Hipermedia

Hipermedia

The internet has been important in our lives, and is becoming even more important in today’s world, but we must be careful of the information we find on the internet. Is it possible to believe everything that appears on the internet? On the other hand, could just anyone, write and post anything to the internet? There must be standards applied to the information we find there. Prior to the internet, books were printed by publishers, and many times the publishers would have “reputations” to uphold. The same holds true of journals and newspapers. The publishers of books, journals, and newspapers had reputations to uphold. It would not take long to find out that certain publishers accepted anything for publication, and once published it was common practice to find that the information was wrong. Once a publisher had the reputation of not researching the information, they published to make sure that it was factual; their materials were not read and accepted as truth. If the material were not read/purchased etc., the publishers would no longer have the funds to continue publishing material.

When reading material from the internet, we, as consumers must be careful, we cannot believe every word that is posted on internet sites. As researchers/readers, we must read with skepticism. Are the words we are reading “truthful and honest” or is someone just trying to get us to go along with what they are saying without any “research” on our part.

In order to find “high quality” information on the internet, we as the user must research “Who” is putting this information on the web for all to read. If it is not possible to find who is posting information to the web, that should be one important “flag” to us as the consumer, that if the writer is not willing to sign his name to his work, we should be skeptical of his work. Each of us has a reputation to uphold, are we truthful, honest, trustworthy etc. We need to be willing to sign our names to the words we put out in the world, be it in print, or on the web.

I would be skeptical of anything that was unsigned be it in the newspaper, or on the web. As it is appearing these days, anyone can post “anything” to the internet. We as consumers must learn to be educated consumers, in that we are able to discern fact from fiction in the material we find on the web. I have some questions about “high quality information:
1- Is it clear who has written the information: When you first look at a web site, you need to check who it has been written and designed. Anyone can make a web site and say that they are an expert on a subject.
2- I s the information biased in any way: There is often more than one-way of looking at a piece of information.
When evaluating the information found on the web, I, as the reader, need to know who the writer/researcher of the information is. Do they have a reputation in their field that I can trust, i.e. have they been researching this field for a length of time (more than a month, a year, 5 years, or 10 years). The information can be evaluated by the research the writer has had published, in respected journals outside of the internet. Does this information stand up to the standards we have set for our educational curriculum. Are these web sites “personal” sites or are they “formal, research institutions” relating to the field they are researching.

To create a high quality website we must find respected persons in the field who are willing to write material for the web site. Not every Tom, Dick, and Harry will be able to create material for every field out there. We must find qualified persons in the field to create web sites in the field. If persons creating websites are not qualified in the “field” (i.e., an educator on education, a dentist on dentistry, a lawyer on legal issues, etc.) the information they are writing about may not be worth the “screen” it is written on.
In order to integrate the mass of information at our fingertips we must do research on the writer of the information to make the decision whether they are “qualified” to be believed. A writer could take the research that has been written by a learned scholar and then put the researcher’s information into terms that the internet user could understand. The information may need to be translated from the “Scholar” down to “layman’s” terms to be understood by the general population.
According to Samsup:
- The public are more likely to credit traditional media news information rather than online press releases posted by an organization in the case of negative news about an organization.
- The public believes traditional news sources and online press releases to the same degree in cases of positive news about an organization.
- In general, traditional news media sources have more credibility than organizational online news sources in terms of media credibility.
- Traditional news media have more impact on trustful relationships than organizational online news sources.
The reference: Samsup,(2005), The Effect of Online Media Credibility on Trust Relationships, university of Florida. http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=5&hid=6&sid=5b761ab7-0c54-433e-b995-54295925c9f9%40SRCSM1