ANN ARBOR—Consumers perceive non-traditional Internet sources as less credible than other news sources, a new University of Michigan study indicates.

The implications are the Internet can be a haven for divergent, even racist, beliefs, said the study’s lead author, Debra Burns Melican.

“The Internet offers an opportunity for people to reinforce existing beliefs in a way that is different from traditional media,” said Melican, a doctoral candidate in the U-M Department of Communication Studies. “This reinforcement is of special worry in the area of race.”

She co-wrote a study about media credibility, which appears in the April issue of Communication Research, with Travis Dixon, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Researchers conducted an interactive Web survey with 432 participants. One of the goals of the study was to clarify the meaning of Internet news to recognize that there may be differences between online sources affiliated with traditional sources news with their editorial practices and journalistic standards (CNN, the New York Times, etc.) and non-traditional sources that may not have such standards (BuzzFlash, the Drudge Report, etc.).

The most credible source was traditional media?all print and television sources?with their online counterparts, followed by print, radio, television and non-traditional Internet. “As use of Internet increases, and as use of it for news increases, the issue of credibility will become more profound,” she said.

The study was theoretically based on selective exposure?a theory stating that people tend to expose themselves to ideas supporting their beliefs. Additionally, the more people use a medium, the more credible they find it, the researchers said.

Non-traditional Internet news sites offer a means for people to limit their exposure to information that verifies their existing ideologies, including matters of race. Racist individuals may seek these sites. “This may in turn feed the growth of racism and racial animosity,” Melican said.

The study’s sample consisted of Internet users who tended to be slightly more affluent and female than the general population. Since most of the sample was white, future studies should target specific racial and ethnic groups to explore racism and perceptions of news credibility, the researchers said.

Melican noted the need to “expand the research into Internet news beyond our categories and to go more in-depth on contrasting sites.” She added that future research must address “the relationship between nontraditional Internet news sites and social inequalities such as race and social class.”

Department of Communication StudiesCommunication Research