The scholarly examination of credibility is perhaps among the oldest lines in communication research, originating with ancient Greeks (Griffin, 2009; Liu, 2003). Ratzan (1999) recalls that in the writing of the ancient Greeks, that the credibility of the source of communication is the most important factor in building trust, relationships, and success of the communication act. However, others argue that at least since Aristotle's examination of ethos and his observations of speaker's relative to persuade listeners, the notion of credibility has been investigated (Rieh & Danielson, 2007). On the other hand, Garrison (2003) reminds that the investigation of perceived credibility and components of audience attitudes have begun as new mass communication technologies have appeared. In general, excessive attention to credibility of media channels dates back to the late 1930s, when the newspaper industry was vastly surpassed by the greater credibility of radio news during World War 2. During the 1950s, competition from television again provoked the industry to look at the various news media credibility in the eyes of the public. During the 1950s, the Yale communication research team attempted to discover which characteristics of a message, source, channel, and receiver would enhance persuasive influences (Infante et al., 1997). The foundations to the source credibility approach were laid by Hovland, Janis and Kelly (Hovland et al, 1953). Based on source credibility approach, people are more likely to be persuaded when the source presents itself as credible (Hovland et al., 1953).
Recent studies mostly focus on examining the credibility of the Internet with traditional media counterparts. While Fogg et al. (2002) argue that online users are becoming increasingly sceptical of the online information, and as a result those who offer online information need to increase the credibility of information, however, most studies found online information more credible than traditional media counterparts (Johnson & Kaye, 1998). The Internet helps information flow and freedom, but also introduces an increased potential for error or exploitation on information. In the new media environment, some mechanisms such as filter and control, may not be as effective. As a result of lacking such mechanism, most of the numerous Internet information sources don't undergo certain level of factual verification, content analysis, and editorial review (Metzger et al., 2003). While discern of honest-dishonest, trustworthy- untrustworthy, and sincere-insincere, skilled-unskilled, qualified-unqualified, and informed-uninformed of information were previously the responsibility of editorial boards, they now fall upon the shoulders of the media consumers (Flanagin & Metzger, 2000; Metzger et al., 2003).
Aside from demographic characteristics, what is important in exploring people's evaluations of media credibility are factors that affect the perception of the media, in particular, media usage considered as a predictor for understanding perception of media credibility (Lu & Andrews, 2006). The salience of an issue is also a factor that looks to manipulate how audience members evaluated a medium (Brown, Mutch, Spoon, and Wakimoto, 1996). Past research studies demonstrate that issue salience influences the perception of media credibility (Eastin, 2001; Flanagin & Metzger, 2003; Flanagin & Metzger, 2007; Gunther, 1992). Main statement of issue salience assumption argues that audience members have a tendency to get information on issues they discern as important (Hutchings, 2001).
When exploring people's evaluations of media credibility, it is in important to keep the factors affection the perception of media in mind, in particular, media use considered as a predictor for understanding perception of media credibility (Lu and Andrews, 2006). However, several decades ago, some studies investigated the relationship between media use and media credibility (Bracken, 2006; Choi, Watt, and Lynch, 2006). But the findings of all previous studies about media use and credibility never fit together. However, several studies have shown positive correlation between media use and perceived media credibility (Kiouis, 2001). That is, those who use a particular media more often are those who perceive the credibility of these media positively than those who use this media less often (Rimmer and Weaver, 1987). Some other findings are inconsistent with aforementioned studies. For example, the result of a study conducted by Rimmer and Weaver (1987) indicates no significant relationship between how often the local newspaper is read and level of newspaper credibility. In the studies of local newspaper credibility it should be considered that some of local newspapers do little to cover the local news story, because people are aware of their local news story and events, and local newspapers also use their pages to increase advertising to make money.
The salience of an issue is a factor that looks to manipulate how audience members evaluate a medium (Brown, Mutch, Spoon, and Wakimoto, 1996). Past research studies demonstrate that salience influences the perception of media credibility (Eastin, 2001; Flanagin and Metzger, 2003, 2007; Gunther, 1992). Main statement of issue salience assumption argues that audience members have a tendency to get information on issues they discern as important (Hutchings, 2001). If an issue is not salient, audience members won't judge the credibility of delivered medium seriously. If an issue is salient, they will place the delivered medium as a high credible medium. Moreover, the more salient an issue is, the greater perceived credibility of a medium (Belanger and Meguid, 2008). A large body of studies suggest that there is a relationship between an individual's involvement with salient issues and distrust of a medium. For instance, when people consider a subject as a important subject in a medium, they are just likely, if not more likely, to be persuaded by argument on the issue and are not inclined to perceive a medium as biased (Gunther, 1992). When we look at different media news normally, media tends to start with the most important issues. On the other hand, readers are also looking for what they consider as an important issue, so if a reader finds what they want in a medium, they may judge it as a credible medium. Since individuals are more likely to be involved with certain issues that they perceive as important, they are more likely to become interested in these issues and, therefore, will want to read about them (Lasorsa and Wanta, 1990). This study predicts that when people find their favorite issues in a medium, they will more likely consider it a credible medium.
Global communication is reaching out and giving society new ways of retrieving information. The advent of information and communication technology (ICT), especially the Internet, is giving some impact to our daily life. Today, many readers are getting the opportunity to receive information via the Internet, instead of traditional ways. The amount of information on the Internet, currently, is increasing tremendously, and it has become a massive information storehouse. There are many different types of information sources available through online media and traditional media, but this creates a possibility for false information and an increased concern for credibility (Eastin, 2001).
Tight control of the mass media in Malaysia is almost as old as the existence of the mass media. Although, quantitatively the number of available media channels seems numerous in Malaysia suggesting a vibrant and diverse media landscape, one has only to scrape the surface to see that instead of true variety, the mass media in Malaysia is actually only offering more of the same. All print media remain under strict control of the government through a broad web of vaguely worded regulations and the Internet remains the only media still largely free from direct governmental control. However, relevant to the Internet, Malaysian government has been curiously liberal about it and what is published on it. But several scholars argue that government is only playing the "wait-and-see game" with the new technologies. In July 2006, the Information Minister, Zainuddin Maidin said that the government must control the Internet and websites to control the spread of rumours and news that can harm the racial unity in the country. This statement is the strongest one by the ministry that strongly suggested possible future limitations on the Internet. The Minister's statement was justified by saying that the control of media will improve the credibility of a website as people will know and that published news is accurate and no longer based on rumours (Ming Kouk, 2007).
In today's environment of digital media, the rapid rise of the Internet has created some questions such as; is the publishing in traditional media (e.g., newspaper, magazine, television and radio) better and more credible than a posting on a webpage on the Internet? Past studies on media credibility may help to understand the relative credibility of the Internet as a new medium (Metzger et al., 2003). Therefore, the credibility of online and traditional media is becoming an increasingly important topic to understand in the field of communication. Hence, the present research poses the following objectives:
1) To examine the difference between gender and perception of media credibility
2) To examine the relationship between media usage and perception of media credibility
3) To examine the relationship between issue salience and perception of media credibility
Method
This study was conducted at the University Putra Malaysia which is located in central Peninsular Malaysia, Selangor, which is close to the capital city, Kuala Lumpur. The population of this study are non- academic professional staff and the systematic sampling method was used to select for inclusion staff (270 respondents) as the sample. This research is a quantitative study, and a self-administered questionnaire was used as means for collecting data. Pretesting was carried out on 31 of the non-academic professional staff at UPM from 16 to 23 of February 2009. In this study, the overall reliability index for all items in the questionnaire is 0.9574. After pretesting, the data collection was carried out in February and March 2009. Finally, to examine the relationship between independent variables (issue salience and media usage) and dependent variable (perception of media credibility) Spearman Rho correlation was applied. Cross-tabulation and Chi-square were also employed to examine the relationship between gender and perception of media credibility.
Measurement
The questionnaire of this study was adopted from previous studies. Because the present study investigates the perceived credibility on news, the word "news" was added in the original questions. Some of the questions were also modified to suit the present study setting. The first section of the questionnaire is designed to capture characteristics of demographic to find out whether the perception of media credibility differs by demographic factors. Scholars have investigated the influence of demographics on media credibility (Johnson and Kaye, 2004, 1998; Flanagain and Metzger, 2003). According to the above statement, demographic characteristics of respondents might influence the perception of media credibility. One of these characteristics is the characacteristic of gender. Gender consists of an assortment of differences between male and female. For this study, it was typically measured in the nominal scale, in which the categories are as follows: (1) male, (2) female.
Questions in section two were used to determine the relationship between media usage and perception of media credibility. To capture this objective, questions were asked to estimate frequency of time spent with printed and online media weekly. In this study to measure media usage the following question was used: How many minutes or hours do you use the following media to get news weekly? In order to balance the distribution of respondents in terms of three levels of media usage including very often, often, and sometimes, an overall analysis of traditional and online communication media was conducted.
A third section was developed to determine the role of the salience of news on the perception of media credibility. To measure issue salience, questions were applied by Flanagin and Metzger (2007). To measure issue salience as an independent variable, six types of question were developed. Two of these questions were applied by Flanagin and Metzger (2007). These two questions were opposed by asking the participants to rate "how relevant the story was to their own life" and "how important they felt the story was." The researcher refined these two types of questions: If I feel news is relevant to my own life, I visit the news through (name of selected media), and I often get news from (name of selected media) if I feel the news is important. In the original instrument a seven point scale was used. This scale was modified into a five-point scale suited to the format of the other variables in this study. The researcher also added a new item that is related to society and asked the respondents "If I feel news is relevant to my society, I get the news in (name of selected media)." Also, in order to measure issue salience, respondents were required to rate the following statements: After getting news in (name of selected media), I often think about what I have received, and I often discuss with others, I often recommend what I have obtained to a friend. The total number of items used to measure issue salience was 30 (6 x 5). Respondents were asked the degree of agreeableness using a five-point Likert scale ranging from: (1) strongly agree, (4) agree, (3) neither agree nor disagree, (2) disagree, (1) strongly disagree. The degree of agreeableness would indicate the level of news salience estimated by the respondents. In order to balance the distribution of respondents in terms of three levels of issue salience including much, moderate, and low, an overall analysis of printed and online communication media was conducted.
To measure the perception of media credibility, the researcher applied eight commonly identified items: clarity, biasness, telling the whole story, accuracy, believable, trust, fairness, and timeliness. Then the researcher made three statements in order to measure the perception of media credibility. These statements were then repeated for three types of media selected in this study, including: It is clear, it is biased, telling the whole story, it is accurate, it is believable, can be trusted, it is fair, and it is timeliness. Respondents were asked to indicate their perception towards media news credibility according to five-point Likert-type scale ranged from: (5) strongly agree to (1) strongly disagree.
Data analysis
Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the profile of respondents. The stats were also used to describe the frequency and percentage of variables of the study. To determine the relationship between demographic factors and perceived credibility of media, based on literature review, the researcher selected the characteristic of gender. To examine the relationship between gender and perception of media credibility, cross-tabulation was employed and results were supported by using Chi-square correlation test. To determine the relationship between issue salience and media usage, Spearmen Rho correlation coefficient was used. Spearman Rho correlation coefficient was used due to the nature of data that were ordinal scale. Spearman Rho correlation coefficient was repeated three times, once for each printed media (newspaper and magazine) and the Internet.
Findings
Demographic data of the 270 respondents who completed the questionnaire revealed that almost equally one half of the respondents were male and one half of them were female (50.2% vs. 49.8%). The average age was 37.7, and the standard deviation was 9.3, with a minimum 23 years old and a maximum of 57 years old. Almost one-thirds (31.5%) of the respondents belonged to the age group of 30-36 years old. The lowest age categories were located between 37 to 43 years old (12%), and 51 to 57 years old (12%), as presented in Table 1. It reveals that most of the non- academic professional staff was relatively young in age. More than three-quarters of the respondents (79.2%) in this study were married, while one-fifth of them (20.8%) were single, as indicated in Table 1.
Level of Media Use
An overall analysis of traditional and online communication media was conducted in order to recognize the distribution of respondents in terms of three levels of media usage. This section was designed to examine how many minutes respondents use printed and online media to get news weekly. The number of classes for media usage is three and the highest and lowest values are 300 minutes and 0 respectively. The difference (300) is divided by 3 (the number of classes). In terms of media usage, based on the class interval of 100, the following 3 classes are formed: sometimes (0-100min), often (101-200min), and very Often (201-300min).In terms of media usage, in reference to Table 2, a small portion of the respondents (3.4%) reported that they used the Internet very often. Less than one percentage of the respondents also reported that they used newspaper very often. And in response to the medium of the magazine, the respondents stated that they didn't use it very often. The more detailed information is shown in Table 2.
Level of Issue salience
In this study, the perception of respondents towards printed and online media credibility was measured based on salience of issues. The descriptive statistics including level of issue salience, frequency, and percentage were analyzed for newspaper, magazine and the Internet. An overall analysis of printed and online communication media was conducted in order to balance the distribution of respondents in terms of three levels of issue salience including high, moderate, and low. The number of classes for issue salience is three and the highest and lowest values are 30 and 6 respectively. The difference (24) is divided by 3 (the number of classes). Accordingly, based on the class interval of 8, the following 3 classes are formed: Low salience (6-13), moderate salience (14-21), and high salience (22-30).
Based on the information in Table 3, almost three- forths of the respondents reported a high salience of issues on the Internet and 53.8% of the respondents reported a high salience of issues on newspaper. Regarding magazine news, 42.6% of the respondents reported a high salience of issue to get news. In reference to the information presented in Table 3, less than 1.0% of the respondents reported a low salience of issues on the Internet and 6.7% of them report a low salience of issue on magazine to get news. With respect to newspaper, 3.1% of the respondents reported a low salience of issue. As the information in Table 3 indicated, Internet was rated as a medium to high salience of issues and magazine was rated as a medium when issues were perceived as a low salience.
Distribution of respondents towards credibility of different media
This study examines the perception of traditional and online communication media to get news among the non-academic professional staff at UPM. Based on a five-point Likert-type scale, this study used frequency distribution, mean, and standard deviation to show how respondents' perception towards credibility of printed and online communication media. The result of frequency distribution of newspapers is shown in Table 4. It is revealed that 57.0% of the respondents agreed that news is fairness, followed by timeliness 53.8%, clarity 50.2%, bias and trust 34.4%. Analysis of data also show that 42.1% of the respondents reported a neutral perception towards accuracy of news in newspaper, followed by 39.8% of believability, and telling the whole story at 32.7%.
Table 5 shows the resulting frequency distribution of magazine. The table reveals that 60.6% of the respondents reported a neutral perception towards biasness of news in magazine, followed by 56.0% of believability, trust 55.0%, accuracy 52.1%, fairness and timeliness 50.9%, telling the whole story 50.0%, and clarity 46.3%. Table 5 shows more information about the perception of credibility of magazine to get news.
The resulting frequency distribution of the Internet is shown in Table 6. Accordingly, it is revealed that 37.6% of the respondents agree that news on the Internet is clear. Analysis of the data also indicates that 55.0% of the respondents reported a neutral perception towards biasness of news on the Internet, followed by accuracy 51.8%, trust 50.5%, believability 48.6%, telling the whole story 45.7%, timeliness 40.0%, and fairness 37.7%.
Credibility of different media
Eight-item credibility scale was used to measure respondents' perception of news media credibility. Items included clarity, bias, accuracy, believable, trust, timeless, fairness, as well as telling the whole story. Based on the findings presented in Table 7, it can be concluded that the credibility of newspaper in terms of getting news was rated higher in comparison with other media (M = 2.31, SD =.54), followed by Internet (M = 2.27, SD =.58), and finally magazine (M = 2.10, SD =.51).
First Objective
Newspaper
According to the first objective of this study, the data was analyzed to examine the relationship between perceived media credibility with gender. Table 8 shows that 35.2% of 108 the male respondents reported a positive perception towards credibility of newspaper. Regarding female respondents, in the same population (108), 38.0% reported a positive perception towards newspaper credibility. More than half of the female respondents (60.1%) reported a neutral perception towards newspaper credibility. Meanwhile, 58.3% of the male respondents reported a negative perception towards credibility of this medium. As shown in Table 8, a small number of males and females reported a negative perception of newspaper credibility. However, in reference to Table 8, more than half of the respondents reported a neutral perception towards newspaper credibility, but it seemed that newspaper was not perceived as an incredible medium to get news among the non-academic professional staff. Further analysis using Chi-square method was carried out to determine whether the relationship between gender and perception of newspaper credibility is statistically significant or not? The results indicate that there was no relationship between males and females towards the perception of newspaper credibility. This was shown by the result of Chi-square test ([chi square] = .074, p=.785) which shows no relationship between gender and perception of newspaper credibility.
Magazine
Table 9 shows the relationship between perception of magazine credibility and gender. Almost less than three-quarters of the male respondents (72.6%) demonstrated a neutral perception towards magazine credibility. Magazine was also rated as a credible medium by nearly the same percentage of the male and female respondents. Between male and female respondents, 7.5% of the male respondents demonstrated a negative perception towards magazine credibility in comparison with 9.3% of the female respondents. The results of the Chi-square test revealed that there was no significant relationship between perception of magazine credibility and gender ([chi square] = .224, p =.894). Since p-value was greater than alpha level of 0.05, then there is not enough evidence from the sample to conclude that two variables, perception of magazine credibility and gender, are dependent.
Internet
This section argues about the perceived credibility of Internet as an online communication media to get news. The perception of Internet to get news in the point of credibility was analyzed in Table 10. It was found that more than half of the male respondents (51.9%) rated the Internet neither positive nor negative in terms of credibility. On the other hand, only less than 10.0% of the male respondents reported a negative perception towards Internet credibility to get news. Relevant to females, also less than two-thirds of them rated the Internet as a neutral medium in terms of credibility (63.5%). A small number of the female respondents also reported a negative perception towards the Internet credibility (4.7%). As it displays in Table 10, most of the male and female respondents rated the Internet as a neutral medium in the terms of credibility. But a small number of them have a negative perception towards this medium. However, the scores of positive perception towards the Internet are considerable. To answer the first objective of this study the results of chi-square test indicate that there was no significant relationship between the perception of the Internet credibility and gender ([chi square] = 3.665, p=.16). Since p-value is greater than alpha level (0.05), it shows that two variables, perception of media credibility and gender, are independent.
In some, the first research objective was designed to examine the difference between gender and perceived credibility of printed media and the Internet. The results indicate that there was not much difference between male and female toward the perception of newspaper and magazine credibility to get news information. This is shown by the result of Chi-square test ([chi square] =.074, p=.785) for newspaper and ([chi square]=.224, p =.894) for magazine in Table 11. Since p value was greater than alpha value (0.05), there is not enough evidence from the sample to conclude that two variables, the perception of printed media (newspaper and gender) credibility and gender, are dependent. Relevant to the Internet, the results of chi-square test also indicate that there was no significant difference between the perception of Internet credibility and gender ([chi square] = 3.665, p=.160). Since p value is greater than alpha value (0.05), it shows that two variables, the perception of media credibility and gender, are independent.
Second objective
The second objective of this study was designed to examine the relationship between media usage and perception of newspaper, magazine, and Internet credibility. Table 12 shows that the amount of newspaper reading formed a positive and negligible relationship with the perception of newspaper credibility to get news (rs =.044, p =.541). The findings imply that perceived credibility of newspaper negligibly is related to the amount of newspaper usage. However, this relationship was not statistically significance at the 0.05 level of significance.
The analysis of magazine usage and the perception of magazine credibility were also done to examine the relationship between them. As Table 12 indicates, there is a positive and negligible relationship between magazine usage and the perception of respondents of the study towards the credibility of magazine. Results also show that the relationship between these two variables is not significant at the 0.05 level of significance. Based on findings from the sample of the study, the amount of time spent on the Internet to get news had negligible and significant relationship with perception of Internet credibility (rs = 185, p =.01). In reference to the results, correlation is significant at the 0.05 level. The result states that non-academic professional staff who are getting news on the Internet have a positive perception towards the Internet as a medium to get news.
Third objective
Based on the results presented in Table 13, it can be noted that news salience had a positive relationship with the perception of newspaper credibility (rs =.133, p =.049). The relationship is also statistically significant at the 0.05 level. Based on this information, there is enough evidence to conclude from the sample that there is a negligible and significant relationship between issue salience and perception of newspaper credibility, and the direction of the relationship is positive. Based on collected information, the data showed that salience of the news was correlated with the perception of magazine credibility (Table 13). The relationship was negligible and statistically significant at the 0.05 level (rs =.135, p =.047). In reference to Table 13, it can be noted that the direction of relationship between issue salience and magazine credibility is positive. The coefficient of correlation shown in Table 13 reveals that non-academic professional staff has a positive perception towards the Internet credibility in term of news salience. The results specify that the relationship between news salience and perception of Internet credibility was negligible with a positive direction. However, the relationship between these two variables was not statistically significant (rs =.12, p =.076).
Conclusion and Discussions
The conclusions that can be drawn from the findings of this study are discussed as follows:
The result of Chi-square test for newspaper and magazine shows that there is not enough evidence from the sample to conclude that credibility and gender are dependent. Relevant to the Internet, the results of chi- square test also indicate that there was no significant difference between the perception of Internet credibility and gender. A study on credibility of newspaper news found there is no significant relationship between gender and perception of news credibility (Lee, 1978). In general, female news readers tend to evaluate the media as credible while male audiences are more likely to be critical of media. Gender was not associated with internet credibility (Lee, 1978). However, females had higher credibility perceptions than did males (Choi et al., 2006). Relevant to newspaper credibility, it was established that males tend to believe it more credible than females (Abel & Wirth, 1977). Based on the findings of present study, it could be concluded that females tend to believe the Internet news more credible than male do. Relevant to the credibility of newspaper, it was also found that females tend to believe newspaper more credible than male do, though a significant distinction between male and female in the point of magazine credibility was no found.
In regard to the variable of media usage, the results of this study indicate that there is a positive relationship between perceived credibility and amount of time spent on newspaper and magazine reading, and the use of the Internet. The results of this study are inconsistent with the findings of a study conducted by Rimmer and Weaver (1987) that didn't find a relationship between media use and perception of media credibility. However, the findings of this study support this idea that the more time people spend on a medium, they gave to it more credibility (Lu and Andrews, 2006). That is, those who use newspaper, magazine, and the Internet very often are those who perceive the credibility of these media positively than those who use these media seldom.
Based on the findings of this study, it can be noted that there is a positive relationship between issue salience and perception of printed media credibility (newspaper and magazine) and online media credibility (Internet). These findings were consistent with earlier work conducted by (Eastin, 2001; Gunther, 1992) on message credibility in both online and offline environment. The findings of the other study have been conducted by Flanagin and Metzger (2007). They also revealed that there is a positive relationship between issue salience and perception of message credibility. Based on the results, the audiences perceived the printed media (newspaper and magazine) and online medium (the Internet) as a high credible medium when news subjects are salient to them. Thus, it can be concluded that the importance of a news subject is a key factor that looks to manipulate how audience members perceived news media.
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Davood Mehrabi, University Putra Malaysia
Musa Abu Hassan, University Putra Malaysia
Muhamad Sham Shahkat Ali, University Putra Malaysia
Correspondence to:
Davood Mehrabi
Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication
University Putra Malaysia
43400 UPM Serdang, Senlangor, Malaysia
+60-173112680
davood.mehrabi@yahoo.com
Dr. Musa Abu Hassan
Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication
University Putra Malaysia
43400 UPM Serdang, Senlangor, Malaysia
musaupm@gmail. com
Dr. Muhammad Sham Shahkat Ali
Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication
University Putra Malaysia
43400 UPM Serdang, Senlangor, Malaysia
sham@fbmk.upm.edu.my
Table 1: Distribution of Respondents' ProfileProfile Frequency PercentageGender(n = 219)Male 110 50.2Female 109 49.8Age (n = 213)23-29 51 23.930-36 67 31.537-43 26 12.244-50 43 20.251-57 26 12.2Mean: 37.7, s.d: 9.3Marital status (n = 221)Single 46 20.8Married 175 79.2Table 2: Distribution of Respondents Based on Media UsageMedia Level of Frequency Percentage media usageNewspaper (n=184) Very often 1 .5 Often 19 10.3 Sometime 164 89.2Magazine (n=107) Very often 0 0 Often 9 8.4 Sometime 98 91.6Internet (n=180) Very often 6 3.4 Often 49 27.2 Sometime 125 69.4Sometime (0-100min), often (101-200min), very often (201-300)Table 3: Distribution of Respondents Based on Issue Salience(n = 225)Media Level of Frequency Percentage issue salienceNewspaper High 121 53.8 Moderate 97 43.1 Low 7 3.1Magazine High 96 42.6 Moderate 114 50.7 Low 15 6.7Internet High 167 74.2 Moderate 56 24.9 Low 2 0.9Issue salience: Low (6-13), moderate (14-21), high (22-30)Table 4: Distribution of Respondents' perception towards componentsof newspaper credibility (n = 225) Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree AgreeScale Item(s) % % % %It is clear 16.3 50.2 25.2 7.4It is fair 12.7 57.0 22.2 6.7It is timeliness 10.9 53.8 27.6 6.8It is biased 16.3 34.4 17.1 11.7It is believable 3.6 39.4 39.8 14.5It can be trusted 3.6 39.4 39.4 14.4It tells the whole story 7.7 33.2 32.7 22.3It is accurate 2.7 33.9 42.1 19.0 Strongly DisagreeScale Item(s) % M SDIt is clear 0.9 3.73 .85It is fair 1.4 3.72 .81It is timeliness 0.9 3.66 .79It is biased 0.5 3.54 .91It is believable 2.7 3.26 .85It can be trusted 3.2 3.25 .86It tells the whole story 4.1 3.18 .99It is accurate 2.3 3.15 .84Table 5: Distribution of Respondents' perception towards componentsof magazine credibility (n = 225) Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree agreeScale Item(s) % % % %It is clear 6.5 34.7 46.3 9.3It is biased 6.0 20.2 60.6 11.8It is fair 4.1 25.7 50.9 15.6It tells the whole story 4.1 24.3 50.0 19.8It is timeliness 3.7 24.8 50.9 17.8It is accurate 3.2 24.4 52.1 18.0It can be trusted 2.3 22.6 55.0 18.3It is believable 2.8 21.0 56.0 17.4 Strongly DisagreeScale Item(s) % M SDIt is clear 3.2 3.31 .85It is biased 1.4 3.17 .76It is fair 3.7 3.11 .84It tells the whole story 1.8 3.09 .82It is timeliness 2.8 3.08 .82It is accurate 2.3 3.08 .80It can be trusted 1.8 3.05 .75It is believable 2.8 3.03 .77Table 6: Distribution of Respondents' perception towards componentsof the Internet credibility (n = 225) Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree agreeScale Item(s) % % % %It is clear 18.3 37.6 36.2 7.4It is fair 18.6 35.0 37.7 7.8It is timeliness 15.9 34.6 40.0 8.6It tells the whole story 12.8 30.6 45.7 9.1It is accurate 7.3 27.7 51.8 12.3It can be trusted 5.5 29.5 50.5 12.7It is believable 5.0 30.5 48.6 14.5It is biased 5.5 19.5 55.0 15.9 Strongly DisagreeScale Item(s) % M SDIt is clear 0.5 3.66 .87It is fair 0.9 3.62 .90It is timeliness 0.9 3.55 .89It tells the whole story 1.8 3.43 .89It is accurate 0.9 3.28 .80It can be trusted 1.8 3.24 .81It is believable 1.4 3.23 .80It is biased 4.1 3.06 .85Table 7: Credibility of Different MediaMedium Mean Standard deviationNewspaper 2.31 .54Internet 2.27 .58Magazine 2.10 .51Perception in Likert (5 = strongly agree, 4 = agree, 3 = neutral,2 = disagree, 1 = strongly disagree)Table 8: Cross-tabulation Between Gender and Perception of NewspaperCredibility (n = 216)Variable Perception of newspaper Credibility Frequency (%) Positive Neutral Negative Total (30-40) (19-29) (8-18)GanderMale 38 63 7 108 (35.2%) (58.3) (6.5%) (100.0%)Female 41 65 2 108 (38.0%) (60.1%) (1.9%) (100.0%)Total 79 128 9 216 (36.6%) (59.2%) (4.2%) (100.0%)Chi-square;Value = .074 d.f = 2 p = .785Table 9: Cross-tabulation Between Gender and Perception of MagazineCredibility (n = 213)Variable Perception of Magazine Credibility Frequency (%) Positive Neutral Negative Total (30-40) (19-29) (8-18)GanderMale 21 77 8 106 (19.9%) (72.6%) (7.5%) (100.0%)Female 21 76 10 107 (19.7%) (71.0%) (9.3%) (100.0%)Total 42 153 18 213 (19.7%) (71.8%) (8.5%) (100.0%)Chi-square;Value = .224 d.f = 2 p = .894Table 10: Cross-tabulation Between Gender and Perception of InternetCredibility (n = 215)Variable The perception of Internet Credibility Frequency (%) Positive Neutral Negative Total (30-40) (19-29) (8-18)GanderMale 42 56 10 108 (38.9%) (51.9%) (9.2%) (100.0%)Female 34 68 5 107 (31.8%) (63.5%) (4.7%) (100.0%)Total 76 124 15 215 (35.3%) (57.7%) (7.0%) (100.0%)Chi-square;Value = 3.665 d.f = 2 p = .16Table 11: Perception of the Internet and Printed Media Credibilityand GenderMedia [chi square] d.f pNewspaper .074 2 .785Magazine .224 2 .894Internet 3.665 2 .16Table 12: Perception of Newspaper Credibility and Media UsageVariable Perception of Newspaper Credibility [r.sub.s] pNewspaper and media usage (n = 210) .044 .541Magazine and media usage (n = 210) .122 .092Internet and media usage (n = 210) .185 .010 ** Significant at the 0.05 levelTable 13: Perception of Media Credibility and Issue SalienceVariable Perception of Magazine Credibility [r.sub.s] pNewspaper and Issue salience (n = 194) .133 .049 *Magazine and Issue salience (n = 194) .135 .047 *Internet and Issue salience (n = 194) .120 .076* Significant at the 0.05 level
