The cognitive authority of user-generated health information in an online forum for girls and young women

an article by Noora Hirvonen, Alisa Tirroniemi and Terttu Kortelainen (University of Oulu, Finland) published in Journal of Documentation Volume 75 Issue 1 (2019)

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of one particular online discussion forum as a potentially authoritative health information source for its users. The concept of cognitive authority is used as a starting point for understanding information evaluation in this context. The focus is placed on the types of information users seek for from this forum, the ways they assess the credibility of information obtained, and their views on the impact of this information.

Design/methodology/approach
The empirical data were collected with a questionnaire survey from the users of a Finnish online forum for girls and young women (n=290). The data were analyzed qualitatively with content analytic techniques and quantitatively by using descriptive analysis.

Findings
The forum was found to offer girls and young women the possibility to receive health information from peers. It was viewed as an appropriate source for experiential rather than factual health information and used to find information on sexuality, bodily functions and diets, for example. Author-related cues, argumentation and tone, veracity and verification were recognized as means to evaluate information credibility. Credibility evaluation was found to be linked with conceptions of the forum and the type of information sought. A share of the respondents recognized the information obtained to have influence on their thinking or behavior.

Originality/value
Based on the findings, it can be argued that the members of the online forum – individually or collectively – can act as cognitive authorities for other users. The findings cannot be generalized beyond this online forum, to Finnish girls or young women, or even the users of the online forum. However, they provide insights into the ways young people evaluate user-generated information in a particular online setting and domain of knowledge and as such contribute to research on cognitive authority, credibility evaluation and information literacy.

---

Wikipedia: An opportunity to rethink the links between sources' credibility, trust, and authority

an article by Gilles Sahut (Toulouse School of Education; University of Toulouse) and André Tricot (Toulouse School of Education) published in First Monday Volume 22 Number 11 (November 2017)

Abstract

The Web and its main tools (Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter) deeply raise and renew fundamental questions, that everyone asks almost every day:

• Is this information or content true?
• Can I trust this author or source?

These questions are not new, they have been the same with books, newspapers, broadcasting and television, and, more fundamentally, in every human interpersonal communication.

This paper is focused on two scientific problems on this issue.

The first one is theoretical: to address this issue, many concepts have been used in library and information sciences, communication and psychology. The links between these concepts are not clear: sometimes two concepts are considered as synonymous, sometimes as very different.

The second one is historical: sources like Wikipedia deeply challenge the epistemic evaluation of information sources, compared to previous modes of information production.

This paper proposes an integrated and simple model considering the relation between a user, a document and an author as human communication. It reduces the problem to three concepts:

• credibility as a characteristic granted to information depending on its truth-value;
• trust as the ability to produce credible information; [and]
• authority when the power to influence of an author is accepted, i.e., when readers accept that the source can modify their opinion, knowledge and decisions.

The model describes also two kinds of relationships between the three concepts: an upward link and a downward link. The model is confronted with findings of empirical research on Wikipedia in particular.

Full Text (HTML)

---