FACULTY

Phone: 416-978-7110
Fax: 416-978-5762
Email: steve.hockema@utoronto.ca
Web: http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/content/view/1125/364/

Biography

Dr. Stephen Hockema's current research revolves around information evaluation, credibility and authority in online collaborative communities. An initial goal is to better understand the ways in which an ongoing shift in modes of information access and participation, supported by today's increasingly engaging models of mediated interaction (such as "Web2.0" technologies), have affected people’s assumptions and evaluation strategies regarding information. It is likely that the reduction in importance of the “official source”, and the blurring of lines between certified experts/authorities and well-informed hobbyists, may lead participants in these technologies to a more social-constructivist worldview with an increased emphasis on the process by which truth is established (e.g., involving social “triangulation” and convergence), where all participants are involved in, and have a stake in, the process. Much of today's "new" media does not attempt to separate objective from subjective, nor news from the entertainment, nor—crucially—personal from impersonal; this is its lifeblood. This environment, where diverse information sources – their history, motivations, credibility, assumptions, etc. – must constantly and explicitly be evaluated alongside their claims should, in turn, affect information norms and the processes of information evaluation, for example making users more sensitive to bias and the injection of personal priorities and perspective on the part of sources.

Keywords
Information evaluation, information credibility, authority in online collaborative communities.