Web Credibility

Abstract

Credibility evaluation processes on the World Wide Web are subject to a number of unique selective pressures. The Web’s potential for supplying timely, accurate, and comprehensive information contrasts with its lack of centralized quality control mechanisms, resulting in its simultaneous potential for doing more harm than good to information seekers. Web users must balance the problems and potentials of accepting Web content and do so in an environment for which traditional, familiar ways of evaluating credibility do not always apply. Web credibility research aims to better understand this delicate balance and the resulting evaluation processes employed by Web users. This article reviews credibility conceptualizations utilized in the field, unique characteristics of the Web relevant to credibility, theoretical perspectives on Web credibility evaluation processes, factors influencing Web credibility assessments, and future trends.