Abstract
Because of the advent of the Internet, traditional journalism is changing. Advanced technology includes the tools for everyone to publish their thoughts, feelings, photos, and videos, allowing individuals to be citizen journalists. This experimental-design study was aimed at discovering the influence of biographies in people's judgments of the credibility and professionalism of news articles. The study involved four treatments 1: professional journalist feature article with professional journalist biography; 2: citizen journalist feature article with professional journalist biography; 3: citizen journalist feature article with citizen journalist biography; and 4: professional journalist feature article with citizen journalist biography. These treatments were used to determine how the 198 study participants judged the work and biography of a traditional journalist compared to the work and biography of a citizen journalist. Study data was acquired through an online survey. A credibility scale and a professionalism scale were used to determine that, based on the articles used in the study, news consumers do not see professional journalists as more credible than citizen journalists, although news consumers do see traditional journalists' content as more professional.
Degree
MA
College and Department
Fine Arts and Communications; Communications
Rights
http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Hood, Caroline Christiansen, "Judging the Credibility and Professionalism of Citizen Journalism Versus Professional Journalism" (2011). Theses and Dissertations. 2858.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/2858
Date Submitted
2011-12-06
Document Type
Thesis
Handle
http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd4860
Keywords
journalism, citizen journalism, news credibility, professionalism
Language
English