Whose bias is no bias? The impact of source types on perception of online news credibility

This study examined the impact of different source types on perception of online news credibility. In an era wherein the majority of the U.S. online population seek news from the online world, this study is among the first to use the Elaboration Likelihood Model to explain how people evaluate news delivered through the Internet. An experiment was conducted using a 2 x 7 factorial design as a combination of a within-subject and between-subject design. One hundred and five college students from a Southwestern university were randomly assigned to each of seven treatment conditions.; The findings provided evidence for the applicability of the Elaboration Likelihood Model in the online news environment. The student respondents exposed to online news tended to take two different pathways to process the information: the central route when placed under a condition of a high level of motivation, and the peripheral route when placed under a low motivation condition. When taking the central route, the students paid more attention to essential features such as the quality of the information. They considered officials significantly more biased than affiliated individuals, but not significantly more biased than involved parties. Stories were significantly more credible when quoting all three types of sources than when quoting officials only, or quoting officials and involved parties, or quoting involved parties and affiliated individuals. When choosing the peripheral route, the respondents tended to evaluate the source and the message according to peripheral cues such as expertise of the source. They believed that officials were significantly less biased than involved parties, but equally biased as affiliated individuals. They considered stories quoting officials as significantly more credible than stories not quoting an official source.; Neither Internet use nor demographic variables significantly were found to have affected the respondents' perception of source bias or online news credibility.