Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Credibility And Authority On Internet Message-Boards, Ryan Goudelocke

LSU Master's Theses

This research aimed to provide some proof or refutation of the hypothesis that online communities develop specialized vocabularies, often technical jargon, and use elements of those vocabularies, here labeled “tokens,” to ascribe credibility and/or authority to other posters. The literature from a variety of communications fields relating to this topic was summarized as a progression from an early “limitations” model of computer-mediated communication (CMC) to a later “opportunities” model. The drawbacks of current research were outlined and some new paths were sketched, including the methodology employed here. Several discussions from different Web sites, each containing hundreds of posts, were tabulated …