Credibility and the Internet

The Internet has revolutionized the way in which people are entertained, communicate and collect information. As people increase their ability to connect with the outside world from inside their homes, they hold the power to become their own gatekeepers filtering information as they see fit. Many question whether this will weaken the power of the traditional media sources that are often seen as elitist and potentially biased. This researcher hypothesized that people who cite high credibility ratings of news media channels are more likely to use traditional media channels such as television and newspapers and people who cite low credibility ratings of news media channels are more likely to use alternate media channels such as the Internet. While the researcher was unable to reject the null hypothesis, a pattern of general mistrust of traditional news media was revealed when nearly three-fourths of respondents gave traditional media channels a "not-credible" rating.