The Measurement And Comparison Of Media Credibility

The research used experiment method and took 200 students of Xiamen University as the subjects who were assigned to conditions in a 2×22 mixed factorial design. The credibility of the chosen 22 media was tested and compared in order to explore the influence of information reference point and the rank of media on the respondents' evaluations of media credibility.The results of the study are the followings:①Both using news and advertising as reference information, CCTV1, Phoenix Satellite Television, the People's Daily and the Central People's Broadcasting Station are the top four of the media measured. The credibility of the new media channels such as Xiamen network (www.xmnn.cn), Tianya forums (www.tianya.cn), Xiamen mobile TV, Xiamen xiaoyu forums and Xiamen T channel were significantly lower than that of some traditional medias. The credibility of the cell phone AD messages and strange persons were the last two in the media measured.②When the reference information were news, the ranking of the credibility of media channels were: Newspapers> TV> Broadcasting> Magazine> Network> Interpersonal channels> new medias. However, when the reference information was advertising, the ranking of the credibility media channels were: TV> Newspapers> Magazine> Broadcasting> Interpersonal channels> Network> new medias. Whether the reference information was news or advertising, the credibility of different media channels were significantly different.③The factor of the media rank has significant impact on the credibility measurements of TV, Newspapers, Radio channels. The credibility of the central rank media is significantly higher than the provincial rank and the city rank media.④Overall, the factor of reference information has no noticeable impact on the credibility measurement of New media channels and Networks. However, it has noticeable impact on TV, Newspapers, Radio, and Interpersonal channels.