Communication technologies: Diffusion of online news use and credibility among young web users in the information age

摘要

The increasing popularity and extensive usage of communication technologies, particularly the Internet and online news, makes it important to obtain an insightful perception of the new media. The purpose of this study is to examine the diffusion of online news use and credibility among young web users in terms of how these main users adopt, use, and trust the new media. This study attempts to find which online news sites are widely used by this group, based on the credibility of online news adopted among undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), in which demographic diversity is distributed. A survey was administered to a non-randomly selected sample to explore the adoption and usage of the new media as well as perceptions of credibility. For this study, attitudinal questions of the Internet and online news were included. Particularly, the top three online news sites, Yahoo! News, MSNBC, and CNN were examined to gauge opinions about online news. Findings indicate that young web users generally have positive attitudes toward the Internet and online news; higher correlations were shown with regard to attitudes toward online news than the Internet; online news usage does not have a strong influence upon perceptions of online news credibility; and there was a marginal association between demographic variables, the usage and credibility of the new media. The study will provide an overview of research areas relevant to communication technologies, particularly online news use and credibility among young web users, and the relationship between online news usage and credibility in order to evoke critical and improving knowledge for contemporary as well as future researchers and readers.