Perception of University Non-Academic Professional Staff Towards New Media Credibility in Malaysia‪.‬

The scholarly examination of credibility is perhaps among the oldest lines in communication research, originating with ancient Greeks (Griffin, 2009; Liu, 2003). Ratzan (1999) recalls that in the writing of the ancient Greeks, that the credibility of the source of communication is the most important factor in building trust, relationships, and success of the communication act. However, others argue that at least since Aristotle's examination of ethos and his observations of speaker's relative to persuade listeners, the notion of credibility has been investigated (Rieh & Danielson, 2007). On the other hand, Garrison (2003) reminds that the investigation of perceived credibility and components of audience attitudes have begun as new mass communication technologies have appeared. In general, excessive attention to credibility of media channels dates back to the late 1930s, when the newspaper industry was vastly surpassed by the greater credibility of radio news during World War 2. During the 1950s, competition from television again provoked the industry to look at the various news media credibility in the eyes of the public. During the 1950s, the Yale communication research team attempted to discover which characteristics of a message, source, channel, and receiver would enhance persuasive influences (Infante et al., 1997). The foundations to the source credibility approach were laid by Hovland, Janis and Kelly (Hovland et al, 1953). Based on source credibility approach, people are more likely to be persuaded when the source presents itself as credible (Hovland et al., 1953). Recent studies mostly focus on examining the credibility of the Internet with traditional media counterparts. While Fogg et al. (2002) argue that online users are becoming increasingly sceptical of the online information, and as a result those who offer online information need to increase the credibility of information, however, most studies found online information more credible than traditional media counterparts (Johnson & Kaye, 1998). The Internet helps information flow and freedom, but also introduces an increased potential for error or exploitation on information. In the new media environment, some mechanisms such as filter and control, may not be as effective. As a result of lacking such mechanism, most of the numerous Internet information sources don't undergo certain level of factual verification, content analysis, and editorial review (Metzger et al., 2003). While discern of honest-dishonest, trustworthy- untrustworthy, and sincere-insincere, skilled-unskilled, qualified-unqualified, and informed-uninformed of information were previously the responsibility of editorial boards, they now fall upon the shoulders of the media consumers (Flanagin & Metzger, 2000; Metzger et al., 2003).