Digital Media, Youth, and Credibility

Foreword

In recent years, digital media and networks have become embedded in our everyday lives, and are part of broad-based changes to how we engage in knowledge production, communication, and creative expression. Unlike the early years in the development of computers and computer-based media, digital media are now commonplace and pervasive, having been taken up by a wide range of individuals and institutions in all walks of life. Digital media have escaped the boundaries of professional and formal practice, and the academic, governmental, and industry homes that initially fostered their development. Now they have been taken up by diverse populations and non-institutionalized practices, including the peer activities of youth. Although specific forms of technology uptake are highly diverse, a generation is growing up in an era where digital media are part of the taken-for-granted social and cultural fabric of learning, play, and social communication.

In 2005, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation began a new grant-making initiative in the area of digital media and learning. An initial set of exploratory grants in the study of youth practices and the development of digital literacy programs has expanded into a major initiative spanning research, educational reform, and technology development. One component of this effort is the support of this book series. As part of the broader MacArthur Foundation initiative, this series is aimed at timely dissemination of new scholarship, fostering an interdisciplinary conversation, and archiving the best research in this emerging field. Through the course of producing the six initial volumes, the foundation convened a set of meetings to discuss the framing issues for this book series. As a result of these discussions we identified a set of shared commitments and areas of focus. Although we recognize that the terrain is being reshaped even as we seek to identify it, we see these as initial frames for the ongoing work to be put forward by this series.

This book series is founded upon the working hypothesis that those immersed in new digital tools and networks are engaged in an unprecedented exploration of language, games, social interaction, problem solving, and self-directed activity that leads to diverse forms of learning. These diverse forms of learning are reflected in expressions of identity, how individuals express independence and creativity, and in their ability to learn, exercise judgment, and think systematically.

The defining frame for this series is not a particular theoretical or disciplinary approach, nor is it a fixed set of topics. Rather, the series revolves around a constellation of topics investigated from multiple disciplinary and practical frames. The series as a whole looks at the relation between youth, learning, and digital media, but each book or essay might deal with only a subset of this constellation. Erecting strict topical boundaries can exclude viii some of the most important work in the field. For example, restricting the content of the series only to people of a certain age means artificially reifying an age boundary when the phenomenon demands otherwise. This becomes particularly problematic with new forms of online participation where one important outcome is the mixing of participants of different ages. The same goes for digital media, which are increasingly inseparable from analog and earlier media forms.

In the case of learning, digital media are part of the redefinition and broadening of existing boundaries of practice and our understanding of what learning means. The term learning was chosen rather than education in order to flag an interest in settings both within and outside the classroom. Many of the more radical challenges to existing learning agendas are happening in domains such as gaming, online networks, and amateur production that usually occur in informal and non-institutional settings. This does not mean we are prejudiced against learning as it happens in the classroom or other formal educational settings. Rather, we hope to initiate a dialog about learning as it spans settings that are more explicitly educational and those that are not.

The series and the MacArthur Foundation initiative respond to certain changes in our media ecology that have important implications for learning. Specifically, these are new forms of media literacy and changes in the modes of media participation. Digital media are part of a convergence between interactive media (most notably gaming), online networks, and existing media forms. Navigating this media ecology involves a palette of literacies that are being defined through practice but require more scholarly scrutiny before they can be fully incorporated pervasively into educational initiatives. Media literacy involves not only ways of understanding, interpreting, and critiquing media, but also the means for creative and social expression, online search and navigation, and a host of new technical skills. The potential gap in literacies and participation skills creates new challenges for educators who struggle to bridge media engagement inside and outside the classroom.

The shift toward interactive media, peer-to-peer forms of media communication, and many-to-many forms of distribution relate to types of participation that are more bottom-up and driven by the “user” or “consumer” of media. Audiences have always had the opportunity to “talk back” to corporate media or to create their own local media forms. However, the growing dominance of gaming as a media format, the advent of low-cost digital production tools, and online distribution means a much more dynamic range in who participates and how they participate in the production and distribution of media. Gamers expect that media are subject to player control. Add to this the fact that all forms of media are increasingly being contextualized in an online communication ecology where creative production and expression is inseparable from social communication. Finally, new low-cost digital production tools mean that amateur and casual media creators can author, edit, and distribute video and other rich media forms that were once prohibitively expensive to produce and share with others.

We value the term participation for the ways in which it draws attention to situated learning theory, social media literacies, and mobilized forms of media engagement. Digital media networks support existing forms of mass media distribution as well as smaller publics and collectivities that might center on peer groups or specialized niche interests. The presence of social communication, professional media, and amateur niche media in shared online spaces introduces a kind of leveling effect, where small media players gain new visibility and the position of previously authoritative media is challenged. The clash between more socially driven or niche publics and the publics defined by professional forms of media is playing out in high-profile battles in domains such as intellectual property law, journalism, entertainment, and government. For our purposes, the questions surrounding knowledge and credibility and young people’s use of digital media to circumvent adult authority are particularly salient.

The emerging power shift, where smaller and edge players are gaining more visibility and voice, is particularly important to children and youth. If we look at children and youth through the lens of digital media, we have a population that has been historically subject to a high degree of systematic and institutional control in the kinds of information and social communication to which they have access. This is one reason why the alchemy between youth and digital media has been distinctive; it disrupts the existing set of power relations between adult authority and youth voice. While many studies of children, youth, and media have for decades stressed the status of young people as competent and full social subjects, digital media increasingly insist that we acknowledge this viewpoint. Not only must we see youth as legitimate social and political actors, but we must also recognize them as potential innovators and drivers of new media change.

This does not mean that we are uncritical of youth practices or that we believe that digital media necessarily hold the key to empowerment. Rather, we argue against technological determinism, stressing the need for balanced scholarship that recognizes the importance of our current moment within the context of existing structures and unfolding histories. This means placing contemporary changes within a historical context as well as working to highlight the diversity in the landscape of media and media uptake. Neither youth nor digital media are monolithic categories; documenting how specific youth take up particular forms of media with diverse learning outcomes is critical to this series as a whole. Digital media take the form they do because they are created by existing social and cultural contexts, contexts that are diverse and stratified.

As with earlier shifts in media environments, this current turn toward digital media and networks has been accompanied by fear and panic as well as elevated hopes. This is particularly true of adult perception of children and youth who are at the forefront of experimentation with new media forms, and who mobilize digital media to push back at existing structures of power and authority. While some see “digital kids” as our best hope for the future, others worry that new media are part of a generational rift and a dangerous turn away from existing standards for knowledge, literacy, and civic engagement. Careful, socially engaged, and accessible scholarship is crucial to informing this public debate and related policy decisions. Our need to understand the relation between digital media and learning is urgent because of the scale and the speed of the changes that are afoot. The shape and uses of digital media are still very much in flux, and this book series seeks to be part of the definition of our sociotechnical future.

Mizuko Ito

Cathy Davidson Henry Jenkins Carol Lee

Michael Eisenberg Joanne Weiss Series Advisors

Introduction Miriam J. Metzger and Andrew J. Flanagin

University of California, Santa Barbara, Department of Communication

This volume addresses credibility in the digital media environment, with a particular emphasis on youth audiences, issues, and experiences. The focus is on how young people assess the objective and subjective components of the believability of sources and messages as they come to trust the veracity of what they read, see, or hear through digital media. In some cases, individuals are honing new skills, and invoking novel tools, for assessing information credibility. In other instances, the voice of the community is emerging as the coin of credibility, and self-regulation serves as evidence that the locus of knowledge ownership is moving to communities of users. In still other cases, institutional or corporate entities are emerging as arbiters of credibility. Overall, it is clear that as youth increasingly take advantage of media offering a diversity of information sources, but where the motivations, identity, and quality of those sources and information can be difficult to determine, the issue of credibility becomes crucially important to consider as we determine how best to teach children to navigate the vast ocean of information now available thorough digital technologies.

Although research on credibility and new media is burgeoning, extremely little of it focuses on youth (with the exception of college students), in spite of this population’s exceptional immersion in digital technologies. To address this void, the chapters in this volume highlight the special problems and opportunities with regard to credibility that young people who have grown up with digital media face today. To do this, the authors endeavor to reach beyond the somewhat trite rhetoric that all digital information is untrustworthy, that all youth are inherently more vulnerable than adults, and that technological tools determine specific outcomes. Thus, a goal of the volume is to offer an appropriately sophisticated, balanced, and thus enduring view of youth, credibility, and digital media.

The book can be divided informally into five sections. First, Chapter 1 (Flanagin and Metzger) situates credibility by considering its intellectual heritage and its evolution in light of digital media. This discussion serves to position credibility as a contemporary topic of inquiry, particularly relevant for today’s youth. Second, Chapters 2 (Eastin) and 3 (Rieh and

Several people were helpful in generating and discussing the ideas in this book. Most notably, we would like to acknowledge the contribution of the following, who participated in substantive online discussions with the authors and editors: Denise Agosto, Katherine Arens, Marilyn Arnone, John Bell, Michael Buckland, Erik Bucy, Jacquelyn Burkell, David Danielson, Mike Eisenberg, Robert Ennis, Sari Feldman, Linda Garcia, Yetta Goodman, Margaretha Haughwaut, Carl Heine, Jim Hirsch, Jon Ippolito, Lana Jackman, Jonathan Lazar, George Lorenzo, Kitty Lucero, Clifford Lynch, Deanna Kuhn, Ryan Lingsweiler, Mary McIlrath, Melody Pinkston, Lauren B. Resnick, Ron Rice, Ruth Small, Bob Stonehill, Amanda Toperoff, Joyce Valenza, Kate Wittenberg, and Kristina Woolsey.

Hilligoss) look specifically at two different youth populations, younger (children) and older (college students) youth. Questions about whether and how youth may differ from adult user populations are explored therein. Chapters 4 (Sundar) and 5 (Lankes) examine how digital media challenge some of our traditional assumptions about credibility assessment, including notions that credibility assessment is mostly a conscious, effortful process on the part of users, and that credibility is necessarily tied to authority and hierarchy. Chapter 6 (Eysenbach) offers an in-depth discussion of how users assess the credibility of one particularly important category of information, online health information. Finally, Chapters 7 (Harris) and 8 (Weingarten) respectively examine the educational and political issues surrounding credibility and digital media and offer recommendations for both policy and practice. Collectively, the chapters demonstrate that digital media technologies simultaneously empower and disempower youth as they strive to reach their informational goals. As a means by which to further frame the contribution of the volume overall, each chapter is next discussed in detail to highlight its particular contribution.

Chapter 1, by Andrew Flanagin and Miriam Metzger, defines credibility after situating it in relation to allied terms and concepts. Against this backdrop, the authors argue 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. To sort out the new and emerging types of credibility and credibility assessment that are implicated in modern media tools, a categorization of credibility construction is offered that considers individuals as networked actors engaged with others, as opposed to isolated appraisers of credibility. This understanding is leveraged to explain why credibility is a worthy and important topic of inquiry, what is and is not new about credibility in the context of digital media, and the major thrusts of current credibility concerns for scholars, educators, and youth. The chapter concludes by considering the research, policy, and educational implications of credibility today and by making recommendations for practitioners of all kinds who are affected by youth, credibility, and digital media.

In Chapter 2, Matthew Eastin discusses children’s cognitive development—or the evolution of their cognitive structures, abilities, and processes—and how it influences their ability to process information encountered online. By examining Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, Eastin explores the information evaluations (e.g., assessment of various source cues) that children make when online. One conclusion is that the complex informational environments children must navigate online tax their cognitive capabilities in ways that are variously consequential, depending on their stage of cognitive development. In all cases, however, the Web constitutes a demanding information-processing environment that must be considered when trying to understand credibility assessment among youth audiences. Overall, Eastin argues that research needs to consider how evaluation shifts as children evolve from one developmental stage to another.

Chapter 3, by Soo Young Rieh and Brian Hilligoss, examines the relationship between information-seeking strategies and credibility judgments through an in-depth exploration of how college students identify credible information in everyday information-seeking tasks. The authors argue that credibility assessment is a process that takes place over time rather than a discrete evaluative event. Moreover, the context in which credibility assessment occurs is crucial to understand, because it affects both the level of effort as well as the strategies that people use to evaluate credibility. The authors also find that credibility assessment is best described as an iterative process whereby people make predictive judgments about the

Introduction 3 value of information resources prior to taking information-seeking actions and evaluative judgments after accessing information. In turn, information verification or reevaluation may occur after information use. The college students in their study indicated that although credibility was an important consideration during information seeking, they often compromised information credibility for speed and convenience, especially when the information sought was less consequential.

In Chapter 4, S. Shyam Sundar argues that beyond explicit, considered assessments of sources and content, Web users are heavily affected by more subtle cues as they evaluate information online. Particularly for youth audiences, heuristics such as the “surface features” of the interface are important in credibility assessment, since these users are more prone than adults to attend to such elements. Specifically, the “technological affordances” of modality, agency, interactivity, and navigability influence credibility judgments by triggering cognitive heuristics that form impressions of information quality. Thus, Sundar argues that in addition to explicitly conscious efforts, structural and technological factors can profoundly influence credibility judgments by transmitting certain cues that trigger cognitive heuristics leading to impressions of the quality of information. In this manner, the chapter demonstrates that a great deal of automaticity governs youths’ assessment of the credibility of information, and that users may rely heavily on cues to make snap judgments while in the midst of online activities rather than on the effortful consideration of the totality of information on any given subject or site. Overall, this work offers important insight for developing effective educational campaigns to teach young people how to discern credible information online.

R. David Lankes, in Chapter 5, looks at how digital media technologies provide means of determining credibility that formerly were not available to individuals. He argues that increased “information self-sufficiency,” where consumers are expected or required to seek and assess information critical to their everyday activities, is now normative. As a result, effective credibility assessment is crucial: because information is now disconnected from its physical origin (e.g., people now buy products online without ever inspecting them physically beforehand), accurate and reliable information is essential for sound decisions. In addition, interactions that are increasingly mediated by software—which actually make potentially consequential decisions as users perform various tasks—place users at the mercy of these tools. Both factors suggest a paradox where consumers relying on digital information are simultaneously more independent in their personal lives but also increasingly dependent on digital information and tools. In the end, the separation of credibility from authority afforded by digital media technology necessitates a “reliability” approach to credibility assessment, rather than one founded primarily on authority. In light of this, Lankes explores the opportunities to leverage the special characteristics of digital media to create new methods of credibility assessment.

In Chapter 6, Gunther Eysenbach considers the role of Web technologies on the availability and consumption of health information. He notes that, contrary to some well-publicized surveys of individuals’ health information-seeking behaviors, the actual incidence of health-related searches on the Internet is much lower than most estimates. Thus, although many people have sought health information online, virtually nobody does so frequently. The implication is that people, and especially young people, are largely unfamiliar with trusted health sources online, making credibility particularly germane when considering online health information. Eysenbach argues that as information consumers use these tools to participate more in their own health choices and decisions, humans and technologies act as new intermediaries—or “apomediaries”—that “stand by” and steer consumers to high-quality information. He concludes by highlighting the credibility implications of this paradigm shift and demonstrating how it can empower health information seekers of all ages.

In Chapter 7, Frances Jacobson Harris, an educator and high school librarian, explores the many challenges that exist to teaching credibility assessment in the school environment. Challenges range from institutional barriers such as government regulation and school policies and procedures to dynamic challenges related to young people’s cognitive development and the consequent difficulties of navigating a complex Web environment. The chapter also includes a critique of current practices for teaching kids credibility assessment and highlights some best practices for credibility education, including a discussion of ways to leverage what children are actually doing with digital media into an effective curriculum for training youth to assess the credibility of the information they receive via these media. A key contribution is Harris’s contention that teaching youth to assess credibility effectively requires recognizing their special relationship to digital media by respecting their own experience and practices while providing appropriate instruction and guidance.

Finally, Fred Weingarten, in Chapter 8, notes that as concern about the credibility of information on the Internet grows, so do pressures for government attempts to mitigate the problem. He examines the potential roles of government in dealing with public concerns about information credibility on the Internet. Weingarten argues that public policy has been and will continue to be a political negotiation between a positive view of digital media as crucial infrastructure for education as well as the nation’s economic and social well-being, and a negative view of an unregulated, hostile, and dangerous environment, especially for children. The chapter then discusses and compares “protective” policies that attempt to restrict access to content and “supportive” policies that focus on equipping users and intermediary institutions (such as schools and libraries) to meet their informational goals, arguing that more attention should be paid to developing policies that support both users and educators to find and evaluate the information they need.

By assembling a wide-ranging yet cohesive set of chapters, this volume addresses pressing research, policy, educational, and practical issues and sets an agenda for the continuation of this important work. Indeed, collectively, the chapters in this volume represent foundational pieces in a new area of inquiry that is interdisciplinary in scope, drawing from scholarship in communication, library and information science, social and cognitive psychology, sociology, education, and other fields to understand credibility issues in the digital media environment as they pertain to youth audiences. Interestingly, the chapters look backward—to glean what is known from existing and important work on credibility, information seeking, critical thinking, human cognition and development, and media literacy—as well as forward, to offer suggestions for future work in this domain.

In the end, this volume is about how those who are immersed in digital media produce, seek, share, and digest information and about the promise and perils offered in the contemporary media environment. As information is increasingly provided, assembled, filtered, and presented by sources either more removed from us personally, or that are mediated in ways not yet well understood, it is important to comprehend the effects on those most fully immersed in this environment. This volume is the first comprehensive treatment of digital media, youth, and credibility and, as such, offers an important step toward such an understanding.

Digital Media and Youth: Unparalleled Opportunity and Unprecedented Responsibility Andrew J. Flanagin and Miriam J. Metzger

University of California, Santa Barbara, Department of Communication

With the sudden explosion of digital media content and access devices in the last generation, there is now more information available to more people from more sources than at any time in human history. Pockets of limited availability by geography or status notwithstanding, people now have ready access to almost inconceivably vast information repositories that are increasingly portable, accessible, and interactive in both delivery and formation. Basic human activities have changed as a result, and new possibilities have emerged. For instance, the process by which people locate, organize, and coordinate groups of individuals with shared interests, the number and nature of information and news sources available, and the ability to solicit and share opinions and ideas across myriad topics have all undergone dramatic change as a result of interconnected digital media.

One result of this contemporary media landscape is that there exist incredible opportunities for learning, social connection, and individual entertainment and enhancement in a wide variety of forms. Indeed, recent evidence indicates that 45 percent of users in the United States say that the Internet played a crucial or important role in at least one major decision in their lives in the last two years, such as attaining additional career training, helping themselves or someone else with a major illness or medical condition, or making a major investment or financial decision.! Enhanced connectivity and information availability have changed not only what people know, but how they know what they know.

However, the wide-scale access and multiplicity of sources that ensure vast information availability also make 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. Doing so is highly consequential: assessing credibility inaccurately can have serious social, personal, educational, relational, health, and financial consequences. As a result, determining trust, believability, and information bias— key elements of credibility—become critical as individuals process the information in their lives gleaned from digital media.

Understanding credibility in this environment is also important because it is a concern that cuts across personal, social, and political domains. For instance, digital media increasingly deliver information that results (or fails to result) in an informed citizenry that, in turn, drives the pursuit of particular social agendas, the degree and nature of engagement in public discourse, and the determination of public policy.” In addition, in light of the prevalence of interactions with others that now routinely occur online, personal and social identity is often established and known primarily or exclusively through computer-mediated interactions.?

Thus, the credibility of information sources is no longer necessarily a function of sustained, face-to-face interaction, nor is it established solely through the endorsement of those whom one knows personally or directly. Nonetheless, source credibility remains a key component of persuasion, with decision-making implications ranging from consumer choices to political candidate selection.

Contemporary youth are a particularly interesting group to consider with regard to credibility today. In many ways, this generation (demarcated roughly by birth around 1980, give or take a few years) is different from any before in its relationship to information technology, and also in its relationship to information sources.4 Known variously as “The Millenials,”> the “Net Generation,”® “Digital Natives,”” and “Generation Y,”® members of this generation share the feature of having been immersed in an environment of digital technologies (e.g., computers and the Internet) for their entire lives. They have been described, for instance, as “digital natives in a land of digital immigrants” whose experience with digital media has led them to have “new and different expectations about how to gather, work with, translate, and share information.”? Compared to their elders, they are more likely to turn to digital media first when researching a topic for school or personal use, to read news on the Internet than in a printed newspaper; and to use online social network tools to meet friends and to find information. In other words, the primary sources of information in their world are often (although not exclusively) digital, which is quite different from any generation prior.

Their special relationship to digital media greatly influences the way they approach learning and research.!° As the first generation to grow up with interactive digital media, millennials are comfortable with collaborating and sharing information, and do so “in ways that allow them to act quickly and without top-down direction.”!! This, of course, 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.!* Here again, the implications of the uses of technology that are favored by young people present new and different challenges for both discerning and learning to create credible information.

Nonetheless, despite these realities, examinations of youth and digital media have often been somewhat crude, focusing for example on the popular generation gap caricature, where youth are portrayed as technologically adept compared with adults. Such considerations fail to focus on the most important and enduring by-products of heavy reliance on digital media: The impact of “growing up digital” is that more and more of the information that drives our daily lives is provided, assembled, filtered, and presented by sources that are largely unknown to us, or known to us primarily in nontraditional ways. Yet, we have only begun to explore what this means, particularly for younger users who are not only immersed in digital media now but will be for the entirety of their lives.

In terms of credibility specifically, youth are also intriguing in large part due to the tension between their technical and social immersion and skill with digital tools and their inherent limitations owing to their limited development and experience. On the one hand, those who have literally grown up in an environment saturated with digital media technologies may be highly skilled in their use of technologies to access, consume, and generate information. This view suggests that in light of their special relationship to digital tools, youth are especially well positioned to navigate the complex media environment successfully. On the other hand, youth can be viewed as inhibited, in terms of their cognitive and emotional development, life experiences, and familiarity with the media apparatus. This perspective suggests that although youth are talented and comfortable users of technology, they may lack crucial tools and abilities that enable them to seek and consume information effectively.

As a way of beginning to understand the complex relationship between credibility, digital media, and youth, we proceed by first defining credibility after situating it in relation to allied terms and concepts. With this background, we consider credibility in the digital media environment, and examine the various credibility assessment strategies in use today, particularly those relying on group and social engagement. From there, we consider why credibility is worthy and important as a topic of inquiry, including what is and is not new about credibility in the context of digital media. Next, we examine the major issues with regard to credibility and, in particular, what special concerns arise for youth populations. Finally, we offer some perspectives of scholars, educators, and, most important, youth regarding credibility, and with this context we examine the research, policy, and educational implications. We conclude by considering the gaps to be filled in credibility research and providing recommendations for practitioners of all kinds who are affected by youth, credibility, and digital media.