Individuals now have great expectations about interacting with organizations online, especially using digital and social media. Consequently, public relations and communication professionals are looking for new and more effective ways to enhance these interactions with various publics. The author illustrates how credibility of social media is a key factor impacting public engagement and communication effectiveness in digital and social media. A literature review shows that previous research on the credibility of blogs has reported limited reliability, due partly to the use of credibility measures originally developed to assess credibility of traditional news media.
This study has developed and validated a new 14-item measure of blog credibility using focus groups and a survey of blog users. The study also discusses the implications and practical aspects of measuring blog credibility.
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