Linguistic features and consumer credibility judgment of online health information

Liu, Jiaying; Song, Shijie; Zhang, Yan

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/109674 Copy

Description

Title

Linguistic features and consumer credibility judgment of online health information

Author(s)

• Liu, Jiaying
• Song, Shijie
• Zhang, Yan

Issue Date

2021-03-17

Keyword(s)

• Credibility Judgment
• Linguistic Features
• Heuristics
• Health Informatics
• Human-Computer Interaction

Abstract

General health consumers rely on different indicators to judge the credibility of online health information. However, it remains unclear how consumers perceive and interpret linguistic features regarding credibility on health-related webpages. To bridge the gap, this study investigated how consumers interpreted linguistic features and how these interpretations varied across different information sources by employing observation and interview methods with a sample consisted of 30 participants. The results suggested that consumers could perceive three main linguistics features: number of typos, use of jargons, and tone of speech. The linguistic features played significant roles in indicating different credibility levels during consumers’ judgment of commercial webpages. However, consumers relied less on linguistics features to judge the credibility of government and forum webpages. We discussed these main findings and proposed several implications and future research directions.

Publisher

iSchools

Type of Resource

text

Language

eng

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/109674

Sponsor(s)/Grant Number(s)

VPR Research & Creative Grant from the University of Texas at Austin

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2021 is held by Jiaying Liu, Shijie Song, and Yan Zhang. Copyright permissions, when appropriate, must be obtained directly from the authors.

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