Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality

Building upon a process-and context-oriented information quality framework, this paper seeks to map and explore what we know about the ways in which young users of age 18 and under search for information online, how they evaluate information, and how their related practices of content creation, levels of new literacies, general digital media usage, and social patterns affect these activities. A review of selected literature at the intersection of digital media, youth, and information quality -- primarily works from library and information science, sociology, education, and selected ethnographic studies -- reveals patterns in youth's information-seeking behavior, but also highlights the importance of contextual and demographic factors both for search and evaluation. Looking at the phenomenon from an information-learning and educational perspective, the literature shows that youth develop competencies for personal goals that sometimes do not transfer to school, and are sometimes not appropriate for school. Thus far, educational initiatives to educate youth about search, evaluation, or creation have depended greatly on the local circumstances for their success or failure

Credibility of Health Information and Digital Media: New Perspectives and Implications for Youth

Part of the Volume on Digital Media, Youth, and Credibility. This chapter considers the role of Web technologies on the availability and consumption of health information. It argues that young people are largely unfamiliar with trusted health sources online, making credibility particularly germane when considering this type of information. The author suggests that networked digital media allow for humans and technologies act as "apomediaries" that can be used to steer consumers to high quality health information, thereby empowering health information seekers of all ages

A Mixed-Method Examination of Primary Care Physician Message Strategies to Correct Patient-Held Health Misinformation: An Application of Goals-Plans-Action Theory

Given the prevalence of health misinformation (i.e., inaccurate health messaging that lacks scientific evidence), there is a need for successful communication strategies to combat this detrimental health issue (Krishna & Thompson, 2021). Guided by goals-plans-action theory (Dillard, 1990), which explains the communicative process of creating and implementing influence messages, the purpose of this dissertation was to: (a) uncover primary care physician goals, plans, and action when correcting patient-held health misinformation and (b) experimentally test corrective influence messages for their effectiveness from the patient’s perspective. Two studies addressed these two purposes. In Study One, results of surveys of primary care physicians (N = 105) discovered significant, positive relationships between their primary goal (i.e., correction of health misinformation) and the secondary goals of identity and conversation management. Additionally, Study One results revealed five types of primary care physician strategic message plans during these conversations (i.e., vocalics, clarity, body positioning, listening behavior, relationship-building tone), and five themes for communicative action strategies that primary care physicians use when correcting patient-held health misinformation (i.e., scientific evidence-based explication, recommendations for evaluating health-related information and sources, emotional and/or relationship-building appeal, simple correction, disregard/judgment). Scenario-based corrective influence messaging was created based on communicative action themes from Study One (i.e., scientific evidence, evaluation recommendation, emotional appeal), checked for validity, and pilot tested. In Study Two, U.S. IX adults ages 18 years and older (N = 371) were asked to imagine they have found information online saying vaccines contain toxic ingredients and decide to bring this information up to their primary care physician, were randomly assigned to read a scenario from one of these three corrective influence messaging themes, and then reported their perceptions of the primary care physician. Results revealed no significant differences between scientific evidence and emotional appeal messages on key patient outcomes including perceived source credibility, patient satisfaction, intent to communicate with and share online health information to a primary care physician. Results of the two studies provide evidence for the applicability of goals-plans-action theory to the context of health misinformation and corrective influence messages, and yield recommendations for primary care physicians to implement when correcting health misinformation

Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action

Outlines a community education movement to implement Knight's 2009 recommendation to enhance digital and media literacy. Suggests local, regional, state, and national initiatives such as teacher education and parent outreach and discusses challenges

Digital Media and Youth: Unparalleled Opportunity and Unprecedented Responsibility

Part of the Volume on Digital Media, Youth, and Credibility This chapter argues that understanding credibility is particularly complex -- and consequential -- in the digital media environment, especially for youth audiences, who have both advantages and disadvantages due to their relationship with contemporary technologies and their life experience. The chapter explains what is, and what is not, new about credibility in the context of digital media, and discusses the major thrusts of current credibility concerns for scholars, educators, and youth

How do older adults communicate with the UK public sector? : Comparing online communication channels

Copyright and all rights therein are retained by the authors. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and conditions invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be re-posted without the explicit permission of the copyright holdersGovernments around the world are moving away from conventional ways of face to face communication to a more digital approach when delivering services to their citizens. This includes using the internet as both a communication tool and an information source to improve efficiency in their services. However, not all the citizens are making use of these changes, especially the older adults. Therefore, this research-in-progress paper aims to investigate and identify the factors that encourage older adults to continue using a particular communication channel when interacting with the government. In addition, future directions, limitations and conclusions are also provided within this paper. The implication of this study to academia is viewed to be the development of an extended framework that allows an understanding of continuance intention of online communication tools usage. Equally, this framework will benefit industry by informing providers of communication channels to the government to be aware of the factors that influence older adults’ choices when interacting with the government. For policymakers this research will identify the communication channels that promote interaction with citizensFinal Published versio