluate credibility. Specifically, this dissertation examines the warranting principle that holds that linking a physical self to a given self-presentation online increases the perceived accuracy of the self-presentation (Stone, 1995; Walther & Parks, 2002). First, after carefully defining warrant, a set of scales to measure the warranting value of information from different sources online are developed and validated. Next, I conduct an experiment to test the proposition that warrant, which is bolstered by an individual’s inability to manipulate self-referential information, mediates the relationship between social confirmation heuristics and credibility evaluations online. Following this I test a set of opposing hypotheses generated by the warranting principle and signaling theory, a superficially similar but conflicting theoretical framework. Overall results suggest that the warranting value measures perform consistently across studies and that social information, in keeping with the warranting principle, exerts the strongest effect on attributions of credibility and trust. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed. |
| Keyword | warranting principle; attribution; scale development; confirmatory factor analysis; social network sites; computer-mediated communication; astroturfing; stealth marketing; credibility; trust; user-generated content; signalling theory; experiment; communication |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m |
| Rights | Sanders, William Scott |
| Access conditions | The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given. |
| Repository name | University of Southern California Digital Library |
| Repository address | USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 7002, 106 University Village, Los Angeles, California 90089-7002, USA |
| Repository email | cisadmin@usc.edu |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume4/etd-SandersWil-914.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Full text | IDENTITY, TRUST, AND CREDIBILITY ONLINE: EVALUATING CONTRADICTORY USER-GENERATED INFORMATION VIA THE WARRANTING PRINCIPLE by William Scott Sanders A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (COMMUNICATION) August 2012 Copyright 2012 William Scott Sanders |
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