Credibility of social online media: in the eyes of Finnish professional journalists

Abstract

This article reviews the changed structure of news presentation in the social media, addressing concerns about credibility and ethics. It highlights the important factors of accuracy and trustworthiness to measure newsworthiness and credibility of the news of social media. Possible ideas for editing social media contents have been suggested as absence of a gatekeeping process has raised question about the credibility of the social media. The study analyses contents of theme interviews conducted with selected journalism professionals from four newspapers: Lapin Kansa, Kaleva, Keskipohjanmaa and Österbottens Tidning in Finland. The results show that the social media started to serve the purpose of people getting news and will emerge as full-fledged news media in future, if the authenticity, credibility and transparency of information could be ensured upholding journalistic ethics.