[bjc] Judith Donath
Judith Donath
Look at credibility in terms of signals that occur even among animals where if the signal is costly, it’s more likely to be honest. E.g., a moose with big antlers actually is strong. There’s also reputation among animals. Sparrows have pecking orders based on having a black mark on their chest that doesn’t signal any real property. A scientist painted a black mark on one. It gained in status. When the sparrows figured out that it was painted on [how?], the other sparrows pecked it to death.
What do the webs of links among bloggers mean? How do they build a reputation system and credibility? What are the reprecussions of lying about them? And will readers care enough to put energy into discerning the credibility of what and who they read? There’s a cost to that evaluation. People will look for cheaper shortcuts. E.g., they might look to the journalistic elite: Newspapers check the reps of their writers on behalf of their readers. We can’t rely on the audience to do that vetting. At what point will bloggers set up collectives and risk their reputation for one another, vouching for their reputations?
Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia speculates that it’d be interesting to have a group blog where the contributors group edit their work and the work is published as a group product.
Jane Singer says with regard to credibility the relevant signal is what I do, not what I say about myself.
Jonathan Zittrain: What you say, what you do and perhaps how you live? The journalists at the conference have been less active participants in this discussion. How much of telling truth to others means standing apart from life? [Technorati tags: bjc donath
Categories: Uncategorized dw
“Newspapers check the reps of their writers on behalf of their readers. We can’t rely on the audience to do that vetting.”
If the NYT, USA Today, CBS, etc. have taught us anything in the past couple of years it’s that we can’t rely on Newspapers and big media to do this vetting either. If we the audience don’t do it, who will?
And of course I meant, “If we the audience won’t do it, who will?” (who vetted me?)
URL for the sparrow tale?
Answered my question.
From here:
“A subdominant sparrow with an artificially enlarged brown spot is attacked more fiercely by dominant birds than subdominant birds with appropriately smaller spots. If birds with artificially enlarged brown spots are given testosterone supplements, making them more aggressive, then after some fights they are accepted as having high status (Moller 1987; also see Rohwer 1977; Roskaft and Rohwer 1987). Among humans, baby faced individuals who perceive themselves, and are perceived by others, as warm and unaggressive, receive relatively harsh punishment for wrongdoing. Also, among our officers, for those who were below average in intellectual and social skills, dominant looks possibly were a handicap in their careers rather than an asset.”
Rohwer, S. 1977. “Status Signaling in Harris Sparrows: Some Experiments in Deception.” Behaviour 61: 107-128.
What do the webs of links among bloggers mean? How do they build a reputation system and credibility? What are the reprecussions of lying about them? And will readers care enough to put energy into discerning the credibility of what and who they read? There’s a cost to that evaluation. People will look for cheaper shortcuts. E.g., they might look to the journalistic elite: Newspapers check the reps of their writers on behalf of their readers. We can’t rely on the audience to do that vetting. At what point will bloggers set up collectives and risk their reputation for one another, vouching for their reputations?
Scarier yet–they may look to the bloggeristic elite. Oh wait–they already are!
Tell me that you are all just kidding. That you’re actually sitting around David’s living room watching the MATRIX and eating Milk Duds, and that every so often one of you goes and sits at a desk while another one of you in white sweat socks jumps up and takes a picture of the desk sitter to stick up here and fool us all.
Please?
Jeneane, why assume this grouping is of the elite? Don’t we already all have circles of trust?
But, yes, the conf mainly is about bloggers doing something like journalism, which leaves most blogs out of the discussion. Not too surprising in a conf on blogs and journalism.
No, the conference is about Blogging, Journalism and CREDIBILITY. At least according to the literature. There’s an assumption and a difference there.
And yes, among those doing “something like” journalism, the crowd chosen leans on the side of the elite. You disagree?
As always, though, enjoying your take on things.
RPXP Mozilla/Firefox extension provides local color-coded reputations for the DailyKos discussion forum. Color semantics are determined by the local reader and are independent of the web server. Reader can modify color of any poster’s name on the fly, based on real-time quality of the poster’s writing. Concept can be applied to any group of writers.
I think this is the essense of why blogs harnesses and leverage’s creditability of both – the author and the participant. I am following these sessions thru a blog. Cross refer to the other particpants and statements.. and have collateral to leverage trust to higher degree with indidivuals thru a collobrative mode basis. Thus, coming to the conlusions that blogs are better then MSM. will Journalism die.. No, ink prints will change to digiti format ..thats all.. but for me to take your feeds- you better have creditablity – so that I can begin the trust process. Yes –Trust and Readership has now become a social element. There’s no more morning copy of ‘god memo’ coming to my door step. Works are now being published at a ‘group’ level in blogs- rather from the desk of JoeSchmo from NYT/CBS or MSM !!
Sorry I wanted – NO needed to respond to the to “bloggeristic elite.” statement.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
This is what both bloggers and journalist have to ask themselves.. seek first the truth within -before one can think of bringing the truth to others !!
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Yes, but Emerson was referring to constipation.