ChangHyun Jin: e-mail: chjin@mail.utexas.edu |UT: At Austin: http://www.utexas.edu | Ciadvertising: Jiad: http://www.ciadvertising.org

3-1.Internet History

The internet, usually referred to as the network of networks, may be conceptualized as a technically-advanced computer network which evolved from the ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) net, a defense establishment, and now provides various computer-mediated communications such as electronic mail, computer conferencing, hypertext document, and so on. According to Moschovitis et al (1999), the authors of History of the Internet, even though such definition is not incorrect, it tends to overemphasize the engineering perspective. They argue that the Internet should be understood not only as a computer science phenomenon, but also as an evolution of communications, commerce, manufacturing, labor, and media that is unprecedented since the 1800s.Taking their long view, this paper sees the Internet as a multifaceted mediums, that is, it changes the way people live by providing many different configurations of communication in various areas.

3-2. Internet Credibility

Although researchers in the communication literature have conceptualized credibility in slightly different ways (e.g., Hovland et al, 1949), their various definitions of credibility characterize it as the degree to which people believe the communicator (Self, 1996). Like the concept of credibility in general, Internet credibility is also a psychological concept based on a human's perception or evaluation of an object and multidimensional construct. Some past studies have shown that the construct of internet credibility consists of several underlying dimensions: believability, fairness (or bias), accuracy, and depth (or completeness) (Johnson & Kaye, 1998); factuality, profit-making, privacy, community well-being, and trustworthiness (Kiousis, 1999); clear, serious, thoroughly researched, detailed, critical, credible, neutral, balanced, competent, professional, and fresh (Schweiger, 2000); and expertise and trustworthiness (Fogg & Tseng, 1999a, 1999b). Although various dimensions have been proposed, trustworthiness and expertise are regarded as two central components. Another important component of credibility that has consistently emerged in e-commerce research is a perception of security (Jarvenpaa et al, 1999; Kunz, 1997; Swaminathan et al, 1999; Zellweger, 1997). This is because the Internet was born of the advancement of computer technology.

Thus, Internet credibility here is defined as the perceived trustworthiness, expertise and security of Internet media. Put another way, Internet credibility is how a person judges the perceived trustworthiness, expertise and security of the Internet and what level of overall assessment they arrive at.

3-3. Credibility in Internet Communication

The importance of credibility on persuasion is still valid in the age of information. Therefore, as the Internet has become more widespread, people have begun to apply the topic of persusion to the Internet. The Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University, attempting to analyze how computer technologies such as the Internet change human behavior effectively, has started significant work on this issue (Fogg, 1999). Like the early works by Hovland, Fogg and fellows also identified credibility as the most influential factor on persuasion (Fogg & Tseng, 1999a, 1999b).

Particularly, in the age of information, Internet credibility deserves renewed attention for the following reasons. First of all, there are different technological attributes between new media and old media. Two distinctive features new media have are anonymity and interactivity (Morris & Ogan, 1996; Raab, 1997). For instance, in various forms of Internet media such as electronic mail or bulletin boards, it is possible to hide one's own identity. And, a shopping mall site requires the consumer to provide their personal information for optimal services. On the other hand, this may be a collection of personal details that may or may not be safeguarded by data protection principles, codes and regimes. Besides these, people's perception of Internet credibility could be greatly influenced by a negative report about the Internet in the traditional media, decentralized structure in the cyberspace, and frequent technical problems (Schweiger, 2000). Therefore, these characteristics let underscore the fundamental importance of the credibility issue in Internet communication.

Furthermore, Stefik, comparing the current situation with regard to Internet credibility to the development of trust among people in a small village, finds three elements that influence the shaping of Internet credibility (Stefik, 1999, p. 223): "They are visibility, accountability, and scale. Much of what happens on a computer network is just plain invisible. When data travel from one network to another, or are combined with other data, information about how the data should or should not be used is not included. The internet, by contrast with a small village, connects people and organizations that may be hard to identify and that live in all parts of the world."