Bachelor Thesis What makes your message credible? A descriptive study on the effect of source credibility on message credibility. Authors: Alexander Andersson Eliisa Kreegimäe Nicole Niiranen Supervisor: Michaela Sandell Examiner: Åsa Devine Term: Spring 19 – Semester 6 Course code: 2FE21E Date: 28-05-2019 Acknowledgement We would like to take this opportunity to show our gratitude to the people who have supported and helped us during the writing process. Firstly, we would like to say our utmost thank you to our tutor Michaela Sandell, who has been supportive, always been available and has given us useful advice throughout this journey. We appreciate all of the encouraging comments and that you never stopped believing in us. Secondly, we would like to thank Setayesh Sattari, for helping us with her knowledge on quantitative research, that guided us through the statistical phase of this study. Thirdly, we would like to say thank you to Åsa Devine, for the support and inputs during the seminars. Additionally, we would like to send a thank you to all of the participants within this research for their contribution to the findings, whom without this thesis would have not been possible to complete. Lastly, we would all like to thank our parents for the encouragement and unwavering support throughout this academic journey. We would not be here without you. Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden 28th of May 2019 Alexander Andersson Eliisa Kreegimäe Nicole Niiranen Abstract Message credibility is a commonly used term to indicate how well the recipients approve the message. Source credibility, on the other hand is a “communicator's positive characteristics that affect the receiver's acceptance of a message” (Ohanian, 1990, pp 41). It has been stated that an effect is apparent between the two, therefore the purpose of this study is to describe the effect of source credibility characteristics; trustworthiness, expertise and attractiveness on message credibility. The study utilized a quantitative research approach in order to describe the effect between the concepts. The researchers used a Likert-scale online questionnaire as the data collection method. The findings of this research suggest that all of the characteristics within the source credibility model are proven to have a significant and positive effect on the message credibility. Keywords; Message credibility, source credibility, trustworthiness, expertise, attractiveness Table of Contents 1.Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background ............................................................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Problem Discussion .................................................................................................................................................. 2 1.3 Purpose .................................................................................................................................................................... 3 2. Literature review .................................................................................................................................................. 4 2.1 Source credibility ..................................................................................................................................................... 4 2.1.1 Trustworthiness ............................................................................................................................................... 4 2.1.2 Expertise .......................................................................................................................................................... 4 2.1.3 Attractiveness .................................................................................................................................................. 5 2.2 Message credibility .................................................................................................................................................. 5 3. Conceptual Framework ......................................................................................................................................... 7 3.1 Trustworthiness ....................................................................................................................................................... 7 3.2 Expertise .................................................................................................................................................................. 7 3.3 Attractiveness .......................................................................................................................................................... 8 3.3 Research model ....................................................................................................................................................... 8 4. Methodology ........................................................................................................................................................ 9 4.1 Research approach .................................................................................................................................................. 9 4.1.1 Deductive Research ......................................................................................................................................... 9 4.1.2 Quantitative research ...................................................................................................................................... 9 4.2 Data sources .......................................................................................................................................................... 10 4.3 Data collection method ......................................................................................................................................... 10 4.5 Data collection instrument .................................................................................................................................... 11 4.5.1 Operationalization and measurement of variables ....................................................................................... 11 4.5.2 Operationalization table ................................................................................................................................ 12 4.5 Sampling ................................................................................................................................................................ 15 4.6 Data Analysis Method ........................................................................................................................................... 16 4.6.1 Data Entry, Coding and Cleaning ................................................................................................................... 16 4.6.2 Descriptive Statistics ...................................................................................................................................... 17 4.6.3 Simple and Multiple linear regression ........................................................................................................... 18 4.7 Quality Criteria ...................................................................................................................................................... 19 4.7.1 Validity ........................................................................................................................................................... 19 4.7.3 Pre-Test ......................................................................................................................................................... 21 4.7.4 Reliability ....................................................................................................................................................... 21 4.7.6 Replication ..................................................................................................................................................... 22 4.8 Ethical Considerations ........................................................................................................................................... 22 4.9 Societal considerations .......................................................................................................................................... 23 5. Results ................................................................................................................................................................ 25 5.1 Demographics - Covariance questions .................................................................................................................. 25 5.2 Descriptive Statistics .............................................................................................................................................. 26 5.3 Reliability and Cronbach’s Alpha ........................................................................................................................... 28 5.4 Validity and Correlation Coefficient ...................................................................................................................... 29 5.5 Hypothesis Testing ................................................................................................................................................ 29 6. Discussion