Researcher Published by CQ Press, a division of SAGE Publications CQ www.cqresearcher.com Accuracy Is information on the Web reliable?

he Internet has been a huge boon for information- seekers. In addition to sites maintained by newspa- pers and other traditional news sources, there are untraditional sources ranging from videos, personal TWeb pages and blogs to postings by interest groups of all kinds — from government agencies to hate groups. But experts caution that determining the credibility of online data can be tricky, and that critical-reading skills are not being taught in most schools. In the new online age, readers no longer have the luxury of Wikipedia banned Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” from editing articles on the popular online site after he made joke edits. depending on a reference librarian’s expertise in finding reliable sources. Anyone can post an article, book or opinion online with I no second pair of eyes checking it for accuracy, as in traditional N publishing and journalism. Now many readers are turning to THIS REPORT S user-created sources like Wikipedia, or powerful search engines THE ISSUES ...... 627 I like Google, which tally how many people previously have BACKGROUND ...... 634 D CHRONOLOGY ...... 635 accessed online documents and sources — a process that is E open to manipulation. CURRENT SITUATION ...... 640 AT ISSUE ...... 641 OUTLOOK ...... 643 CQ Researcher • Aug. 1, 2008 • www.cqresearcher.com Volume 18, Number 27 • Pages 625-648 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 646

RECIPIENT OF SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS AWARD FOR THE NEXT STEP ...... 647 EXCELLENCE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION SILVER GAVEL AWARD INTERNET ACCURACY CQ Researcher

Aug. 1, 2008 THE ISSUES User-Driven News Sites Volume 18, Number 27 629 Use Non-News Sources MANAGING EDITOR: Thomas J. Colin • Is information on the Most stories come from blogs [email protected] 627 Internet reliable? or non-news sites. ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR: Kathy Koch • Is enough being done [email protected] to teach people how to Entertainment Is Most use the Web intelligently? 632 Popular Wiki Topic ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Kenneth Jost • Can collaborative media Politics and history lag far STAFF WRITERS: Thomas J. Billitteri, like wikis be made reliable? behind. Marcia Clemmitt, Peter Katel How to Evaluate Online CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Rachel S. Cox, BACKGROUND 633 Sarah Glazer, Alan Greenblatt, Sources Barbara Mantel, Patrick Marshall, 634 Information Deluge To begin, ask basic questions. Tom Price, Jennifer Weeks Digital communication rep- DESIGN/PRODUCTION EDITOR: Olu B. Davis resents a media revolution. Chronology 635 Key events since 1990. ASSISTANT EDITOR: Darrell Dela Rosa 637 Cataloging Information Improving Your Online FACT-CHECKER/PROOFREADER: Eugene J. Gabler New ways are needed to 636 Searches evaluate online information. Google has much more to offer. Search Engines Emerge 638 In the 1990s, tools were Internet Users Evaluate created to locate online 638 Sources on Many Levels A Division of information. Credibility is no longer the SAGE Publications only factor. PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER: John A. Jenkins CURRENT SITUATION Blog Readers are Less 640 Up-to-Date on News EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, REFERENCE INFORMATION GROUP: Who Will Pay? The least-knowledgeable Alix B. Vance 640 The news industry must audiences rely on morning develop a new model. TV shows and Fox. DIRECTOR, ONLINE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: Jennifer Q. Ryan At Issue Citizen Journalists 641 Copyright © 2008 CQ Press, a division of SAGE Pub- 642 Volunteers may be unable Should online sites like YouTube ban postings by lications. SAGE reserves all copyright and other rights to fill the information gap groups the government herein, unless previously specified in writing. No part if media organizations fail. identifies as terrorists? of this publication may be reproduced electronical- ly or otherwise, without prior written permission. Un- authorized reproduction or transmission of SAGE copy- OUTLOOK FOR FURTHER RESEARCH righted material is a violation of federal law carrying civil fines of up to $100,000. Future of Search 643 For More Information CQ Press is a registered trademark of Congressional The evolution of online 645 Organizations to contact. Quarterly Inc. searching will shape the future of information. Bibliography CQ Researcher (ISSN 1056-2036) is printed on acid- 646 Selected sources used. free paper. Published weekly, except; (March wk. 4) (May wk. 3) (July wk. 1) (July wk. 2) (Aug. wk. 2) SIDEBARS AND GRAPHICS The Next Step (Aug. wk. 3) (Nov. wk. 4) and (Dec. wk. 4), by CQ 647 Additional articles. Press, a division of SAGE Publications. Annual full- Internet Is Top Source service subscriptions start at $803. For pricing, call 1- 628 People seeking information 647 Citing CQ Researcher 800-834-9020, ext. 1906. To purchase a CQ Researcher consult the Internet the most. Sample bibliography formats. report in print or electronic format (PDF), visit www. cqpress.com or call 866-427-7737. Single reports start at $15. Bulk purchase discounts and electronic-rights licensing are also available. Periodicals postage paid at Washington, D.C., and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to CQ Research- Cover: Getty Images for Meet the Press/Alex Wong er, 2300 N St., N.W., Suite 800, Washington, DC 20037.

626 CQ Researcher Internet Accuracy BY MARCIA CLEMMITT

as sophisticated-looking as the sites mounted by television THE ISSUES networks and major newspa- s Barack Obama a Mus- pers. The tidal wave of citizen- lim? The answer, un- generated content has made I equivocally, is no, he’s it much harder to ferret out a Christian who goes to the most credible sources, church regularly. But ac- which has many people cording to some Internet alarmed, including some poli- sites — especially white-su- cy makers. premacist Web sites — the For example, in May, Sen. man who could be the next Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., president of the United States asked Google to remove on- not only practices Islam but line YouTube videos that he is practically a terrorist. says al Qaeda and other ter- Obama’s campaign has rorist groups post to spread fought back, launching a Web false and slanted anti-Western site — “fightthesmears.com” information. The company re- — to correct the misinfor- moved some videos but re- mation about the candidate, fused to block all videos including false claims that from certain groups, as Lieber- his campaign contributions man requested. 4 (See “At largely have come from Issue,” p. 641.) wealthy supporters in the Terrorist propaganda aside,

Middle East. 1 CQ Press/Olu B. Davis “there are fewer signposts” on- Wikipedia, the phenomenally popular user-generated Obama isn’t alone, of course, online information source, has come to symbolize the line to signal reliability, such when it comes to inaccurate controversy over Internet accuracy. Supporters say wikis as newspaper brand names, information on the Internet. — along with blogs and other online postings — provide says Larry Pryor, an associate As millions of people and vast amounts of information and that factual errors are professor of journalism at the organizations around the quickly corrected by readers. Critics say wikis are prone University of Southern Califor- to manipulation, uncorrected errors and poorly written world post information on entries due to frequent, uncoordinated changes. nia’s Annenberg School for the Internet, factual mistakes Communications. are alarmingly easy to find, and they while “the democratic (and some Wikis — user-generated online pub- don’t just come from hate groups or would say preposterously anarchical)” lications — like Wikipedia are edit- “from shady, anonymous, Internet au- Web site Wikitravel got it right, ac- ed by staff and other users only after thors posing as reliable art historians,” cording to the study. 2 they’ve been published online, un- according to two historians at George In the past, a countable number of like in traditional media, where edit- Mason University in Fairfax, Va. In- sources produced most of the world’s ing comes before publication, notes deed, they say, misinformation often information, and most readers and Pryor. Furthermore, while some wiki comes from highly reputable institu- viewers took the names of top news- entries are written by experts, others tions. papers, magazines and television net- are contributed by people with no In a study of Web sites highly works as a modest guarantee that they expertise in the subject matter, and ranked in Google searches, they found would be accurate. it’s difficult or impossible for unwary an incorrect date in a biography of the But as information migrates onto the readers to tell the difference. French Impressionist painter Claude Internet and newspapers and network In a critique of Wikipedia’s 2005 entry Monet — the date he moved to Giverny, TV news outlets see their audiences on “haute couture” — high fashion — the small village west of Paris where declining, all that is changing. 3 Today Vogue magazine Editor Alexandra Shul- he painted his famous images of water the is a user-driven man wrote that, “broadly speaking, it’s lilies. No less an authority than the Art medium, where teenage videographers inaccurate and unclear. . . . There are Institute of Chicago posted an erro- and political activists of all stripes can a few correct facts included, but every neous date (the correct date is 1883) post their messages, often in formats value judgment it makes is wrong.” 5

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But are Internet users prepared to Internet Is Top Source for Answers be critical consumers of information? People seeking information on problems consult the Internet the “The flaws in Wikipedia and other most, followed by professional advisers, friends and family members. kinds of media are real” and “demon- strate how much we need to update Percentage Who Consult Specific Sources our media literacy in a digital . . . era,” said Dan Gillmor, director of the When They Need to Address Problems Center for Citizen Media, a project to 60% 58% support grassroots journalism jointly 53% supported by Harvard and Arizona 50 45% State universities. 8 For example, when Wikipedia’s ar- 40 36% 34% ticle on Pope Benedict XVI initially ap- 30 peared — only a few hours after his election on April 19, 2005 — the page 20 16% “suffered vandalism,” with false state- 13% 11% 10 ments and accusations popping up that very same day, said Gillmor. “Over 0 time,” the entry “will settle down to Internet Pro- Friends News- Govern- Television Public Other something all sides can agree on,” Gill- fessional and papers, ment and radio library advisers family maga- office or mor blogged later that day, but for the zines and agency moment, “the vandals are having a good books time mucking with the page, I’m sorry 9 Sources: Pew Internet & American Life Project and University of Illinois Libraries to report. What jerks they are.” Survey, June 27-Sept. 4, 2007; 2,796 people were surveyed “Our internal b.s. meters . . . work, but they’ve fallen into a low and sad Nevertheless, not all so-called new Much online information also con- level of use in the Big Media world,” media is inaccurate, says David Perl- tains good clues with which to judge Gillmor continued. “Many people tend mutter, a professor at the University its credibility, says R. David Lankes, to believe what they read. Others tend of Kansas’ William Allen White School an associate professor at Syracuse Uni- to disbelieve everything. Too few apply of Journalism. Take blogs, for example. versity’s School of Information Stud- appropriate skepticism.” “While some are merely sock puppets” ies. For example, blogs usually con- In fact, some online material can mis- spouting Republican or Democratic tain biographies of their authors, and lead readers into thinking it’s from a party talking points, “those are not very wikis have a history of the editing more reliable source than it is. For ex- well-respected,” while the most pop- changes to posted articles. ample, “a hospital Web site may not ular political blogs are the less biased Google News and Yahoo! News — look any different from the herbal rem- ones, he says. 6 sites that aggregate what are sup- edy store’s Web site — or from an ac- In fact, online media frequently act posedly the days’ top news stories complished teenager’s hobby page,” said as credibility watchdogs for tradition- — “are more scary” because they Frances Jacobson Harris, a professor of al media, says Perlmutter. Many blog- don’t share the rules on which their library administration at the University gers are experts, such as military of- rankings are based, says Lankes. But of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Even ficers and technology specialists, who the online world is huge, and there’s “relevancy ranking” — as in Google are “big fact-checkers,” using their usually an alternate voice to consult search results — can mislead, she said. specialized knowledge to spot false on any issue, he says, “and that al- For example, at one time a Google search information in areas such as war re- lays my fears a bit” about being mis- for “Martin Luther King” pulled up a dis- porting, he says. informed. guised anti-King hate site as its top re- For example, “it was . . . Russ Kick’s The vast store of information avail- sult, partly because librarians had linked Memory Hole, not The New York Times, able online has a major benefit: “We to the page as an example of untrust- that first broke pictures of military per- no longer have to rely on single au- worthy information, said Harris. 10 sonnel brought home in [caskets] from thorities,” says Lankes. The downside And despite young people’s repu- Iraq,” said Yochai Benkler, a professor at is that “we have to work harder to tations as digital natives and Internet Yale Law School. 7 determine credibility.” gurus, their “skills in effective navigation

628 CQ Researcher of today’s information landscape are actually somewhat limited,” Harris User-Driven News Sites Use Non-News Sources wrote. “They always find something Seven out of 10 stories posted on Internet sites that aggregate news when searching for information, just items submitted by users come either from blogs or non-news sites, not always the best thing.” 11 For example, young researchers often such as YouTube. Many of the stories users selected did not appear “make credibility judgments that rely heav- among the top stories in mainstream media coverage. ily on design and presentation features rather than content,” he continued. 12 Sources of News Stories on Reddit, Others argue that growing up on- Digg and Del.icio.us, June 24-29, 2007 line naturally makes one a savvier In- ternet user. 40% “Information overload” can overwhelm 40% older generations, but the younger gen- 35 31% eration “doesn’t know the phrase,” says 30 25% Penelope Trunk, a veteran blogger in 25 Madison, Wis., who writes about careers 20 in the Internet Age. Immersed in the 15 online world practically from birth, “they’re 10 5% just smarter about information.” 5 1% 0 But “it’s not how old you are but Blogs Non-news Mainstream Wire Original how long you’ve been online” that sites outlets stories reports improves research skills, says Lankes. While some expect young people to * Figures do not total 100 due to rounding be Internet experts, Lankes says, “I Source: “The News You Choose,” Pew Research Center, September 2007 don’t buy it. If we create this mono- lithic view of kids as technologically literate, we’ll do a great disservice to understand very well what they’re see- Lankes. It has turned out to be an- kids who aren’t.” ing in Wikipedia,” he says, knowing other kind of reliability test that is fair- Some fear that the double burden of they must judge credibility “article by ly accurate and “very powerful.” teaching old-fashioned literacy, still vital article,” rather than trusting the site as But some analysts call the idea that online, plus the critical thinking required a whole, as one might do with the accurate information can arise from “col- to sort through the vast amount of on- Encyclopaedia Britannica, he says. lective intelligence” — the philosophy line information will increase the so- The rules of collaborative, user- behind the Web’s user-generated media called digital divide, leaving low-income generated media like wikis have been and user-based ranking systems — a students — those who don’t have com- developing for less than a decade, so pipe dream. puters or have limited computer litera- it’s unrealistic to expect perfection, says “One need only look at the com- cy — further and further behind. 13 Siva Vaidhyanathan, associate professor position of the Internet to understand “The industry argues that the dig- of media studies and law at the Uni- why the ‘wisdom of crowds’ will never ital divide is gone, but that’s not true,” versity of Virginia in Charlottesville. One apply,” wrote Andrew Orlowski, a tech- says Erik Bucy, an associate profes- promising approach is typified by Slash- nology columnist for The Register in sor of telecommunications at Indiana dot — a Web site that posts technolo- the United Kingdom. The Internet does- University. “We have to think of ac- gy news based on how many site users n’t represent society because “only a cess to digital technology as a cogni- rate it as valuable, he says. Contribu- self-selecting few” have any interest in tive problem and a social problem,” tors get “reputation scores” based on information projects, which “amplifies not just an issue of handing out com- votes from other site users, and it be- groupthink,” Orlowski charged. “Facts puters, he says. comes clear over time that some “are that don’t fit beliefs are discarded.” 14 The Web was born in 1992, and more credible than others,” he says. As readers, writers and technology “16 years in the evolution of man is Google’s page-rank algorithm, which experts grapple with the challenges of not a long time,” says Lankes. Never- ranks pages based on how many other the new online world of information, theless, “already we’re seeing people Web pages link to them, amounts to here are some of the questions being learning to read it intelligently. Kids a public “vote on credibility,” says asked:

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Is information on the Internet to the content that it’s attacking, im- “for a brief time,” he “was thought to reliable? proving readers’ chances of seeing the have been directly involved in the Clearly, Internet users have access whole picture, says Perlmutter at the Kennedy assassinations of both John, to more information than at any time University of Kansas. and his brother, Bobby. Nothing was in history, but is high-quality infor- Moreover, fears that search-engine ever proven.” mation getting lost? results will be skewed by who pays After discovering the misinformation, “I’m a great fan of the blogosphere,” the most to get their sites listed have Seigenthaler — whose son John is a says the University of Southern Cali- proven groundless, at least so far, says journalist with NBC News — said, “It fornia’s Pryor. “You can find Web sites Jansen. The major search engines have was mind-boggling when my son . . . on any topic,” and many bloggers are resisted mixing pages they’re paid to phoned later to say he found the same academics or technical experts, pro- post with pages they turn up through scurrilous text on Reference.com and viding an unprecedented opportunity unbiased searching, he says. Answers.com. At my request, executives for the public to share the thinking of Nevertheless, there are many new of the three Web sites now have re- top minds, he says. digital forms of media content, and moved the false content about me. But Many political blogs, like the Huff- their credibility may be lower than the they don’t know, and can’t find out, ington Post, “allow the public to par- newspapers and magazines we’re who wrote the toxic sentences. . . . I ticipate in news gathering,” which used to reading, says Pryor. For ex- am interested in letting many people benefits information-seekers, “since they ample, comment pages now exist on know that Wikipedia is a flawed and come up with things that traditional Web sites of all kinds, from tradition- irresponsible research tool.” 16 journalists would never write about,” al newspapers to blogs. “I think they’re While Google “is generally accepted Pryor says. wonderful, but they are also particu- as being ‘clean’ in terms of separating When it comes to breadth of cov- larly unreliable and dangerous” as an paid advertisements from sponsored erage, “nothing comes close” to information source, Pryor says. “People ones,” a hidden factor that may bias Wikipedia, “not even Encyclopaedia cite all sorts of stuff in their comments results anyway is “ opti- Britannica,” says Jim Jansen, an assis- that turn out to be absolutely wrong. mization,” which enables corporate sites tant professor in the College of Infor- But you can also find comments by to get to the top of search results by mation Sciences and Technology at people who are total experts and whose paying fees that total in the billions of Pennsylvania State University. comments are like gold.” Distinguish- dollars annually, said British technology Furthermore, worries that many peo- ing between the two “is among the columnist Victor Keegan.” For example, ple lie online are overblown, says Jef- most treacherous issues” for readers, he said, typing in something like “quiet frey T. Hancock, an associate profes- he says. family hotel in Venice” will take the sor of communications at Cornell Some aspects of new media may user to hotel groups or online travel University. “Reasons to lie on the In- make bias more likely. For example, sites rather than to a hotel. 17 ternet are the same ones we have in most blogs have very small staffs that Others worry that governments real life,” such as enhancing our rep- may reinforce each other’s points of worldwide increasingly filter citizens’ utations or accomplishing some spe- view and stifle other ideas, says Pryor. online access, skewing the information cific goal, he says. Few people actu- “As a reader, you may have a hard they get, Ronald Deibert, editor of the ally say, “Hey, I’m online, why not time figuring this out,” he says. book Access Denied: The Practice and just lie?” Even in online situations where In addition, wikis, such as Wikipedia, Policy of Global Internet Filtering,told lying is most likely — like postings are vulnerable to malicious manipulation the BBC. “Countries are selectively on online dating sites — most who or errors that may be picked up and re- blocking access to information around do lie only stretch the truth by about peated by unwitting readers because they key events, such as demonstrations or 15 percent, he says. are checked by staff and other users only elections,” he said. 18 Some online media, such as wikis, after being published online. The Internet’s speed and multiple have a transparent editing process that In one celebrated example, John authors also give “the rumor mill enor- motivated readers can use to spot bias, Seigenthaler, Sr., former editorial di- mous new potential to spread” misin- says Jansen. 15 “With Wikipedia, the en- rector of USA Today and a former aide formation, says Joseph Turow, a pro- tire editing process is available to the to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, fessor at the University of Pennsylvania’s consumer. You can see which articles was the victim of false information Annenberg School for Communication. are controversial” and why. And thanks posted by an apparent Wikipedia However, there’s “a certain amount to blogging traditions, even a strongly prankster. For 132 days, Seigenthaler’s of irony” in questioning the reliability of right- or a left-leaning blog usually links entry included the false statement that online news, says John Newhagen, an

630 CQ Researcher associate professor of journalism at the how they work and know little about arate the wheat from the chaff,” so if University of Maryland in College Park. the implications of their algorithms,” “we are, in fact, using our critical fac- Even when people go online, “most are wrote researchers from Cornell Uni- ulty less, then it is a problem.” going to traditional news organization versity and the University of Charleston. “A lot of people don’t have the cog- sites like CNN or The New York Times, “When Web sites rank highly in a search nitive and social skills to exploit” what and though the same information is on engine, they might not be authorita- the Internet offers, says the University the Web site and in the paper, many tive, unbiased or trustworthy,” and by of Maryland’s Newhagen. “And we’re people rate the information in the news- repeatedly clicking only on the top- not going to solve access problems by paper itself as more credible,” he says. ranked sites users further cement those carpet-bombing low-income people with Furthermore, “there have always rankings, making it “more difficult for computers,” he says. A graduate student been lots of schlocky, sleazy news- lesser-known sites to gain an audi- in one of his classes remarked that, as papers as well as great ones,” says ence,” even if they are better. 21 a substitute teacher in Washington, D.C., Jeff South, an associate professor of In the old-media world, “looking pret- she’d “literally seen storerooms filled mass communications at Virginia Com- ty” was a good sign that an information with computers because many teachers monwealth University in Richmond. source was “produced by someone who couldn’t use them.” And traditional news media are hard- has resources” and thus likely knew “The Web has lots of cognitive hur- ly unbiased, media critics say. In the more, says Lankes of Syracuse. Online, dles,” requiring not only Internet lit- non-Internet world, journalists “in sur- however, “we’re losing that shortcut. A eracy but also basic literacy, says In- vey after survey . . . report that they 15-year-old kid can make a Web site diana University’s Bucy. In fact, most feel . . . pressures to avoid, slant or that looks better than the ones put up of the population can’t use the kinds promote certain stories that might af- by the federal government.” of informational texts posted on the fect . . . powerful interests,” such as Many people indulge their own Internet, he adds. suppressing negative stories about ad- biases for or against online informa- Furthermore, “I’m not sure educa- vertisers, government agencies and the tion, rather than conducting the kind tional institutions have really got their media-company owners, said Fairness of source-by-source consideration that’s minds around the problem, any more and Accuracy in Reporting, a left-leaning, warranted, Hall says. Some professors than society as a whole has,” says South. New York City-based group. 19 refuse to take any online sources Currently, “there’s little movement seriously, “while some students won’t toward doing more with media literacy,” Is enough being done to teach accept anything that didn’t come from says Bucy. people how to use the Web the Web,” he says. But at least some schools and colleges intelligently? “Why is it that teachers spend so are beginning to teach online literacy. Many analysts say readers don’t have much time talking about students’ “Despite the sometimes overwhelm- the basic savvy to navigate online in- lack of Internet skepticism and . . . ing challenges to teaching credibility as- formation. But others argue that experi- so little . . . examining their own?” sessment in today’s school environment, ence is effectively educating Internet wrote Elizabeth Losh, an instructor many teachers and school librarians are users, and that colleges, at least, are em- and writing consultant at the Univer- finding ways to do so,” said Harris of phasizing critical analysis of information. sity of California, Irvine. For exam- the University of Illinois. 23 “We’re increasingly creating a media- ple, “My fellow instructors have fall- “I see plenty of efforts now — at illiterate society,” in which people trust en for self-righteous campaigns against least among the college ranks — to what they’ve read on the Web and ‘Bonsai Kitten,’ ” a joke Web site that try to incorporate” critical-information “don’t know they’re ill-informed,” said claims to raise misshapen miniature searching into the curriculum, says Jones. Andrew Keen, English author of The pets in bottles. 22 Furthermore, “we’ve only been Cult of the Amateur, which criticizes “The empirical research I have done doing this a short time, and we’re user-generated media. 20 does not bear out that [young people, going to get better at judging what “An amazing number of people don’t who’ve grown up with the Web] use we see out there,” says the University know that Wikipedia is user-generated,” multiple sources” to corroborate infor- of Virginia’s Vaidhyanathan. Over the for example, says Richard H. Hall, a mation unless a teacher explicitly re- past decade “we’ve been steadily gen- professor of information science at quires it, says Steve Jones, a professor erating tactics to recognize quality” in Missouri University of Science and Tech- of communications at the University of information sites, such as user rank- nology in Rolla. Illinois at Chicago. “I’m happy when ings, he says. “It’s never going to work “Despite the popularity of search they look at both Google and Wikipedia,” perfectly, but neither does The New engines, most users are not aware of he says. However, “you do need to sep- York Times.”

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tive media is that humans can arrive Entertainment Is the Most Popular Wiki Topic at better answers through “collective Of the 230 most popular Wikipedia pages, 43 percent relate to intelligence” than as individuals work- entertainment — more than any other category. The politics and ing alone. Some analysts call that no- tion a pipe dream, however. history category was a distant second, garnering only 15 percent of “A core belief of the wiki world is the total — or about a third of the pages devoted to entertainment. that whatever problems exist in the wiki will be incrementally corrected as the Visits to Top 230 Wikipedia Pages, by Category process [of group editing] unfolds,” wrote (Visited between September 2006 and January 2007) computer scientist and Discover maga- zine columnist Jaron Lanier. But “some- Entertainment 43% times loosely structured collective ac- Politics and history 15% tivities yield continuous improvements, and sometimes they don’t.” 24 Geography 12% The multiple authorship of wikis often squeezes out some points of view and Sexuality 10% produces text that is mostly disconnected, Science 6% out-of-context facts, argues Lanier. “I’ve participated in a number of elite, well- Computers 5% paid wikis . . . and have had a chance Arts 2% to observe the results,” he wrote. “What I’ve seen is a loss of insight and sub- 2% Religion tlety, a disregard for the nuances of con- Holidays 2% sidered opinions, and an increased ten- dency to enshrine the official . . . beliefs Current events 1% of an organization.” 25 Drugs 1% “It is one thing to say that Wikipedia is amazing and useful; it is quite anoth- 0 1020304050er to say that we couldn’t do better by * Percentages do not total 100 due to rounding adding a role” for credentialed, subject- Source: Anselm Spoerri, “What is Popular on Wikipedia and Why?” First Monday, matter experts and professional editors, April 2, 2007 said Larry Sanger, a co-founder of Wikipedia and editor-in-chief of Citi- Many students are savvier informa- More frequent Internet users “are zendium, a new, expert-guided, collabo- tion seekers than they get credit for, better at sniffing out what’s dishonest” ratively created online encyclopedia. 26 says Soo Young Rieh, an assistant pro- there, says Pryor. But high-school stu- From moment to moment, collab- fessor at the University of Michigan’s dents, who’ve literally grown up on orative media can vary wildly, with School of Information. Her research the Web, “absolutely are miles ahead” no guarantee that material hasn’t been finds that most students have heard of even current undergraduate and recently vandalized, says Wikipedia’s professors caution that sources aren’t graduate students when it comes to own user-written article on “Why always credible, so they engage in “a shrewd use of online sources, says Wikipedia Is Not So Great.” “Anyone lot of cross-checking” and “social” means Pryor. “They are more attuned to the can delete huge amounts of text from of corroborating information, such as Internet, can navigate it better and are articles . . . or insert huge amounts of e-mailing a professor, parent or friend more capable of sniffing out the b.s.,” text into an article, destroying read- with relevant knowledge, Rieh says. he says. “If something is [public rela- ability and all sense of proportion.” 27 Many “also rely on multiple sourcing,” tions] they smell it,” he says. “Young Political topics on a wiki “can end such as gauging information more people have a better nose for when up looking like CNN’s ‘Crossfire’ rather credible if they’ve found it “in a library they’re being manipulated.” than an encyclopedia article, with point- book and also in a blog.” counterpoint in every sentence,” says “I’m actually very optimistic” about Can collaborative media like the user-written article on wiki faults. And online users’ concern for making sure wikis be made reliable? even if peer review will improve the that information is reliable, she says. The philosophy behind collabora- standard over time, “are there really

632 CQ Researcher How to Evaluate Blogs and Online Information Sources To begin with, ask basic questions.

ith the huge variety of information sources avail- • Are there additional links? Good online information able online, “critical thinking is more important than “usually has references and links to additional informa- W ever in sorting out what seems more reliable,” says tion,” both on other pages of its own site and on exter- Doug Fisher, a former Associated Press news editor who teach- nal Web pages, says Hall. es journalism at the University of South Carolina. Here are • Are there misspellings and typos? Grammatical errors some tips to checking out the reliability of Web pages: on a Web page potentially indicate untrustworthy infor- • Look closely at the URL. Many people mistakenly believe mation, says South. “If they’re breaking a lot of rules at that an “org” suffix stands for something like “nonprofit or- the micro level, what does that suggest about the infor- ganization,” but in fact anyone can register an “org” domain, mation they’re presenting?” says Richard H. Hall, a professor of information science at • Are there links to other sources? For blogs, another test Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla. By for reliability is whether writers cite or link to opinions of contrast, an “edu” suffix can only be held by an institution other writers that they disagree with, says Larry Pryor, an as- that has undergone some vetting by higher-education groups, sociate professor of journalism at the University of Califor- he says. But even an “edu” page requires some caution, nia’s Annenberg School for Communications. “The more re- says Jeff South, associate professor of mass communications liable blogs will reach out to other points of view” or at least at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, because point readers to pages where they can learn about them. the page could come from a professor, a freshman-class pro- • How long has the blogger been at it? A blog will usu- ject or anyone working at the college, he says. ally state how long the writer has been blogging, and • Locate the main Web site. When you pull up a Web longer is better, says Penelope Trunk, a veteran blogger page, it’s usually a good idea to check back to the main in Madison, Wis., who writes about careers in the online site to find out more about whoever posted the infor- age. “It takes time to resonate with the blogosphere and mation, says South. To do that, simply lop off anything make changes” to improve your work, she says. in the URL that follows the main domain suffix (such as • How many topics does the blog cover? Blog sidebars .com or .edu). The main Web site should tell you clearly usually list the main topic categories that the blog cov- what person or group is responsible for its content. If a ers, says Trunk. “If there are too many and it’s all over Web site doesn’t do this, don’t trust it, says Jeffrey T. Han- the place, then this is not an expert,” she says. cock, associate professor of communications at Cornell Uni- • What is the blog’s format? Formats can be clues to relia- versity, in Ithaca, N.Y. Posting one’s identity is a good sign bility too, says Trunk. Blogger Web sites generally have a of trustworthiness in cyberspace, he says. “Can you Google default setting for organizing an individual blogger’s page, this person or group and find out things about them?” If and those who use the default may be less reliable “because not, the Web site may not be trustworthy. they haven’t put much time into” the project, says Trunk. • Can a real person be contacted? “Check to see if you Young readers in the blogosphere operate in a very dif- can contact a real person based on the Web site infor- ferent world of information than traditional media, Trunk mation,” says Hall. “If there isn’t a pretty detailed ‘About’ argues. “Reliability” today means a writer who’s developed or ‘About Me’ page” or contact information, then there’s a “personal brand” rather than one who operates under reason to be suspicious. the “institutional brands” of the past, she says. enough good writers with enough time tablishment figures get stubs” — But Wikipedia is evolving into a . . . to mitigate this weakness?” 28 Wikipedia’s term for incomplete arti- system where many things are marked Furthermore, while Wikipedia has cles of only a few sentences — “whose as “questionable” or “needs sourcing,” broad coverage, topics are idiosyncrat- content is a litany of all the evil things allowing readers to judge an article’s ically chosen, not picked on the basis they’ve done to the obscure activists,” reliability, says Newhagen at the Uni- of their importance to society at large. says the article. 29 versity of Maryland. For example, many people with caus- “If Wikipedia follows the pattern of Admittedly, “some of the back and es contribute “to ‘get the word out,’ every other ‘community forum’ on the forth about editing gets uncivil, but that because publishers laugh at their stuff,” Net, small groups will become power- has happened in academia before,” says and putting up their own Web sites ful to the exclusion of others,” and the Penn State’s Jansen. But because Wikipedia would cost money, says the Wikipedia “inherent bias and hostility issues are posts such arguments publicly, “you can faults entry. Meanwhile, “opposing es- likely to get worse,” says the article. 30 identify the articles that are controversial,

Available online: www.cqresearcher.com Aug. 1, 2008 633 INTERNET ACCURACY and take them with a grain of salt.” Mean- nization, often a corporation or other even overturned — the powerful, says while, many articles “have become sta- group seeking to clean up its image. 34 Irving Fang, a professor of commu- ble,” a good indicator of general accu- Moreover, some simple format clues nication history and broadcast jour- racy, particularly for articles of high interest, can help alert readers to which wiki nalism at the University of Minneso- which users would further edit and chal- paragraphs are most likely to be ac- ta. For example, the invention of the lenge if they disagreed, Jansen says. curate, according to Tom Cross, a movable-type printing press in around Furthermore, Wikipedia requires con- founder of the social-networking site 1450 changed Western history forev- tributors to post only information that MemeStreams. For example, color- er, not least by aiding the rise of has “already been published by reliable coded text could alert readers to “what Protestant reformers who challenged and reputable sources,” which prevents assertions in an article have . . . sur- the Catholic Church. too much outlandish misinformation, at vived the scrutiny of a large number “Without printing, Martin Luther least for frequently consulted articles, of people, and what assertions are could have ended up burned at the wrote John Willinsky, a professor of lit- relatively fresh, and may not be as stake,” like earlier would-be reformers, eracy and technology at the University reliable.” 35 he says. Instead, printing “spread his of British Columbia. 31 Wiki staff now understand that en- words very fast,” building support for “Wikipedia’s long-lasting success is tries on major topics need to be held his ideas first among German princes based not on anarchy but rather on to a stricter standard of reliability, and and laity, then quickly across Europe. a rigorous hierarchy,” which should “all the major entries are much more Media technologies throughout his- be the model for other collaborative edited, vetted, and reliable today” than tory have unexpectedly altered life for and user-generated media, wrote two or three years ago, says Marcus society and for individuals, he contin- Michael Maier, CEO of the German Messner, an assistant professor of com- ues. For example, the telephone changed company Blogform Publishing. “Every munications at Virginia Commonwealth family relationships, allowing children article is strictly scrutinized before it University. to move far away, marry or find work is published and ultimately revised by Wikipedia is also open to a wider while remaining in close touch. “If you the ‘last editor,’ who resides at the top range of information than traditional retain a voice, you retain a lot,” he says. of the hierarchy,” he said.” 32 encyclopedias, because it has no space The telephone also paved the way for While the technology that allowed limitations and has a different notion other revolutionary developments, such Wikipedia to be created also allows of what constitutes “neutrality,” Mess- as the skyscraper, which required com- people to manipulate the content for ner says. For example, in a listing about munication devices for their construc- their own agendas, by having a com- a private company, Wikipedia will have tion and operation, Fang says. munity vigilant against those sorts of “lots more about any scandals that have Today, digital communication con- edits, “they are, for the most part, kept happened,” than the Encyclopaedia stitutes the biggest media revolution in check,” said Angela Beesley, chair Britannica, where “you don’t see since the invention of printing and will of the Wikimedia Foundation’s advi- controversial content.” bring with it changes of equal or even sory board. 33 greater magnitude, says Jones of the The low barrier to entry for adding University of Illinois. “Now that infor- new content is vital to Wikipedia’s mation is electronic, we’re growing it rapid growth and ability to cover many BACKGROUND exponentially,” in both public and pri- up-to-date topics and “works, . . . es- vate domains, including the burgeon- pecially for non-controversial topics,” ing digitization of everyday family life, said Virgil Griffith, a California Insti- says Jones. “Anybody born today is tute of Technology graduate student. Information Deluge likely to have their whole life — pho- And although some recommend that tos, records, video — in digital form.” anonymous edits be discontinued to en- In 2002, for example, humans cre- sure that information is unbiased, Grif- very communication media and ated a mound of new information equiv- fith says Wikipedia should instead an- E technology has had powerful, alent in size to half a million libraries alyze controversial edits after the fact, wide-reaching effects on humanity, and, the size of the Library of Congress, tracking down and eliminating those while its consequences are as yet about 92 percent of it digital and po- that are false or self-serving. In fact, he largely unknown, the digital era will tentially available for Internet posting, invented a software program — be no different. 36 according to researchers at the Uni- WikiScanner — to trace anonymous Throughout history, new media versity of California, Berkeley. 37 Wikipedia edits to the originating orga- technologies have threatened — and Continued on p. 636

634 CQ Researcher Chronology

2000 ed with obscene comments and 1990s The public goes American Internet entrepreneur pornographic spam. online. launches Nupedia, an online encyclopedia offering 2006 1990 free online content written by Wikipedia articles number more Alan Emtage, a student at Montreal’s volunteer experts. than 1 million. . . . Wikipedia McGill University, creates , bans comedian Stephen Colbert the first tool for searching Internet 2001 from editing articles after he archives. Wales launches Wikipedia, an makes joke edits and encourages encyclopedia to be written by the his TV audience to do so. . . . 1992 public and intended as a feeder Thai shopping blog — Oh See World Wide Web is introduced, source for Nupedia. What the Cat Drags In! — posts allowing Internet users to navigate photos of coup after military shuts among hyperlinked documents, 2003 down news outlets. images and multimedia. With few articles completed, Nupedia folds. 2007 1993 Ryan Jordan, a member of Massachusetts Institute of Technol- 2004 Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee ogy student Matthew Gray creates Finding that a Google search for — a group of experienced users the first automated search device “Jew” turned up the anti-Semitic who settle content disputes — is for the hyperlinked Web, the Web site jewwatch.com as the No. 1 found to be a 24-year-old college World Wide Web Wanderer. result, New York real estate agent dropout, not a theology professor Steven Weinstock launches an online with two Ph.Ds. . . . Number of 1996 petition asking Google to remove the active blogs stalls at around 15.5 American computer programmer site. Google refuses. . . . 11th Circuit million. . . . California Institute of Ward Cunningham creates wiki Court of Appeals in Georgia cites Technology graduate student Virgil software, allowing users to create Wikipedia as a source in a ruling. A Griffith creates Wikiscanner, com- a Web site collaboratively. . . . grassroots effort to link the word puter software that traces anony- eBay introduces user-generated “Jew” on Web pages to Wikipedia’s mous Wikipedia edits to the orga- ratings to ease fears about buying entry for “Jew” pushes the nizations where they originated, and selling online. Wikipedia article to the top spot often corporations or government a month later. officials. 1997 Sergey Brin and Larry Page launch 2005 2008 Google as a Stanford University Yahoo! indexes more than 20 billion Visits to online U.S. news sites research project. Its page rankings, items, including 1.6 billion images increase by 22 percent over 2007. based on how many other sites and over 50 million audio and video . . . Wikipedia ranks among top link to a page, quickly make it files. . . . Journalist John Seigenthaler 10 most-visited Web sites world- the most popular search tool. Sr. complains about inaccuracies that wide. . . . English-language remained for four months in his Wikipedia has more than 2.4 mil- 1999 Wikipedia biography, including a lion articles, for a worldwide U.S. software engineer John Swap- false claim that he was involved in Wikipedia total of more than ceinski is inspired by a professor he the assassination of President John F. 9 million articles in 250 languages. disliked to launch the user-generated Kennedy. . . . A non-peer-reviewed . . . Citizen journalists using the Ratemyprofessors.com Web site. analysis in the British journal Nature new “microblogging” service Twitter concludes that Wikipedia and Ency- report from the site of a May • clopaedia Britannica have compara- earthquake in China. . . . German ble accuracy, but critics say the publisher Bertelsman plans to analysis was flawed. . . . Los Angeles print a book of German-language 2000s Collaborative, Times opens a readers’ comment Wikipedia articles, the first time a user-produced media acceler- section on its Web site op-ed page, wiki project will be published as ate information production. then quickly closes it after it’s flood- a print product.

Available online: www.cqresearcher.com Aug. 1, 2008 635 INTERNET ACCURACY

How to Improve Your Online Searches Google has more to offer than you may think.

es, Google is a good place to start an online infor- for example, type “site:loc.gov” alongside your search terms, mation quest and can provide much more information and you’ll get back only Library of Congress pages relating Y than many realize. But the number of other sources to your query. To find your subject on higher-education sites is almost endless. Here are some tips on improving your search- only, type “site:edu” alongside your search terms. es, starting with Google: • Typing “phonebook:” and a name in the search box asks the search engine to look up phone numbers. Typing Getting the Most Out of Google “phonebook:” and a telephone number looks up the name • A Google Alert lets you know whenever the search en- associated with the number. gine finds and indexes a new Web page on a topic you’re • Typing “define:” and a word returns definitions of the word. interested in, such as blog entries or new videos of your • Typing “movie:” returns movie reviews. Typing “movie:” favorite sports team or a research-paper topic. Click the plus a movie title and the Zip code or a city name re- pull-down menu under “more” at the top of the main turns a list of local theatres and show times. 1 Google search page, then click “even more” at the bot- tom of the menu. Then click on “Alerts” to pull up a Searching Beyond Google Google Alert form and fill it out. You can choose alerts • Some search sites are especially good for certain kinds of for the whole Web, or for news, blogs, videos or dis- searches. For example, a search at www.USA.gov will re- cussion groups only, and you can choose how often to turn U.S. government-sponsored information. A search at receive alerts. Avoid the “as-it-happens” option for most www.scirus.com will turn up scientific material only, in- topics, though, or you’ll be overwhelmed with e-mails. cluding journal articles and individual scientists’ Web pages. • Google allows you to limit searches so they provide in- • To broaden your search horizons, http://bananaslug.com per- formation that’s most relevant to your quest. For exam- forms Google searches linking your search term to a ran- ple, typing “intitle:” before your keywords will retrieve domly chosen word to pull up offbeat Web pages on your only pages with your search terms in the Web page’s title. topic that never would have risen to the top of a simple • You can also narrow your search to a particular Web site Google search. “BananaSlug was designed to promote serendip- or to a particular domain, such as higher-education or gov- itous surfing: finding the unexpected in the 8,058,044,651 ernment sites. To search only the Library of Congress site, Web pages indexed by Google,” say the site’s founders. 2

Continued from p. 634 of the new world to come, in which in the 1990s, “I developed my own Computers were originally calcula- everyone with a computer could be Web pages. First for work, then on tion devices. But humans are social be- a publisher. While some lists were my own. . . . I became a giver/pub- ings with an insatiable desire to com- work-related, many were not. The lisher. What a thrill to contribute.” 39 municate, so media and communication most popular of the early unofficial The flood of people and informa- uses were quickly devised after the first lists was SF-Lovers, a list for dis- tion online has already changed the computers were linked into a network cussing science fiction. world, although much larger effects will in the early 1970s. 38 The system was With the 1992 introduction of the surely come, says Fang. “E-mail has so built to facilitate high-tech computing World Wide Web, Internet users for the obviously provided for worldwide com- and government communications. But, first time could navigate among hyper- munity,” he says, and the Web “has to the surprise of many, high-tech users linked documents, images and multi- revolutionized commerce as well as quickly adapted the network to a down- media. The explosion of information — propaganda.” to-Earth pursuit — sending mail elec- plus the ability to place one’s own cre- “How many blogs are out there? tronically for free. By 1973 e-mail made ations online for others to see — drew Every political movement, no matter up 75 percent of network traffic. ever-increasing numbers of the gener- how small, now has one. It has been By 1975, users, mostly scientists and al public onto the Web. a godsend to [terrorist] organizations academics, had developed another “During the first few years . . . I like al Qaeda,” says Fang. “Just a few new application — mailing lists to was a taker; I looked for and found people can create cells all over the broadcast individual messages to large info I wanted,” one pioneer comput- world. The Web has given voices to numbers of subscribers. These dis- er user told researchers from the Pew people who could otherwise be heard cussion lists gave users their first taste Internet & American Life Project. But only as far as they could shout.”

636 CQ Researcher • At http://clusty.com, the Clusty search engine returns re- the globe to paint a daily picture of world events that goes sults listed by popularity but also offers a sidebar that beyond what mainstream American media publish. clusters all the search results into categories that may help • To search worldwide, pull up Search Engine Colossus you more easily find what you’re looking for. Search re- (www.searchenginecolossus.com) to find an international sults for the name of a pop singer, for example, may be directory of country-specific search sites and other online grouped into categories including photos, lyrics, down- resources for countries and territories from Aaland to Zim- loadable music and reviews, allowing the searcher to pull babwe, in English and many other languages. up all Web pages with song lyrics by that singer in a single • Oyez, at www.oyez.org, is a multimedia Supreme Court click, for example. site where you can read the latest news and information • To find basic historical information, like what year the on cases from 1793 to the present and also listen to Civil War began or what Marie Curie was famous for, his- recordings of recent oral arguments and take a virtual tour torians at George Mason University’s Center for History and of the Supreme Court building. New Media are developing H-Bot, an artificial-intelligence • It’s a wiki world today, with Wikipedia just one among program that sifts through information from many sites to thousands of collaborative, user-written sites on every imag- arrive at the most likely right answer to such questions. inable topic, from Barbie dolls to economic development. Check out H-Bot at http://chnm.gmu.edu/tools/h-bot. Al- User-written media can have the most up-to-date informa- though it can’t yet answer “how, where, or why” questions, tion but may also be only as accurate as the latest edit, it claims around 95 percent accuracy for birth or death which may or may not have been performed by an expert years of famous people and brief biographies of famous on the topic. For searchable lists, see WikiIndex, at http://wiki- people with relatively unique names and 60-to-80 percent index.org, and Wikimedia’s list of the largest wikis at accuracy on simple historical questions like “Who dis- http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_wikis. covered oxygen?” 3 • Interested in what’s going on around the world? Global Voic- 1 Rael Dornfest, Paul Bausch and Tara Calishain, Google Hacks (3rd ed., es (http://globalvoicesonline.org), a project of Harvard Law 2006), p. 9. 2 Schools’ Berkman Center for Internet and Society, aggregates “About BananaSlug,” http://bananaslug.com. 3 “H-Bot,” Center for History and New Media, http://chnm.gmu.edu/tools/h-bot. the work of bloggers and other citizen journalists around

But “scholars have been com- In ancient Greece and Egypt, for ex- Cataloging Information plaining about too many books and ample, cities in developed large libraries, journals since [16th Century English but in those vast collections “no one aving vast quantities of infor- philosopher] Francis Bacon’s day,” could find anything, save through ex- H mation at one’s disposal always said Christine Borgman, a professor traordinary memory, for . . . there was has its downside. In a vast sea of data, of information studies at the Uni- no efficient system of book cataloging,” how do we locate the best answers versity of California-Los Angeles. “The wrote Steven Roger Fischer, director of to our questions? Of the tens of mil- sifting problem . . . is not new. What the Institute of Polynesian Languages lions of information providers, how do is new is the declining availability and Literature in Auckland, New we know which to trust? of indicators to determine what’s Zealand. In the early 2nd century, B.C., “When I was a reporter, the prob- real, what’s true, what’s valuable the North African writer Callimachus of lem was the scarcity of stuff,” says and what will still be there the next Cyrene established the first library South of Virginia Commonwealth time we look.” 40 catalog, at the Library of Alexandria in University. “I remember going to the Throughout history, every time there’s Egypt. It was divided into sections ac- [newspaper] morgue and unfolding been an increase in available informa- cording to subject matter — such as these yellow sheets of paper, trying tion, people have had to invent tools legislation, medicine, history and phi- to find scraps of information on a to transmit, store, retrieve and navigate losophy — and the books in each city council meeting,” he says. it, as well as gauge its accuracy, says section were listed alphabetically, “Now, we don’t have a drought. It Carolyn Marvin, a professor at the Uni- making the library for the first time is a torrent,” and sometimes that can versity of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg “a systematized information center,” be overwhelming. School for Communication. according to Fischer. 41

Available online: www.cqresearcher.com Aug. 1, 2008 637 INTERNET ACCURACY

Internet Users Evaluate Sources on Many Levels Credibility is no longer the only factor.

s the world’s information migrates online, Internet users “There are so many dimensions of news that can be mea- are developing new expectations about information sured besides credibility,” says Erik Bucy, an associate profes- A they get and what institutions like newspapers and li- sor of telecommunications at Indiana University. For instance, braries should provide. he asks, “How participatory is the medium? I think that’s going Internet users can now access media of all kinds 24 hours to be as important going forward. How engaged am I?” a day, leaving many to tune out some of the old-media main- Having a Web site — or a paper publication — organized stays — such as major newspapers and network television — to provide clear, easy access to desired content is another im- altogether, said Markus Prior, an assistant professor of politics portant new standard, something that newspapers have not tra- and public affairs at Princeton University. ditionally been good at in their paper editions, says Bucy. “That’s Traditional newspaper and TV news audiences are shrinking another evaluation of news we need to look at. Does [the Web not because “shallow, loud or negative coverage of politics caus- page] allow a quick scan of the news” and provide a clear path es viewers to tune out in disgust,” said Prior, but because for for readers to get more of whatever news they care about? many people “shallow, loud entertainment . . . is available around Accepting information as authoritative based on an institu- the clock” online. 1 tional brand name simply doesn’t fly today, says Doug Fisher, The old notion that readers look for “credibility” when choos- a former Associated Press news editor who teaches journalism ing an information source also is crumbling, says John Newhagen, at the University of South Carolina. “Some of your readers may an associate professor of journalism at the University of Maryland be blogging and know more than you do,” he says, even “if in College Park. In the days when television and newspapers were you’re The New York Times or The Washington Post.” the primary media, he explains, “reaching deeply into primary New media’s credibility is only as good as its latest report. And sources was done for you by people called journalists, and the a willingness to listen to readers’ views is another important new way to judge the information was something called credibility.” standard, he says, “because, frankly, there are a lot of people in Online media, however, are an interactive experience in the community who know a lot more than you do.” which scanning a Web page leads to clicking links and fol- Increased communication between media producers and media lowing them to other sites, says Newhagen. Accordingly, “in- consumers is a hallmark of the Internet world, which is far more teractivity” — the ease with which an online site allows one “social” than past media, says R. David Lankes, an associate pro- to gather the information that meets one’s own needs — “may fessor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies. be taking the place of credibility” as Internet users’ top crite- For example, teenagers have told many libraries that they rion for judging media, he says. want reading recommendations in the form of blogs so they

In England in the 11th through the Internet information still awaits stor- 13th centuries, when written records age and retrieval methods equal to the Search Engines Emerge of legal transactions first became com- vast volume of data and diversity of mon, retrieval methods taken for grant- authors, Marvin says. And since digi- n the 1990s, technology innovators de- ed today — such as dating records tal documents are so easy to alter or I vised tools to help Internet users lo- and filing and indexing papers by date remove from the Web, “each day’s In- cate information in the ever-expanding — had to be invented from scratch, ternet is different,” raising new prob- online universe. 43 These “search engines” says Marvin. lems of credibility and stability of in- travel the Web looking at pages, follow- Over the years, librarians and oth- formation, she says. For example, if a ing hyperlinks from page to page and ers have kept improving the ways we writer points readers to a URL (Web assembling the pages found into an index catalog information so consumers can address) as a reference today, there’s that they store. When a search-engine locate it. For example, the world’s no guarantee that the page will exist user makes a query, the engine scans most commonly used library classifi- unchanged tomorrow. its indexed pages and returns a list of cation system, the Dewey Decimal But retrieval is the biggest problem, those that most closely match the query. System, was devised in the 1870s by says Marvin. Endless information “does- Periodic scanning — “crawling” — of the Melvil Dewey, a 21-year-old student n’t do me any good,” says Marvin. “The Web keeps the index up to date. library assistant at Massachusetts’ value of information to a society is not The earliest search engines indexed Amherst College. Today the system is that it exists, but whether we can grab the titles of Web pages only, but by in its 22nd edition. 42 that information and use it.” the mid-1990s numerous engines and

638 CQ Researcher can find out about the person making the recommendations and face a “scientific data deluge” measuring in the terabytes — one evaluate them on the basis of their personalities, Lankes says. terabyte equals 1,000 gigabytes — in fields ranging from astron- The online world also is changing the scholarly enterprise, omy’s digital sky surveys to protein science, she explains. says Steve Jones, a professor of communication at the Univer- “And managing data” for collaborative use by scholars sity of Illinois, Chicago. For example, soliciting reader com- around the world “is quite different from managing documents,” ments on scholarly articles is now the norm and greatly ex- she says. “Libraries are trying to convince researchers that ‘I’ll pands the universe of people with whom researchers may end give it to the library’ is not a data-management strategy” and up communicating about their work, he says. that libraries need new financial support as science changes to “In the long run, the peer-review process is going to change a worldwide data-sharing enterprise. to community review,” in which an entire scholarly group will With all the new expectations, some traditional — and vital decide whether to publish a paper, rather than just a handful of — old-media functions are in danger of being lost, says Perse- reviewers, says Jones. That change will have pluses and minuses phone Miel, a fellow at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for research, he says. on Internet & Society. “Completeness of local news coverage,” “If the research is iconoclastic, the community as a whole which people depend on without realizing it, could become a will be less likely to be open to it,” potentially suppressing the major casualty, says Miel. “It might be replaced by 10 person- most groundbreaking work, he says. In the past, some semi- al blogs all obsessed with the same local issue,” but that would nal research has seen the light of day in scholarly publications leave many local-information needs unfilled, she says, such as only after one influential scholar championed it in the face of news from zoning boards or local businesses’ plans. “In-depth general hostility, he says. investigative reporting,” which takes money, time and, perhaps, On the plus side, the Internet encourages much more col- special training to accomplish could also be a casualty, along laborative research, as researchers post their data so that others with international news reporting, says Miel. can analyze and build on it. This process is already resulting in But the overabundance of information in the online era “a quite remarkable amplification” of scholarly efforts, says Jones. along with the new expectations of Internet readers “makes it Online storage of vast quantities of data — with the expecta- hard to convince people that important things may not be get- tion that researchers worldwide can easily access it — is one of ting done,” says Miel. several new, complex jobs libraries are now being asked to un- dertake, says Christine L. Borgman, a professor of information 1 Markus Prior, “The Real Media Divide,” The Washington Post, July 16, studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Online archivists 2007, p. A15. emerged that indexed full text, thus But search engines are far from the At present, automated information greatly increasing the amount of rel- perfect solution to finding good in- searches — unlike librarians — don’t evant material they could pull up to formation online. understand human language and may answer a query. These engines — in- Perhaps surprisingly, much of the often fail to unearth the best available cluding AltaVista and Yahoo! — vied world’s information is not yet online. answers to a query. “Ideally, we would with each other for popularity. Much more exists in databases that understand your question, we would un- In 1997, Stanford University computer- are inaccessible to the public, and some derstand all knowledge and match the science graduate students Sergey Brin information — such as images and two,” but that vision is a long way from and Larry Page launched a new engine, video — remain nearly impossible to today’s reality, said Udi Manber, a vice Google, as a research project. For the adequately index and search. president of engineering at Google. 44 first time, Google “ranked” pages re- “We had thousands of years of pro- For example, in his attempts to im- turned in answer to a query based on ducing non-digital” material, and at prove search, Manber said he’s tested an algorithm that included information this point academic articles back only Google for queries including “south- about how many other Web pages linked to the 1970s have been converted into east Utah news-airplane crash 10/25/06; to the page in question. The method digital format, says Penn State’s Jansen. hairstyles for ears that stick out; in- greatly increased the relevance of search “A mountain of tough grunt work” re- flammation and pain under my rib; results and quickly made Google the mains to be done to convert it all. what is answer to this math problem most popular search tool — and turned Until then, “there will be a mixed way 6x/10x; how many calories in a pound.” Brin and Page into billionaires. of getting information.” Of those, Google provided a really

Available online: www.cqresearcher.com Aug. 1, 2008 639 INTERNET ACCURACY

In traditional media organizations, for Blog Readers Are Less Up-to-Date on News instance, stories are vetted by editors The most-well-informed American audiences watch “The Daily before readers see them, but that’s not true with most online information, where Show” and “The Colbert Report” and read major newspapers online. the entire burden of credibility check- The least knowledgeable audiences regularly view the network ing is left to readers, he says. morning shows, Fox News Channel and local TV news. Becoming a journalist in the tradi- tional media “has always required Knowledge Levels by News Source jumping through a few hoops” to prove High* Moderate Low oneself, says Perlmutter of the Univer- sity of Kansas. “But you can get on the Nationwide 35% 31% 34% Web and call yourself a journalist” with- out any scrutiny or credentials. Among the regular audience of . . . The Daily Show/Colbert Report 54% 25% 21% Major newspaper Web sites 54% 26% 20% NewsHour with Jim Lehrer 53% 19% 28% CURRENT The O’Reilly Factor 51% 32% 17% National Public Radio 51% 27% 22% SITUATION Rush Limbaugh’s radio show 50% 29% 21% News magazines 48% 27% 25% TV news Web sites 44% 33% 23% Who Will Pay? Daily newspaper 43% 31% 26% CNN 41% 30% 29% he age of online information is only dawning, so it’s no surprise News from Google, Yahoo!, etc. 41% 35% 24% T that we haven’t yet hit upon the best Network evening news 38% 33% 29% ways to manage it. But the Internet Online news discussion blogs 37% 26% 37% is changing business and human ex- Local TV news 35% 33% 32% pectations, as well, and some of those Fox News Channel 35% 30% 35% changes are shaking the old informa- Network morning shows 34% 36% 30% tion infrastructure to its foundations without providing guidance on how * Answered at least 15 of 23 questions correctly. to replace traditional institutions that strove to ensure information credibil- Source: “What Americans Know: 1989-2007,” Pew Research Center, April 2007 ity, analysts say. “For the next 20 years, we’ll still good answer only to the inflamed-rib ing information that serves some be in the gestational, learning stage” question, he said. 45 poster’s hidden agenda, and “stuff of the digital era, says the University Furthermore, even when search that’s well-intentioned but not updat- of Virginia’s Vaidhyanathan. “People engines do pull up the most relevant ed,” a special pitfall for Internet users, don’t take enough of a historical view” pages, the Internet Age “raises to a who tend to assume that all online and expect answers too fast, he says. whole new level” the issue of whether information is timely, he said. Part of the process will be figuring the relevant information is also accu- “Google doesn’t give you any sense out how to pay people to provide or- rate and reliable, says Virginia Com- of the reliability” of the Web sites it ganized, reliable information online, or monwealth’s South. Online there’s lists, says the University of Southern deciding that we are willing to forgo good information — even more of it California’s Pryor. “Instead, you’ve got such services because having a vast than in the past — but also “a whole to enter the blogosphere like it’s a Na- wealth of information available makes new set of things that are bad, in- tional Park and approach it like an them less important to us. cluding hoaxes” perpetrated by peo- adventure, going as far and as deep In the past, taxpayers supported li- ple “who simply want to mess with as you can” to develop your own braries and librarians to collect the your mind,” by posting legitimate-look- sense of what can be trusted, he says. Continued on p. 642

640 CQ Researcher At Issue: Should online sites like YouTube ban postings by groups the governmentYes identifies as terrorists?

SEN. JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, I-CONN. LESLIE HARRIS CHAIRMAN, SENATE COMMITTEE ON PRESIDENT AND CEO HOMELAND SECURITY AND JOHN MORRIS GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS GENERAL COUNSEL CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY & FROM THE COMMITTEE WEB SITE, MAY 19 AND TECHNOLOGY MAY 20, 2008, HTTP://HSGAC.SENATE.GOV. FROM THE HUFFINGTON POST, MAY 28, 2008, slamist terrorist organizations rely extensively on the Internet WWW.HUFFINGTONPOST.COM to attract supporters and advance their cause. This Internet icampaign is described in a bipartisan staff report by the en. Joe Lieberman took a step backward in America’s Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Af- “war on terrorism,” by demanding that YouTube censor fairs. . . . The report explains how al-Qaeda manages an online shundreds of videos allegedly posted by Islamic terrorist media operation intended to enlist followers. Central to it is the groups. And when the Google-owned site responded by promptly branding of content with an icon to guarantee that the content removing a large number of videos, which violated its guidelines was produced by al-Qaeda or allied organizations like al-Qaeda against hate speech and violence, he insisted that action was “not in Iraq. All of these groups have been designated Foreign Ter- enough.” rorist Organizations by the Department of State. What would be “enough” in the senator’s estimation? The Searches on YouTube return dozens of videos branded with removal of all tainted videos, even those that were plainly an icon or logo identifying the videos as the work of one of constitutionally protected advocacy, albeit abhorrent, and a these Islamist terrorist organizations. A great majority document plan “to prevent the content from reappearing”? horrific attacksyes on American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Civil liberties nocontinue to be a casualty in our efforts Others provide weapons training, speeches by al-Qaeda leader- against terrorism. So far, broad Internet censorship has not ship and general material intended to radicalize potential recruits. taken root, but censorship is the path we would take if In other words, Islamist terrorist organizations use YouTube to Google acceded to Lieberman’s demand. disseminate propaganda, enlist followers and provide weapons The system we have devised, in which online services es- training — activities that are all essential to terrorist activity. The tablish rigorous terms of service and enforce them, is a wise online content produced by al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist one. Users help police the system, and sites that are notified organizations can play a significant role in the process of radical- of potentially offensive content generally take down content ization, the end point of which is the planning and execution of that violates their rules. In the spirit of self-policing, Lieberman’s a terrorist attack. YouTube also, unwittingly, permits Islamist ter- request to review specific videos is fair, but demanding ongoing rorist groups to maintain an active, pervasive and amplified review of all videos, and removal of those that don’t meet voice, despite military setbacks or successful operations by the with self-selected criteria, crosses the line. . . . law-enforcement and intelligence communities. For the last year, Congress has made the Internet a focus of Protecting our citizens from terrorist attacks is a top priority for anti-terrorism activities. The Violent Radicalization and Home- our government. The private sector can help us do that. By tak- grown Terrorism Prevention Act, which has already passed the ing action to curtail the use of YouTube to disseminate the goals House, specifically finds that the Internet “aided in facilitating and methods of those who wish to kill innocent civilians, Google violent radicalization, ideologically based violence and the home- will make a singularly important contribution to this effort. grown terrorism process in the United States by providing access Google apparently has taken 80 videos off YouTube that vio- to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda.” lated the company’s own guidelines against gratuitous violence. Congress can take away two diametrically opposed lessons That is a start, but it is not enough. Videos produced by al- from this finding. The first is that the Internet is an essential Qaeda and al-Qaeda affiliates showing attacks on American communications tool that America should learn to better use to troops remain on YouTube’s Web site and violate YouTube’s counter terrorism and tout our values. The other is to fight terror- own community guidelines. Those should be taken down im- ism by censoring the Internet and destroying our first freedom. mediately. Furthermore, Google continues to allow the posting Ironically, while Lieberman’s letter was being delivered to of videos by organizations the State Department has designated Google a Senate panel on human rights was hearing testimony as foreign terrorist organizations. No matter what their content, on threats to Internet freedom from repressive regimes. Some, videos produced by terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda, that like China, have built a network of gatekeepers to block con- are committed to attacking America and killing Americans, tent that challenges the government’s official messages. Congress

shouldNo not be tolerated. Google must reconsider its policy. cannot [advocate] Internet freedom with one voice and [call] for censorship with another.

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Continued from p. 640 they once did, particularly online, de- Washington-based J-Lab: The Insti- materials they believed were most priving news organizations of their tute for Interactive Journalism. Her valuable and help readers find the most important source of revenue. 47 group has helped fund 40 hyperlocal ones they needed. Readers’ and ad- The wide variety of information out- projects, but received 845 proposals, vertisers’ dollars supported book, mag- lets online and the ease of surfing from Schaffer says. azine and newspaper publishing, one to another mean that no one site Hyperlocal bloggers are filling some where editors and publishers chose alone can expect to draw many eyes of the gap left by shrinking tradition- and vetted writers and texts, pub- or hold onto them, another reason ad- al-news coverage and also replacing lishing those they believed were best. vertisers will offer less money for ad old-media notions of credibility, which Can the millions of people who vol- placement, says Indiana University’s many believe have become bankrupt, untarily post content make up for the Bucy. For example, “people don’t says Schaffer. loss of such services? watch MSNBC and then go online to For example, many hyperlocal re- Today, “the young generation will MSNBC’s Web site; they go elsewhere porters “have the aspiration to build not pay for content on the Web,” says online,” he says. For that reason, con- community,” something many feel that Messner of Virginia Commonwealth. In tent producers, online and traditional, old media has worked against, she says. part, that relates to another Internet- are seeing ad revenues dry up. “They’re not framing stories as conflicts, fueled expectation — that information and don’t do false ‘yes-no’ equivalencies will be updated nearly minute-by- on issues,” Schaffer says. The yes-no minute — he says. “If you actually pay Citizen Journalists paradigm is a traditional media story- for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, your telling strategy, intended to eliminate entries maybe [were] updated four or lthough much of today’s online one-sidedness or bias, she says, but the five years ago, while Wikipedia “is up- A content is produced by volun- new “citizen journalists” believe the strat- dated with things that happen today,” teers, many analysts doubt they could egy actually harmed media credibility Messner says, and it’s free. fill the information gap that would and accuracy because it polarized is- “Back in the olden days, people occur if traditional news organizations sues and positions instead of finding used to pay for newspapers. Now you go under. It’s unlikely that unpaid cit- the gray areas that often exist. can find everything for free,” said a izen journalists and other content posters, Some hyperlocal journalists are “get- 19-year-old California man interviewed working as volunteers, would have the ting so much credit in the communi- in an Associated Press survey on same expertise, and professional dedi- ty that they’re being tapped to run for young adults’ news habits. 46 cation, to providing accurate, unbiased office in some places,” Schaffer says. The ability of readers to search the news coverage on a long-term basis, But many analysts caution against hopes Internet for information on their own, the analysts say. Much Internet content that the news reporting of the future will coupled with the availability of millions is in the form of blogs and other sites come from volunteer citizen reporters. of Web pages appealing to every con- that don’t seek out new information but “Most people will not become news pro- ceivable interest, also decrease advertis- comment on information turned up by ducers,” says Persephone Miel, a fellow ers’ willingness to pay top dollar for space traditional media like newspapers, says at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Cen- in newspapers, magazines or online in- Virginia Commonwealth’s South. Ironi- ter for Internet & Society. For one thing, formation sites, say media scholars. That cally, that leaves much of the reading “nobody has that much free time.” means the editorial judgment that for- audience, especially younger people, Evidence shows that only a handful merly chose and edited news stories for “unaware of the sweat that went into of people who volunteer — perhaps the public often is no longer available. the original reporting,” making it hard- 10 percent — either have the talent or “The evidence is mounting that the er for media organizations to convince motivation to produce journalistic-type news industry must become more ag- potential audiences that their work is work in collaborations that have been gressive about developing a new eco- worth paying for, he says. tried, according to New York Universi- nomic model,” said the Project for Ex- New forms of media are devel- ty professor of journalism Jay Rosen. 48 cellence in Journalism. “Finding out oping, however, including ones staffed Another barrier to news volunteerism about goods and services on the Web mainly by volunteers. Since 2004, so- is the very real risk of being sued for is an activity unto itself, like using the called hyperlocal media — Web sites libel, especially if reporters challenge Yellow Pages, and less a byproduct of where citizens report on community powerful interests, as investigative jour- getting news, such as seeing a car ad issues, generally on a volunteer basis nalists for mainstream media have tra- during a newscast.” As a result, ad- — “has really been building,” says ditionally done, says Miel. “What do vertisers may not need journalism as Jan Schaffer, executive director of you do when a small publication like

642 CQ Researcher Chi-Town Daily News [in Chicago] sleeve . . . at least you know where ends up with a libel lawsuit, and they their bias is coming from.” 50 don’t have the same access to attor- Internet companies that depend on OUTLOOK neys that The Washington Post has?” paid writers and other content produc- Some outside groups, such as the ers to fill the Web with information have Berkman Center’s Citizen Media Law a stake in supporting credible journal- Future of Search Project, have formed to help citizen ism and should do so, said Neil Henry, media meet legal challenges, Miel says. a professor of journalism at the Univer- he evolution of online searching In the past, newspapers and other sity of California, Berkeley. “It stands to T will shape the future of informa- media companies have aggregated news, reason that Google and corporations like tion. But how that future plays out is picking out and publishing what they it, who indirectly benefit so enormous- anyone’s guess. deem the best material and the most im- ly from the expensive labor of journal- Today, the world of search is to- portant stories. This media function is ists,” should “somehow engage and sup- tally dominated by Google, but that also up for grabs online, with some user- port the traditional news industry” as “a may not be true in the future and based systems of news judgment po- public trust to society,” he said. If not, probably shouldn’t be, says the Uni- tentially replacing institution-based ones. “I can’t help but fear a future — in- versity of Virginia’s Vaidhyanathan. For example, the nonprofit NewsTrust creasingly barren of skilled journalists — “One of the central philosophical aggregates and presents the day’s top in which Google ‘news’ searches turn questions about digitizing” existing in- news on its Web site, gleaned from tra- up not news but the latest snarky rants formation is, “Should we focus on quan- ditional media Web sites as well as blogs from basement bloggers, fake news re- tity or quality?” he says. Google has and independent media. Billing itself as ports from government officials and PR opted to digitize all the information it “Your Guide to Good Journalism,” the cleverly peddled as journalism by ad- can find, rather than choosing the more site picks out what it deems the most vertisers,” said Henry. 51 “important” information first, a smart credible stories based on ratings by both Others argue that traditional pub- business move because “the more site users and a panel of experts. 49 lishing values and organizations can chaotic the world is, the more we need Typically, they summarize the reports flourish online, supported by adver- Google,” Vaidhyanathan says. But the and then include a link to the original tising dollars, as long as revenue ex- result is that “the Internet now feels like source, along with a 1-to-5-star ranking pectations are reasonable. The world some weird combination of library, shop- from their reviewers. of online information is “not the com- ping mall and movie theater,” he says. Nonprofit groups, including advocacy mercial desert it was feared to be a Vaidhyanathan would like the organizations, also may play a bigger few years ago,” says the University world of online information to feel role as actual reporters, as revenues for of Virginia’s Vaidhyanathan. “People more like a library, where the most traditional news publishers shrink, even can make money” with online jour- important works are archived accord- though advocacy groups’ biases have nalism, he says, although there are ing to a scheme set up by experts. long been thought to compromise the no windfalls any more, since adver- “I’d like to see a publicly funded re- credibility of their writings. tisers are abandoning the dream of search system [for digitized, online in- Many charitable organizations would reaching everyone online and focus- formation] based on collaboration of find it in their own interest to take on ing instead on smaller, niche audi- stakeholders that would be expertise- the cost of producing real news rather ences on the Internet. based and have values built in,” such than the public-relations materials most Online publishers must simply focus as human rights and privacy, he says. produce today, said Martin Moore, di- instead on content that draws in Internet Digitizing the world’s information rector of the London-based Media users, he says. “Advertising is the only should be about “making a global li- Standards Trust, a new nonprofit group possible source of revenue,” and “if con- brary that privileges the needs of hu- that’s seeking ways to build credibili- tent brings people to your site, advertis- manity over the next 50 years rather ty standards into new media. “Chari- ers will want to be there, too.” than the interests of a company in the ties have an agenda . . . but they are To create credible forms of media next quarter,” he says. “I love Google, also motivated by a sense of obliga- in the online world, “hybrid forms will too, but it’s not enough; we shouldn’t tion to the public, have a keen inter- be the strongest — openness with be relying on it totally.” est in seeing injustice reported” and some controls, amateurs with some The future could also bring a more are “already on the ground” in trou- pros,” said New York University’s Rosen. sinister side of search-engine technol- ble spots, he writes. “Plus, since they “But that means we have to figure out ogy into play, says Turow of the Uni- tend to wear their agenda on their how these hybrid forms work.” 52 versity of Pennsylvania.

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Search-engine and data-mining tech- 3 For background, see Kenneth Jost, “Future 16 John Seigenthaler, “A False Wikipedia ‘Bi- nology has “the ability to surround of Newspapers,” CQ Researcher, Jan. 20, 2006, ography,’ ” USA Today, Nov. 29, 2005, www.us- people with information based on what pp. 49-72. atoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11- marketers and others think about them,” 4 For background, see Dibya Sarkar, “Sen- 29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm. 17 without their being aware of it, he says. ator Urges Google To Remove Terrorist-Made Victor Keegan, “I’m Searching for Google Virtually all U.S. media go digital with YouTube Videos,” The Associated Press, Alternatives,” The Guardian (United Kingdom), May 19, 2008. June 12, 2008, www.guardian.co.uk. the analog-to-digital TV switch in Feb- 5 18 53 Quoted in “Can You Trust Wikipedia?” The Quoted in Clark Boyd, “How the Open Net ruary 2009. After that, such clan- Guardian (United Kingdom), Oct. 24, 2005, Closed Its Doors,” BBC News online, March 25, destine targeting could happen “not www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2005/oct/24/ 2008, http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk. For background, just on the Web but on TV” and even- comment.newmedia. see Marcia Clemmitt, “Controlling the Internet,” tually in magazines and newspapers, 6 For background, see Kenneth Jost, “Blog CQ Researcher, May 12, 2006, pp. 409-432. which we will access digitally through Explosion,” CQ Researcher, June 9, 2006, pp. 19 Julie Hollar, Janine Jackson and Hilary portable electronic tablets, says Turow. 505-528. Goldstein, “Fear & Favor 2005,” Extra! In fact, such targeting “is already hap- 7 Yochai Benkler, “Extracting Signal from Noisy March/April 2006, www.fair.org. pening in advertising, but it’s troubling Spin,” Edge: The Reality Club online journal, 20 “Web Trust Questioned,” BBC News “News- that people will be labeled and pro- www.edge.org/discourse/digital_maoism.html. night,” June 5, 2007, www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/news- 8 filed, and, without our realizing it, we’ll Jaron Lanier, “On ‘Digital Maoism: The Haz- night/2007/06/the_cult_of_the_amateur_by_an- ards of the New Online Collectivism,” Edge: drew_keen_1.html. be sent news and information” as well, The Reality Club online journal, May 30, 2006, 21 Bing Pan, et al., “In Google We Trust: based on what someone else wants us www.edge.org/discourse/digital_maoism.html. Users’ Decisions on Rank, Position, and Rel- to see, rather than what we choose, 9 Dan Gillmor, “How the Community Can evance, Journal of Computer-Mediated Com- Turow says. “This is an issue that as a Work, Fast,” Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Jour- munication, April 2007, http://jcmc.indiana. society we need to grapple with.” nalism, Etc. blog, April 19, 2005, http://dan- edu/vol12/issue3/pan.html. gillmor.typepad.com/dan_gillmor_on_grass- 22 Liz Losh, “Do You Know that the Word roots/2005/04/how_the_communi.html. ‘Gullible’ Isn’t in the Internet?” VirtualPolitik blog, 10 Frances Jacobson Harris, “Challenges to Jan. 23, 2006, http://virtualpolitik.blogspot.com. Notes Teaching Credibility Assessment in Contempo- 23 Harris, op. cit. rary Schooling,” in Miriam J. Metzger and An- 24 Lanier, op. cit. 25 1 For background, see Eli Saslow, “Hate Groups’ drew J. Flanagin, eds., Digital Media, Youth, and Ibid. 26 Newest Target,” The Washington Post, June 22, Credibility (2008), p. 163. Larry Sanger, “Who Says We Know? On the 11 2008, p. A6. For background, see “Fight the Ibid., p. 161. New Politics of Knowledge,” Edge: The Third 12 Smears,” http://my.barackobama.com/page/con- Ibid. Culture, www.edge.org/3rd_culture/sanger07. 13 27 tent/fightthesmearshome; Karen Tumulty, “Will For background, see Kathy Koch, “Digital Di- “Why Wikipedia Is Not So Great,” Wikipedia, Obama’s Anti-Rumor Plan Work?” Time, June 12, vide,” CQ Researcher, Jan. 28, 2000, pp. 41-64. http://en.wikipedia.org. 14 28 2008, www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816, Andrew Orlowski, “Junk Science — The Oil Ibid. 29 1813663,00.html. of the New Web,” The Register, May 25, 2006, Ibid. 30 2 Daniel J. Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, “Web www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/25/junk_science_ Ibid. 31 of Lies? Historical Knowledge on the Inter- and_the_wisdom_of_chimps. John Willinsky, “What Open Access Re- 15 net,” First Monday, December 2005, www.first- For background, see Alan Greenblatt, search Can Do For Wikipedia,” First Mon- monday.org/ISSUES/issue10_12/cohen. “Media Bias,” CQ Researcher, Oct. 15, 2004, day, March 5, 2007, www.firstmonday.org/is- pp. 853-876. sues/issue12_3/willinsky/index.html. 32 Michael Maier, “Journalism Without Jour- nalists: Vision or Caricature?” Joan Shorenstein About the Author Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Pol- icy, discussion paper #D-40, November 2007, Staff writer Marcia Clemmitt is a veteran social-policy www.hks.harvard.edu/presspol/research_pub- reporter who previously served as editor in chief of Medi- lications/papers/discussion_papers/D40.pdf. cine & Health and staff writer for The Scientist. She has 33 Quoted in ibid. also been a high-school math and physics teacher. She 34 Virgil Griffith, “WikiScanner FAQ,” http://vir- holds a liberal arts and sciences degree from St. John’s gil. gr/31.html. 35 College, Annapolis, and a master’s degree in English from Tom Cross, “Puppy Smoothies: Improving Georgetown University. Her recent reports include “Cli- the Reliability of Open, Collaborative Wikis,” mate Change,” “Health Care Costs,” “Cyber Socializing” First Monday, Sept. 4, 2006, www.firstmon- day.org/issues/issue11_9/cross. and “Student Aid.” 36 For background, see Irving Fang, A History of Mass Communication: Six Information

644 CQ Researcher Revolutions (1997) and Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody (2008). 37 Peter Lyman, and Hal R. Varian, “How Much FOR MORE INFORMATION Information? 2003,” School of Information and Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St., 2nd Floor, Cambridge, Management Sciences, University of California, MA 02138; (617) 495-7547; http://cyber.law.harvard.edu. A Harvard Law School- Berkeley, October 2003, www2.sims.berke- based research group that studies the Internet and Internet-related law, including ley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003. for online media. 38 See Clemmitt, op. cit. 39 Amy Tracy Wells, “A Portrait of Early Internet Center for Citizen Media, www.citmedia.org. A university-backed group that Adopters: Why People First Went Online — and provides support for and information about citizen-created journalism. Why They Stayed,” Pew Internet & American Life Project, Feb. 20, 2008, http://pewresearch.org. Credibility Commons, http://credibilitycommons.org. A foundation- and university- 40 Quoted in Scott Jaschik, “Scholarship in the backed research group developing tools and standards for assessing credibility of online information. Digital Age,” Inside Higher Ed, Nov. 14, 2007, insidehighered.com. Cyberjournalist.net, www.cyberjournalist.net. A group blog on online journalism 41 Steven Roger Fischer, A History of Reading and how technology is changing the media. (2003), p. 58. 42 “How One Library Pioneer Profoundly In- Digital Media and Learning, The MacArthur Foundation, 140 South Dearborn St., fluenced Modern Librarianship,” Online Com- Suite 1200, Chicago, IL 60603; (312) 726-8000; http://digitallearning.macfound.org. puter Library Center, www.oclc.org/dewey/re- Researches how digital technology is changing the way young people learn and sources/biography. participate in society. 43 For background, see “History of Search En- First Monday, www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/index. A peer-reviewed gines: From 1945 to Google 2007,” Search En- online journal on Internet-related topics based at the University of Illinois, Chicago. gine History.com. www.searchenginehistory.com. 44 Quoted in Stephen Shankland, “Google’s Global Voices, www.globalvoicesonline.org. Aggregates and publishes blogs from Search Challenge: Making Computers Think around the world; based at Harvard’s Berkman Center. Like Humans,” C/Net News.com, June 18, 2008, http://news.cnet.com. J-Lab, The Institute for Interactive Journalism, 3201 New Mexico Ave., N.W., Suite 45 Ibid. 330, Washington, DC 20016; (202) 885-8100; www.j-lab.org. A foundation-backed 46 “A New Model for News: Studying the Deep group based at American University that works with news organizations and citizens Structure of Young-Adult News Consumption,” developing new media to increase citizen involvement in public affairs. The Associated Press and Context-Based Research Media Standards Trust, Ground Floor, Discovery House 28-42 Banner St., London Group, June 2008, www.ap.org/newmodel.pdf. EC1Y 7QE, United Kingdom; www.mediastandardstrust.org. Researches ways to 47 “The State of the News Media 2008,” Project foster credibility and public trust in new media. for Excellence in Journalism, www.stateofthe- newsmedia.org. New Literacies Research Team, University of Connecticut, Neag School of 48 Charlie Beckett, “Networked Journalism: For Education, 019 Gentry, 249 Glenbrook Rd., Storrs, CT 06269; (860) 486-0202; the People and With the People,” Press Gazette www.newliteracies.uconn.edu. Studies the teaching and learning skills required (United Kingdom), Oct. 18. 2007, www. by an Internet-based society. pressgazette.co.uk. 49 For background, see “About NewsTrust,” NewsTrust.net, 775 East Blithedale, #320, Mill Valley, CA 94941; www.newstrust.net. A nonprofit group that aggregates the best daily news from traditional and new- NewsTrust.net, www.newstrust.net/about. media sources, based on ratings from site users and an expert panel. 50 Martin Moore, “Why Charities Need to Be- come More Like News Organizations,” Martin Online Journalism Review, www.ojr.org. Contains the archives of a now-defunct Moore Blog, May 28, 2008, http://mediastan- online publication at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for dardstrust.blogspot.com/2008/05/why-charities- Communication that covered the switch from traditional to online journalism. need-to-become-more-like.html. 51 Neil Henry, “The Decline of News,” San The Register, Situation Publishing Ltd., 33 Glasshouse St., London, W1B 5DG, Francisco Gate, SFGate.com, May 29, 2007, United Kingdom; +44 (0)203 178 6500; www.theregister.co.uk. An online magazine www.sfgate.com. that covers controversies and new developments in technology, including digital information. 52 Jay Rosen, “Open Systems, Closed Sys- tems, and Trauma in the Press,” “techPresi- Search Engine Land, http://searchengineland.com. An advertising-supported news dent blog,” Personal Democracy Forum Web site with news and commentary on search engines. site, June 23, 2008, www.techpresident.com. 53 For background, see Kenneth Jost, “Tran- Wikimedia Foundation, http://wikimediafoundation.org. The nonprofit group that sition to Digital TV,” CQ Researcher, June 20, operates Wikipedia and supports worldwide development of wikis. 2008, pp. 529-552.

Available online: www.cqresearcher.com Aug. 1, 2008 645 Bibliography Selected Sources

Books Hessendahl, Arik, “Trends in Cybercensorship,” Business Week online, March 26, 2008, www.businessweek.com. Battelle, John, The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Government censorship of the Internet is increasing around Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our the world, becoming a standard policy option when officials Culture, Portfolio, 2005. fear dissent against government policies may spread. A technology journalist recounts the history of search engines and looks into the future of search technology. Mihm, Stephen, “Everyone’s a Historian Now,” The Boston Globe, May 25, 2008, www.boston.com. Gillmor, Dan, We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By Historians hope the public can provide valuable details the People, For the People, O’Reilly Media, Inc., 2006. about archival photos being posted online by the Library of The founder of the Center for Citizen Media argues the Congress and others. center of media power is shifting from media companies and professional journalists toward individual bloggers. Porter, Tim, “New Values for a New Age of Journalism,” First Draft blog, Apr. 10, 2005, http://timporter.com/first- Shirky, Clay, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Orga- draft/archives/000436.html. nizing Without Organizations, The Penguin Press, 2008. A print reporter turned online-media analyst and entrepreneur An adjunct professor of interactive telecommunications at New says some traditional media values — like getting a “scoop” — York University argues that collaborative media and other pro- must be replaced with values better suited to online reporting, jects will create broad social change. such as explaining the context of stories.

Stebbins, Leslie F., Student Guide to Research in the Shankland, Stephen, “Google’s Search Challenge: Making Digital Age: How to Locate and Evaluate Information Computers Think Like Humans,” C/Net News.com, June 18, Sources, Libraries Unlimited, 2005. 2008, http://news.cnet.com. A Brandeis University reference librarian explains how to con- A Google executive says getting computers to understand duct online searches and evaluate research materials online. what humans mean by the terms they type into a “search” box is his company’s biggest challenge. Articles Reports and Studies “The New Media Effect on Political Participation: An In- terview with Markus Prior,” Accuracy’s Impact on Re- “What Americans Know: 1998-2007: Public knowledge of search: A Knowledge Networks Newsletter, summer 2007, Current Affairs Little Changed by News and Information www.knowledgenetworks.com. Revolutions,” Pew Research Center for the People & the A Princeton University assistant professor of politics argues that Press, April 2007. the proliferation of new media means more people eschew news The explosion of online information and 24-hour news reading for easily accessible, 24-hour-a-day entertainment, and availability via computer and cable television haven’t left are thus less likely to vote or get involved in public affairs. Americans any better informed about public affairs than they were 20 years ago. Cross, Tom, “Puppy Smoothies: Improving the Reliability of Open, Collaborative Wikis,” First Monday, Sept. 4, 2006, Maier, Michael, “Journalism Without Journalists: Vision www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_9/cross. or Caricature?” Discussion Paper #D-40, Joan Shorenstein A computer security engineer argues that color coding para- Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard graphs in collaborative media based on how long they’ve ex- University, November 2007. isted in their current form would help readers gauge credibili- An online publisher examines the troubled history of collabo- ty because bad information is unlikely to survive many edits. rations between professional journalism and reader-contributed media and ways those collaborations can be improved. Grubisch, Tom, “What Are the Lessons from Dan Gillmor’s Bayosphere?” Online Journalism Review, Jan. 29, 2006, Schaffer, Jan, “Citizen Media: Fad or the Future of News?” www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/060129grubisich. J-Lab, February 2007, www.kcnn.org/research/citi- A San Francisco-area citizen-journalism project lasted less zen_media_report. than a year because writers focused on technology rather The director of a nonprofit group that supports citizen jour- than topics that interested more people. nalism reports on the field’s accomplishments.

646 CQ Researcher The Next Step: Additional Articles from Current Periodicals

Blogging Kopytoff, Verne, “You Could Look It Up: He Changed the World,” The San Francisco Chronicle, July 19, 2007, p. C1. Calabresi, Massimo, “Hardship Posting,” Time, Feb. 19, A founding father of Wikipedia is attempting to create a search 2007, p. 46. engine that he believes could be better and more reliable than Tenured bloggers seem more reliable and have more credi- Google. bility, giving their political endorsements weight. Wikipedia Chang, Anita, “China Blog Providers ‘Encouraged’ to Register Users With Their Real Names,” The Associated “The Battle for Wikipedia’s Soul,” The Economist, March Press, Aug. 22, 2007. 8, 2008. The Chinese government has asked the country’s blog service Wikipedia must consider whether to ban articles on trivial providers to register the real names and contact information of subjects in hopes of enhancing its reputation as a trustworthy their users to help make posts more reliable. and credible source.

Friedman, Josh, “Blogging For Dollars Raises Questions of Beam, Alex, “War of the Virtual Wiki-Worlds,” Boston Online Ethics,” Los Angeles Times, March 9, 2007, p. C1. Globe, May 3, 2008, p. E9. Many critics believe that the commercialization of blogging An analyst for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East has the potential to tarnish the reliability of posts. Reporting in America has called for 10 volunteers to keep Israeli-related entries on Wikipedia from becoming tainted Citizen Journalism by anti-Israeli editors.

Chapman, Glenn, “Internet Age Lets Anyone Play News Bergstein, Brian, “Wikipedia Co-Founder Seeks to Start Reporter,” Agence France-Presse, March 28, 2007. All Over Again This Time With Contributors’ Real Names,” Traditional news organizations are having to embrace the The Associated Press, March 25, 2007. popularity of citizen journalism by creating new outlets for A co-founder of Wikipedia has started the alternative Cit- viewers and readers to submit their material. izendium, in which volunteer contributors will be expected to provide their real names. Hua, Vanessa, “Volunteers Changing News Media Landscape,” The San Francisco Chronicle, March 28, 2007, p. C1. Cohen, Noam, “A History Department Bans Citing Citizen journalism provides credible information that comes Wikipedia As a Research Source,” The New York Times, free in an industry suffering from declining readership. Feb. 21, 2007, p. B8. Errors made by students on a Japanese history test have Lemann, Nicholas, “Journalism Without Journalists,” prompted Middlebury College’s Department of History to The New Yorker, Aug. 7, 2006, p. 44. disallow the citation of Wikipedia in research and exams. Citizen journalism has greatly increased the amount of in- formation available online, whether reliable or not. CITING CQ RESEARCHER Search Engines Sample formats for citing these reports in a bibliography Chapman, Glenn, “Yahoo Users Have Answers,” Agence include the ones listed below. Preferred styles and formats France-Presse, Dec. 15, 2006. vary, so please check with your instructor or professor. “Yahoo! Answers” gives its postings reliability ratings derived largely from the track records of respondents. MLA STYLE Jost, Kenneth. “Rethinking the Death Penalty.” CQ Researcher Chmielewski, Dawn C., “Google Lets Sites Create Customized 16 Nov. 2001: 945-68. Search Tools,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 24, 2006, p. C1. Google is allowing Web site operators to create a tailored APA STYLE search engine to scour an index of selected sites in order Jost, K. (2001, November 16). Rethinking the death penalty. to retrieve more reliable information. CQ Researcher, 11, 945-968. Kakutani, Michiko, “The Roar of the Herd Is Deafening CHICAGO STYLE on the Web,” The New York Times, June 29, 2007, p. E31. Because many search engines are more concerned with Jost, Kenneth. “Rethinking the Death Penalty.” CQ Researcher, popularity rather than reliability, it’s easy for misinformation November 16, 2001, 945-968. to spread in cyberspace.

Available online: www.cqresearcher.com Aug. 1, 2008 647 In-depth Reports on Issues in the News

Are you writing a paper? Need backup for a debate? Want to become an expert on an issue? For 80 years, students have turned to CQ Researcher? for in-depth reporting on issues in the news. Reports on a full range of political and social issues are now available. Following is a selection of recent reports:

Civil Liberties Education Health/Safety Social Trends Immigration Debate, 2/08 Reading Crisis? 2/08 Global Food Crisis, 6/08 Transition to Digital TV, 6/08 Prison Reform, 4/07 Discipline in Schools, 2/08 Preventing Memory Loss, 4/08 Financial Crisis, 5/08 Voting Controversies, 9/06 Student Aid, 1/08 Future of the Airlines, 3/08 Cyberbullying, 5/08 Racial Diversity in Public Schools, 9/07 Aging Infrastructure, 9/07 Gender Pay Gap, 3/08 Crime/Law Stress on Students, 7/07 Prostitution Debate, 5/08 International Affairs/Politics Terrorism/Defense Public Defenders, 4/08 Environment Human Rights in China, 7/08 Cost of the Iraq War, 4/08 Gun Violence, 5/07 Buying Green, 2/08 Race and Politics, 7/08 Real ID, 5/07 Patent Disputes, 12/06 Future of Recycling, 12/07 Campaign Finance Reform, 6/08 Youth Sex Offenders, 9/06 Disappearing Species, 11/07 The “New” Russia, 6/08 Treatment of Detainees, 8/06 Fish Farming, 7/07 Changing U.S. Electorate, 5/08 Debating Hip-Hop, 6/07 War on Drugs, 6/06 Drinking on Campus, 8/06 Upcoming Reports Political Conventions, 8/8/08 Future of Military, 9/5/08 Heart Health, 9/19/08 Socially Responsible Investing, 8/29/08 Gay Marriage, 9/12/08 U.S. Border Fence, 09/26/08

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