| Abstract (english) | In the ever-changing media environment, the importance of media credibility as one of the key factors of stability and strength in the relationship between the media and the audience is unquestionable. Previous research confirms this significance, both for the media themselves, and for the fulfilment of their role in society. Similarly, media credibility is important for democracy and the public sphere as well. Researchers began investigating media credibility in the first half of the 20th century. Considering the complexity of the concept, which includes "all components of the communication process" (Kurtić, 2007, p. 40), the research conducted so far can be classified within one of three main approaches – research on media content credibility, research on audience perception and research on the perception of media credibility by media workers. The first approach objectively analyses media messages and gives an answer to the question of media content credibility and its extent, while the latter approaches refer to the subjective perception of the media credibility by the audience or journalists and editors. It is therefore quite possible that research results obtained within different approaches do not overlap, and the only way to get a complete picture of media credibility is to conduct research considering all three approaches. Since research so far has often focused on only one aspect of credibility, the scientific contribution of this research study lies precisely in the fact that, for the first time in Croatia, it combines all three approaches with an emphasis on the analysis of convergent media in order to compare the credibility of print and online editions of three Croatian daily newspapers. The goals set in this dissertation are as follows: (1) To determine whether there are differences in the credibility of the content published in the print edition of Jutarnji list, Večernji list and 24sata and in their online editions; (2) To examine the opinions of the audience on the similarities and differences between the print editions of daily newspapers and their online editions; (3) To investigate the perception of the credibility of print and online publications by media workers. The topic of this dissertation is media credibility in the convergent environment, which implies that news media produce content for different platforms, both traditional and digital ones. The scientific problem in the focus of this research is whether content differs depending on the platform, i.e. whether different editorial policies are followed in the print editions of Croatian daily newspapers and in their online editions, and what the opinions of the audience and media workers are related to such newsroom practices. The dissertation is based on the thesis of George Brock (2013) who believes that regardless of technological innovations, different formats and numerous changes that journalism faces, it is crucial for the future of the media to preserve its set of values and ideals. The question is whether this is true for the analysed media outlets, i.e. whether Jutarnji list, Večernji list and 24sata manage to preserve their credibility in the convergent environment or whether they lose credibility by publishing content on digital platforms. Since this research combines all three approaches in examining media credibility, its distinctive feature is the use of combined quantitative and qualitative methodology and three scientific methods. In the first phase of the research, quantitative content analysis, which was conducted during a two-week period in November and December 2020, explored the content of 9,538 articles published in print and online editions of Jutarnji list, Večernji list and 24sata (1058 at the final level of analysis). In the second phase, in the same time period, a survey was conducted on a representative national sample of 1,009 respondents in Croatia. In the third phase, the methodology switched from quantitative to qualitative, and in February 2023, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 editors and journalists in three newsrooms2 . In addition to the aforementioned methodological scientific contribution, the theoretical contribution of this dissertation should also be highlighted. Namely, it defines a new concept of media credibility in the convergent media environment based on previous measurement scales. In fact, the existence of a measurement scale is crucial for designing and conducting credibility research, but no single, generally accepted scale actually exists. A number of studies have defined measurement scales on the basis of research which focused on the audience and media workers, as well as on the basis of research on media content. Yet, taking into account the specificity of the rapidly changing media environment, the redefinition of measurement scales is necessary. It is worth noticing that the newly established measurement scales should be based on the categories and conclusions of previous research, which enables a longitudinal comparison. The newly established concept of the credibility of convergent media in this research differs from the existing ones because it is adapted to the analysis of the convergent media, and the defined measurement scale is adapted and upgraded with the possibility of comparative analysis of print and online editions of the same media outlet. This concept consists of six defined credibility criteria - authorship, quality of the topic, quality of topic coverage, quality of topic presentation, unbiased reporting and distinguishing facts from opinions. Its theoretical foundation can be found in large-scale research of newspaper credibility conducted in Croatia in 2007 by a research group gathered around the Journalism Education and Training in Croatia (JETiC) Tempus project. The categories set in that research study, which also referred to key measurement scales from previous studies (Gaziano and McGrath, 1986; Bogart, 1989; Meyer and Kim 2003), were partly adopted, partly adapted, and some new ones were added considering today's digital environment. Also, the results obtained in that research were compared with the figures obtained now in order to be able to follow the development of the main trends in Croatian journalism. Before analysing media credibility according to each of the mentioned criteria, this dissertation first presents the results on the general dynamics of publishing and content consumption in order to get a detailed insight into the media landscape of daily newspapers and their online editions in Croatia. The credibility analysis then shows that the articles written exclusively for online editions differ significantly from those in the print editions of all three newspapers, with the latter being more credible. Moreover, the results show that the content of different media outlets (both print and online) is more similar than the print and online editions of the same media outlet. While journalists and editors are aware of these differences and attribute them to different journalistic routines and practices but also to the conditions created by the competitive market and the fight for clicks, the results also show that the audience mostly does not distinguish the differences between newspapers and news websites. In the dissertation, the results are broken down according to defined criteria, and their detailed analysis provides an overview of the credibility of the analysed media outlets. Authorship is defined as the first criterion of credibility according to which content is analysed. This criterion is used to examine whether the author of the article is named and, if so, who he or she is. The goal is to get an answer to the question to what extent journalists are named as the authors of the analysed articles, and to what extent the articles were editorials or taken from agencies and other media outlets. The results show that in that aspect, the print editions of Jutarnji list, Večernji list and 24sata are unquestionably more credible than the online ones, and it is proven that significantly more authored content is published in the newspapers. Although media workers generally agree that authorship is important for credibility, especially from the perspective of the audience, they admit that in online editions much less attention is paid to the author's work. This raises concerns for the relationship between the audience and the news media, given that the survey conducted on a representative sample proved that trust in journalists declines, especially among younger generations. The analysis of the quality of the topic as another credibility criterion refutes the assumption that content is trivialised in online editions. This criterion answers the question of what kind of content the media outlet focuses on. In general, the analysis of the sections and the number of articles showed that, given the unlimited space, more diverse content is published on online news websites. In this research study, the focus is placed on the articles published in the national politics, international politics and crime sections of Jutarnji list, Večernji list and 24sata. The results also show that both in newspapers and on news websites, hard news dominates compared to soft news. The interviewed journalists and editors agree that online editions open more opportunities but add that for them the issue of choosing topics on news websites actually poses a dilemma as to how much they should be guided by public interest and how much by the wishes of the audience expressed through clicks, especially knowing that these approaches often contradict each other. On the other hand, although the majority of the respondents believe that the quality of the topic is equal in the print newspapers and on news websites, as they think for each of the examined credibility criteria, in this case, a slightly larger number of respondents notice a greater variety of topics in online editions. The analysis of the quality of topic coverage as the third credibility criterion confirms again that more credible content is published in newspapers. In fact, the results show that longer and more complex journalistic forms of writing account for a larger share of articles published in print editions. While short news and other shorter forms dominate on news websites, longer forms like features, analyses, interviews and reportage dominate in newspapers. The audience does not notice this difference again, although the interviewed journalists and editors point out that their work approach to newspapers and online editions is completely different because of the specifics of the platforms themselves, different habits of the audience, but also because of the speed of work and more intense pace of online editions. The analysis of the quality of topic presentation as the fourth criterion of credibility involves the examination of headlines, eyebrow headings and standfirsts, photos and additional elements. The results of the research show that both in the case of newspapers and in the case of news websites, the headlines-related elements and photos come from the textual part of the article and are not misleading. When it comes to the informativeness of the headlines, it is concluded that in most cases they bring concrete information, with the exception of clickbait, which is analysed separately. The interviewed journalists and editors confirm that in the case of news websites they have to try harder to attract readers with presentation. On the other hand, the same audience mostly does not notice the difference in headlines on news websites and in newspapers. However, those respondents who do differentiate the degree of informativeness between platforms, note that they predominantly give preference to news websites as more informative and interesting. The analysis of unbiased reporting as the fifth criterion of credibility shows that in all three media outlets, regardless of the platform, few articles were published without any specified sources of information and that this issue does not threaten media credibility. However, a large number of articles which rely on only one source of information have been detected as a problem, and these are the articles that dominate in online editions. On the other hand, the figures show that the articles published in print editions had, on average, a larger number of sources used, while the advantage of online editions is that they published fewer articles with anonymous sources. Media workers once again attribute the different approach to sources primarily to the speed and much shorter time that journalists on the news websites have to write articles, while the audience once again believes that the platforms are equally biased or unbiased. The analysis of distinguishing facts from opinions as the sixth credibility criterion undoubtedly gives preference to online editions, since the authors' views were almost never expressed in the articles published on the news websites. However, this was the case in a significantly larger number of newspaper articles, in all three analysed media outlets. These results correspond to the conclusions of the previous criteria that the role of authorship is stronger in print editions, while articles on news websites are often almost unified. However, it is interesting that neither media workers nor the audience can give a clear assessment of the differences between the platforms in this respect. As for six analysed criteria of credibility, in three of them it has been confirmed that more credible content was published in the print editions of the analysed media outlets, for two it turned out to be the opposite, and one criterion was found to be equally valid for both platforms. Considering such findings, it has been proven that the content published in the analysed daily newspapers is more credible than the content published on their websites, but with a minimal number of confirmed criteria. However, what has definitely been confirmed is that the content published in Jutarnji list, Večernji list and 24sata differs significantly from the content written for the jutarnji.hr, vecernji.hr and 24sata.hr websites across a vast majority of criteria. The similarities between the two platforms stem from the fact that almost all the content that is published in newspapers is also published on news websites, but in online editions a significant amount of content is published exclusively for that platform, and it has now been proven that these articles are significantly different from those in newspapers - in terms of topics, topic coverage, topic presentation, use of sources of information, and in terms of distinguishing facts from opinions. Finally, media workers confirm that completely different journalistic practices exist on two platforms, and that the same authors often do not write for newspapers and news websites. Nevertheless, all content in newspapers and on news websites is published under the name of the same media brand. Readers then draw conclusions regarding the brand on the basis of the platform on which they predominantly consume media content. This is a phenomenon called "credibility transfer", which has also been proven by this research. Firstly, it has been confirmed that from the perspective of the audience, the content published on different platforms differs minimally, and that most respondents believe that they can assess the credibility of a media brand even if they only consume it through one platform. For readers, Jutarnji list is Jutarnji list, Večernji list is Večernji list, and 24sata is 24sata, regardless of whether it is a news website or a newspaper. However, it is important to emphasise that the respondents who predominantly consume online editions, when assessing the credibility of a media brand, give the media outlet a lower credibility rating on average than those respondents who mostly consume newspapers and assess the entire media outlet based on that content. This is in line with the results of earlier research which show that "online news consumers have lower levels of general trust in news media than those who primarily use traditional news media platforms" (Fisher, 2016, p. 1). There are two main conclusions in this dissertation. Firstly, an undisputed difference in the credibility of print and online editions of convergent media has been proven, which media workers are also aware of. Secondly, the audience does not notice these differences and has difficulty in critically approaching the content that the media publishes. The question of media literacy of readers is key, considering that, along with media professionalism, it is recognised as a key factor for establishing a strong relationship of trust between the media and the audience. Namely, it is impossible to preserve credibility without the media adhering to fundamental journalistic values and criteria on all platforms, but also without a media-literate audience that will be able to access media content competently. |
