The Ability to Evaluate the Reliability and Credibility of Different Information Sources - "Judgment"

Judgment is the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources. This is one of the 11 skills Jenkins discusses with regards to New Media Skills. Being able to decipher between credible and reliable information sources is one of the most important skills to develop in this day and age. There is always new information being provided on the Internet as new knowledge is being developed, but with that being said, “knowledge is always in a process”. Jenkins (2006) notes that in order for an individual to fully trust a piece of information, it is imperative to have an understanding of where it is coming from (p. 79). This is a newer skill that everyone needs to develop in order to use Internet information sources the proper way. It is a very common belief that credible information sources are those that have been edited multiple times by professional journalists and editors, which are considered to be peer-reviewed sources. This is not always true though because others have corrected even those information sources and not just webpages like Wikipedia (Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Weigel, M., & Clinton, K., 2006, p. 80). Having judgment regarding reliability and credibility is a very important skill to discuss since technology is becoming such a large part of everyday living, it is necessary to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate information.

How people evaluate reliability may differ depending on age due to that fact that the older generation did not grow up with the Internet since it has only really taken off in the past 10-20 years. The older population may not look at the credibility of a source because it is a common thought that all sites on the Internet are credible. Older people grew up in a time where all written work had to be published and distributed, and they did not have as much information available to them, meaning they believe almost everything on the Internet.

This skill is necessary to improve upon by following the necessary steps to distinguish between credible and non-credible information. Jenkins (2006) explains that everyone needs to start comparing information sources against one another and question to a certain degree the if the information being offered is reliable. In doing so, this will make certain of the accuracy of the information (p. 81).

Many people use this uncertainty to their advantage by creating scams on the Internet. These are done in all different forms. For example, an email circulated in 1998 that supposedly generated contributions for the American Cancer Society each time it was forwarded—in fact, it collected senders' email addresses so they could be sold for mailing lists (Infoplease, n.d.).

Being able to make a good judgmental call as to what sources are reliable and credible is crucial in this day and age.

References

Infoplease. (n.d.). Internet scams: Don’t believe everything you read. In Internet statistics and resources. Retrieved from http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779132.html

Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Weigel, M., & Clinton, K. (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21^st century. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.