Credibility, journalism ethics, and attitude among new media readers towards their social media behaviour

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether perception of credibility, knowledge on journalism ethics and attitude affect the social media behaviour of online readers. The study is conducted on Siakap Keli and Free Malaysia Today readers. Hence, the objectives of the study are: (1) to know Siakap Keli and Free Malaysia Today readers’ level of knowledge on journalism ethics, perception of new media journalism credibility, attitude on new media journalism and their social media behaviour, (2) to determine the relationship between respondents’ knowledge on journalism ethics and perception on the credibility of new media journalism towards social media behaviour, (3) to determine the relationship between respondents’ knowledge on journalism ethics and perception of new media journalism credibility towards their attitude on new media journalism, and (4) to investigate the mediating effect of attitude on knowledge of journalism ethics and perception of credibility towards social media behaviour. This study employs the quantitative research design using the online survey technique. A total of 397 respondents (210 Siakap Keli and 187 Free Malaysia Today) were collected from the likers/followers of Siakap Keli and Free Malaysia Today Facebook accounts. The study finds that Free Malaysia Today readers have a higher level of credibility perception towards the news media, higher level of journalism ethics knowledge, better attitude towards the news media and better participation on their social media behaviour than the readers of Siakap Keli. These differences are influenced by the features of the news websites and the readers’ demographic factors. In addition, the relationship between perception on new media journalism credibility, knowledge on journalism ethics, attitude, and social media behaviour are statistically significant. Attitude is found to partially mediate the relationship between perception of credibility, knowledge on journalism ethics and social media behaviour too. In conclusion, the overall results find that the respondents have high credibility perception towards new media journalism, knowledge on journalism ethics, positive attitude and active social media behaviour but the results also show that there are slight level differences between the two news websites. Theoretically, the study contributes to the study on journalism ethics and credibility of new media journalism based on the readers’ perspective in the Malaysian setting. This study may also provide more reasons for journalist associations in Malaysia to see the need to stress on the issue of ethics and credibility on social media users.