Unpacking credibility evaluation on digital media: a case for interpretive qualitative approaches

We argue for more serious consideration of interpretive qualitative approaches in research on information credibility evaluation in digitally mediated contexts. Through reviewing existing literature on credibility and drawing on our own experiences of conducting research projects on credibility evaluation in diverse cultural contexts, we contend that interpretive qualitative approaches help researchers develop a much-needed communicative and relationally and culturally situated understanding of credibility, complicating dominant quantitative and psychologically-oriented accounts. We detail how these approaches add important nuance to how credibility is conceptualized and operationalized and reveal the complexity of credibility evaluation as a social process. We also outline how they aid researchers studying misinformation engagement, especially in popular bounded social media places like private groups and chats. The approach we develop here provides new insights that can inform ongoing global efforts by researchers, policy makers, and citizens to more fully understand the complexity of information verification online.