Chapter 2: Literature Review
2.7 Credibility
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foremost, the emergence of social media has given rise to issues with respect to how tourism marketers can leverage social media in order to support their online marketing efforts
(Gretzel, 2006). Many travel and tourism operations have also recognized the importance of including consumer-generated content on their websites, usually in the form of edited comments. It seems that current tourism marketing practice focuses attention on utilizing social media to create positive image and word-of-mouth for tourist destinations and businesses. However, without a solid understanding of the role of social media in online travel information search, tourism marketers' ability to take advantages this market intelligence is very limited (Blackshaw & Nazzaro, 2006).
Due to all the particularities and unique characteristics of the tourism product, tourists develop a special behavior in their decision making process because it encompasses a great risk and involvement. Mathieson and Wall (1982), proposed a five stage model: need/desire for travel; information collection and evaluation by image; travel decision; travel preparations and travel experience; travel satisfaction outcome and evaluation. Therefore, the relevance of the source of information gathering for travel planning in order to make a good choice is of great importance.
2.7 Credibility
Credibility is a variable that has relevance for this study, as social media are also a source of information. There are different elements that may comprise a person's credibility but, according to Hovland’s (1953) definition of credibility, the two elements most
commonly identified are perceived expertise and trustworthiness of the source.
Trustworthiness is a receiver judgment based primarily on subjective factors. Expertise can be similarly subjectively perceived but includes relatively objective characteristics of the
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source or message as well. Therefore, source credibility is the believability of a communicator, as perceived by the recipient of the message.
Nowadays, with the development of the Internet in our lives, the theory of source credibility had also to adapt to this new media, changing its traditional distinction of source, message, and medium credibility. As more people rely on social media for political, social, and business events, it is more susceptible to become a place for evildoers to use it to spread misinformation and rumors (Abbasi & Liu, 2012). Therefore, users have the challenge to discern which piece of information is credible or not.
The wide-scale access and multiplicity of sources that ensure vast information availability makes assessing the credibility of information extremely complex. The origin of information, its quality, and its veracity are now in many cases less clear than ever before, resulting in an unparalleled burden on individuals to locate appropriate information and assess its meaning and relevance accurately (Metzger & Flanagin, 2008).
Comparing conventional media, assessing information credibility in social media is the more challenging problem. In the case of conventional media such as newspapers, the source and media are known; in addition the medium's owners take responsibility for the content. However in the case of social media, the source may be unknown, thus no one takes responsibility about the content. This anonymity is both an advantage and a disadvantage of social media. On one hand, people create content, and leave feedback or vote without being afraid of any negative side effects resulting from their activities. On the other hand, people could also take advantage of openness and anonymity. Some would create many accounts in which to leave positive reviews in order to boost one product or negative reviews to
downgrade another (Abbasi & Liu, 2012).
Those growing up in an interactive digital media world are more comfortable with collaborating and sharing information, and do so in ways that allow them to act quickly and
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without top-down direction (Prensky, 2001). This has profound implications for credibility construction and assessment. The interactivity afforded by digital media has set up an expectation among many young people to play roles of both information source and receiver simultaneously as they critique, alter, remix, and share content in an almost conversational manner using digital media.
For example, the Forrester Research published a report on 2008 found that company blogs were among the bottom of the list of trusted sources of information. Consumers gave more trust to emails from their contacts, consumer reviews, search engines, and social media than to online classifieds or company official blogs. That is, media where people play both roles of source and receiver.
On another study regarding trustworthiness on information sources made by the North American Technographics (See figure 2.2), social media websites ranked fourth above print newspapers (5th), radio (7th), print magazines (8th) and television (9th). This shows how relevant social media are becoming for the consumers: they are already trusting more in the information found there than the one coming from traditional media.
Figure 2.2 Trustworthiness on information sources (trust is defined as a 4 or 5 on
a scale from 1 to 5). Source: North American Technographics. Media andMarketing Online Survey, 2008 16% Email from people you know
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Traditional media and online information posted by companies are presented as low-trusted information sources, while information that is found online and comes from either the user’s social circle or from profiles from social media are regarded as more credible. This is partially because the users see other people’s profiles on social media as belonging to the same ‘community’ of people that are both giving and receiving information for the sake of sharing experiences with others. Meanwhile, information that comes from traditional media or from companies’ official blogs or websites may be perceived as having financial motives such as increasing sales or market share.
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