Measuring message credibility: Construction and validation of an exclusive scale

Alyssa Appelman, S. Shyam Sundar

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

245 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

Despite calls to conceptualize credibility as three separate concepts-source credibility, message credibility, and media credibility-there exists no scale that exclusively measures message credibility. To address this gap, the current study constructs and validates a new scale. Results from a confirmatory factor analysis suggest that message credibility, specifically in the context of news, can be measured by asking participants to rate how well three adjectives describe content: accurate, authentic, and believable. Validity and reliability tests are reported, and contributions to credibility research are discussed.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)59-79
Number of pages21
JournalJournalism and Mass Communication Quarterly
Volume93
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1 2016

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Communication

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