TV IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET: INFORMATION QUALITY OF SCIENCE FICTION TV FANSITES Jonathan D. Warren Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University February 2011 Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Doctoral Committee John C. Paolillo, Ph.D. Howard Rosenbaum, Ph.D. Ying Ding, Ph.D. Karen Kafadar, Ph.D. November 18, 2010 ii c 2011 Jonathan D. Warren ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii Acknowledgments Heartfelt thanks to the following people, for their support throughout this work: my advisors (John Paolillo, Howard Rosenbaum, Ying Ding, and Karen Kafadar), administra- tors and staff at SLIS (Blaise Cronin, Elin Jacob, Arlene Merkel, Rhonda Spencer, Mary Kennedy, Sarah Burton, and Jill Clancy), administrators and editors of the sites studied, friends (Virginia Dearborn, Julia Haskin, Debbie Light, Lai Ma, and Dustin Moore), and family (Cindy Mitchell, Mark Pasquariello, Jeanne and Bill Mitchell, Jennifer Mitchell, Dan Mitchell, and Lee Mitchell). iv Jonathan D. Warren TV IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET: INFORMATION QUALITY OF SCIENCE FICTION TV FANSITES Communally created Web 2.0 content on the Internet has begun to compete with infor- mation provided by traditional gatekeeper institutions, such as academic journals, medical professionals, and large corporations. On the one hand, such gatekeepers need to under- stand the nature of this competition, as well as to try to ensure that the general public are not endangered by poor quality information. On the other hand, advocates of free and universal access to basic social services have argued that communal efforts can provide as good or better-quality versions of commonly needed resources. This dissertation arises from these needs to understand the nature and quality of information being produced on such websites. Website-oriented information quality (IQ) literature spans at least 15 differ- ent academic fields, a survey of which identified two types of IQ: perceptual and artifac- tual fitness-related, and representational accuracy and completeness-related. The current project studied websites in terms of all of these, except perceptual fitness. This study may be the only of its kind to have targeted fansites: websites made by fans of a mass media franchise. Despite the Internet’s becoming a primary means by which millions of people consume and co-produce their entertainment, little academic attention has been paid to the IQ of sites about the mass media. For this study, the four central non-studio-affiliated sites about a highly popular and fan-engaging science fiction televi- sion franchise, Stargate, were chosen, and their IQ examined across sites having different v sizes as well as editorial and business models. As exhaustive of samples as possible were collected from each site. Based on 21 relevant variables from the IQ literature, four qual- itative and 17 exploratory statistical analyses were conducted. Key findings include: five possibly new IQ criteria; smaller sites concerned more with pleasing connoisseuring fans than the general public; larger sites being targeted towards older users; professional editors serving their own interests more than users’; wikis’ greater user freedom attracting more invested and balanced writers; for-profit sites being more imposing upon, and less protect- ing of, users than non-profit sites; and the emergence of common writing styles, themes, data fields, advertisement types, linking strategies, and page types. vi Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Background . 1 1.2 Context . 4 1.3 Approach . 6 1.4 Research questions . 10 1.5 Outline of the dissertation . 12 2 Literature 13 2.1 Introduction . 13 2.2 Stvilia’s “Measuring information quality” . 16 2.3 Artifactual fitness IQ . 19 2.3.1 Accessibility . 19 2.3.2 Readability . 23 2.3.3 Portability, standards compliance, & interoperability . 25 2.3.4 Trivial and inapplicable . 26 2.3.5 Artifactual fitness research sub-questions . 29 2.4 Representational IQ: Accuracy . 30 vii 2.4.1 Currency . 31 2.4.2 Citing sources & identifying authors . 34 2.4.3 Peer review & original research . 36 2.4.4 Objectivity . 38 2.4.5 Empiricality . 39 2.4.6 Consistency . 40 2.4.7 Advertisements & recommendations . 41 2.4.8 Inlinks & PageRank . 43 2.4.9 Trivial and inapplicable . 45 2.4.10 Accuracy related research sub-questions . 47 2.5 Representational IQ: Completeness . 48 2.5.1 Author agenda . 48 2.5.2 Citing similar sources . 50 2.5.3 Length, collaborative filtering, & number of authors . 51 2.5.4 Copyright statements & disclaimers . 54 2.5.5 Critical analyses & descriptive synopses . 55 2.5.6 Trivial and inapplicable . 56 2.5.7 Completeness-related research sub-questions . 56 2.6 Conclusion . 57 3 Methods 59 3.1 Introduction . 59 3.2 Population . 60 viii 3.2.1 Choice of websites . 60 3.2.2 Website sampling principles . 63 3.2.3 Sampling these websites . 65 3.3 Instruments . 75 3.4 Procedures . 83 3.4.1 From the literature . 83 3.4.2 Descriptive analysis . 85 3.4.3 Exploratory analysis . 86 3.4.4 Methods employed . 88 3.5 Conclusion . 94 4 Results 95 4.1 Introduction . 95 4.2 Artifactual fitness IQ . 95 4.2.1 Accessibility as simplicity . 95 4.2.2 Accessibility as digital divide . 103 4.2.3 Accessibility as availability . 115 4.2.4 Accessibility as standards-compliance . 116 4.2.5 Readability as formulaic . 129 4.2.6 Readability as stylistic . 148 4.2.7 Conclusion . 157 4.3 Representational IQ: Accuracy . 159 4.3.1 Currency as timeliness . 159 ix 4.3.2 Citing sources and identifying authors . 171 4.3.3 Original research . 174 4.3.4 Objectivity as impartiality . 179 4.3.5 Empiricality as verifiability . 187 4.3.6 Consistency in concepts and styles . 196 4.3.7 Advertisements as agenda-loaded . 209 4.3.8 Recommendations as ratings: amateurs vs. professionals . 228 4.3.9 Recommendations as ratings: fan ratings vs. IQ factors . 237 4.3.10 Inlinks and PageRank . 248 4.3.11 Link analysis . 269 4.3.12 Conclusion . 300 4.4 Representational IQ: Completeness . 306 4.4.1 Author’s agendas and disclaimers . 306 4.4.2 Reasons for citing similars . 319 4.4.3 Length and mass collaboration: thoroughness . 328 4.4.4 Length and mass collaboration: conciseness and organization . 350 4.4.5 Conclusion . 360 4.5 Conclusion . 364 5 Discussion 365 5.1 Introduction . 365 5.2 IQ criteria related to site size . 366 5.2.1 Small sites . 366 x 5.2.2 Large sites . 368 5.3 IQ criteria related to editorial model . 370 5.3.1 Editor-controlled sites . 370 5.3.2 Wiki sites . 372 5.4 IQ criteria related to business model & motivation . 375 5.4.1 For-profit sites . 375 5.4.2 Non-profit sites . 376 5.4.3 All-fan-made sites . 377 5.4.4 Ad-supported sites . 378 5.5 IQ criteria specific to each site . 378 5.5.1 GateWorld . 378 5.5.2 IMDb . 379 5.5.3 Wikia . 380 5.5.4 Wikipedia . 381 5.6 IQ criteria common to all sites . 382 5.6.1 Content . 382 5.6.2 Shallow architecture, poor accessibility . 383 5.6.3 Popular means substantial . 384 5.6.4 Commerce-dominated link structures . 384 5.6.5 Indiscriminate public organization . 386 5.7 Comparison with Stvilia . 386 5.8 Conclusion . 388 xi 6 Conclusion 394 6.1 Summary of results . 394 6.2 Contributions of this study . 397 6.2.1 Theoretical contributions . 397 6.2.2 Methodological contributions . 401 6.3.