Media and Search Credibility

This will probably come to no surprise to anyone who’s taught an introductory university course that requires students to do research, but for all the time they spend online, students remain uncertain about how to find credible information. A new study by Northwestern University researchers demonstrates that when performing a wide range of information-seeking activities online, students often relied on the first link that Google provided, suggesting that coming up first on Google confers credibility. The students were able to recognize .edu and .gov as rating higher in credibility than other sites, but falsely included .org in their catalogue of credible sites, with most not realizing it is available for purchase like .com or .net (as I have demonstrated by purchasing vraga.org).

But while we shake our heads at their naivite, we might be missing the underlying cause. A recent poll shows that teens and adults alike trust technology firms like Google more than traditional media outlets – and even Facebook scored more highly than “the media.” Although this study has flaws – it is unclear how exactly “trust” or “the media” are defined – it demonstrates that students belief in the search results provided by Google may not be unreasoned.

Of course, that is not to say that it is rational. Google is known for offering little clarity on how its search rankings are returned. And with Google branching out to owning new businesses, including its purchase of ITA-software, which is linked to airline flight information, many are now calling for some kind of regulation to ensure equality and that Google does not unfairly favor its own interests. This call seems reasonable, for although Google does not have a clear monopoly over search, especially with the growth of its competitor Bing, it still maintains 65 percent of the search market.

Meanwhile, we are left pondering why our students trust technology firms like Google, Apple, and Microsoft, more than the media. But understanding that their use of Google for results is driven by their trust and faith in the company may provide the  key to deepening their understanding of the media environment.

Facebook: Growing out-of-control?

With the recent news that Facebook has surpassed 500 million readers, or 1 out of every 13 people on the planet, it is worth considering its implications. Facebook remains the most popular social networking site across a host of countries, beating out other sites such as Twitter, MySpace, and Flickr (for a comparison, see here), and continues to grow rapidly. Not only is its user base growing, but users in the US average over 6 hours per month on the site in 2010, up over an hour from just one year ago.

But despite the news that Facebook is a rapidly growing phenomenon, not all the news has been rosy. Facebook and MySpace both scored relatively low in terms of customer satisfaction, behind sites like Wikipedia and YouTube, as well as all news sources – of which Foxnews.com had the highest rating.  Privacy woes have plagued Facebook, as public backlash to their new privacy settings forced them to change their policies. Concerns about children on Facebook being exposed to paedophiles also abound (although in this story, a girl used Facebook to alert authorities to sexual assault).

But perhaps scarier than the rest of these stories are concerns about how the new digital world in which we live – and that Facebok is a large part of – affects our ability to construct our own image. This article sums up these fears very well, reminding us of the host of concerns that follow people posting so much information about themselves online: the impact on careers, the inability of living separate lives depending on context, and the potential for past mistakes to haunt us forever, as they remain in the public domain. The article also provided some interesting potential solutions: from image doctors, to having a reputation score (much like your credit score), putting an expiration date on old information, or that society will learn to accept, forgive, and forget others’ past mistakes.

It’s a scary notion, and one that all of us need to consider as we post our pictures, update our status, and maintain our blogs. What trail are we leaving for others to follow years later…and how will our posts of today influence our lives tomorrow?

Refudiating my previous post

In a previous post, I discuss the potential of social networking and its use by a host of Republican candidates. In it, I note that Sarah Palin has been widely praised for her use of these new resources to communicate with the public, from her Facebook page, which boasts nearly 2 million fans, to her new advertisement on YouTube.

But Sarah Palin does employ Facebook and YouTube, but also makes use of Twitter, with 200,000 followers and over 350 tweets. But in the interest of fairness, given the earlier praise of her use of social networking, Palin’s been taking some heat this week for her recent tweets, in which she not only makes up a word, “refudiate,” but then defends her use of the word, comparing herself to William Shakespeare, who also “coin[ed] new words.”

Although it makes Palin sound somewhat silly to use the word “refudiate” on multiple occasions, it is truly her defense of the action that makes this a mistake. Palin is right in her defensive tweet – English is a continuously evolving language and people make up new words often (myself included!). Stephen Colbert is famous for this, with his “The Word” segment, and most particularly, “truthiness.”

But Palin was not being satirical or clever, but presumably was trying to make a point about an issue. It is one thing to make up words as a joke or among friends, but it is another to make a professional error and then claim it was intentional. For Palin to defend what was, most likely, a mental error or a typo, makes her look more foolish than she did originally.

Social media campaigns: Successes and failures

As we head into the 2010 elections, a lot of candidates, especially Republicans, are attempting to build on Obama’s successes from 2008. And there were some important lessons to be learned: Obama’s campaign forced many of us to rethink how successful political campaigns can be run. In particular, Obama’s use of social networking and video-sharing websites provided a template for future campaigns.

Some candidates have used these social networking ideas successfully, although perhaps none with so much acclaim as Sarah Palin. Slate claims she is “the most successful adopter on Facebook,” but also points out that many Republican heavy-weights, including Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, are moving to take advantage of these new opportunities to communicate with voters.  Meanwhile, Time magazine praises a new Palin advertisement, which she posted both on her Facebook page and on her YouTube channel, as marking her as a real player in both the 2010 elections and the 2012 presidential campaign. And her advertisement does appear to be effective: it has a clear target audience (American moms) and a clear appeal (anti-DC policies).

But that doesn’t mean that all candidates have been equally successful in harnessing the power of social networking. My current favorite isn’t a big-name politician, so maybe it isn’t fair to compare their efforts to Palin’s, who surely benefits from many consultants advising her in her campaign. However, no one should produce an advertisement this bad and still expect it to benefit their campaign. Perhaps the candidate believed that emulating “Glee” would endear them to younger voters, but this candidate needed to think much more carefully about who he is targeting and what message he is trying to convey.

Ultimately, what makes a good social media campaign is the same thing that makes any good campaign: a clear target and a clear message.

An interesting overview of social networking sites

I came across this article in The New York Times during my daily news browsing, which claims to “[offer] a handy clip-’n’-save guide to the social networking services you’re most likely to hear about at this summer’s barbecues”. While people who are following me on this blog may not find it very helpful, it was interesting in the arguments that the author gave in terms of pros and cons for using each of these websites. Similarly, I was intrigued to see which popular social networking sites got prominently reviewed – and which were ignored altogether.

If you were writing an article to review “relevant” social networking sites, what would you include? And did you think the criticisms and accolades mentioned in this article were fair?