Assessing the credibility of information sources in times of uncertainty: online debate about Finland's NATO membership
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-08-2022-0172 |
| Published date | 24 November 2022 |
| Date | 24 November 2022 |
| Pages | 30-50 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
| Author | Reijo Savolainen |
Assessing the credibility of
information sources in times of
uncertainty: online debate about
Finland’s NATO membership
Reijo Savolainen
Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences,
Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
Abstract
Purpose –This article aims to elaborate the context-sensitive nature of credibility assessment byexamining
how such judgments are made in online discussion in times of uncertainty caused by Finland’s intent to join the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in spring 2022.
Design/methodology/approach –The empirical findings draw on the qualitative content analysis of 3,324
posts submitted to a Finnish online discussion in February–March 2022. It was examined how the participants
of online discussion assess the credibility of information sources referred to in debates on the NATO
membership. It is assumed that the believability of the author of information is indicative of his or her expert
power, for example based on the credentials of a scholar, while the credibility of information content, for
example the provision of factual evidence is indicative of the source’s informational power.
Findings –Political decision-makers, particularly the President of Finland were assessed as most credible
information sources, due to their access to confidential knowledge and long-time experience in politics. The
credibility assessments differed more strongly while judging the believabilityof researchers. On the one hand,
their expertise was praised; on the other hand, doubts were presented about their partiality. Fellow participants
of online discussion were assessed most negatively because information sources of these types are associated
with low expert and informational power.
Research limitations/implications –As the study concentrated on credibility assessments made in a
Finnish online discussion group, the findings cannot be extended to concern the credibility judgments
occurring information in other contexts.
Originality/value –The study is among the first to characterize the role of expert and informational power in
credibility assessment in times of uncertainty.
Keywords Credibility, Credibility assessment, Expert power, Informational power, Information credibility,
Online discussion, Uncertainty
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The ways in which people seek and share information in times of uncertainty have mainly
been examined in the context of natural disasters, for example, hurricanes and bushfires
(Choo and Nadarajah, 2014;Lopatovska and Smiley, 2014;Ryan, 2018). Recently, there is a
growing literature on information behaviour occurring during crises of diverse types, for
example, the COVID-19 pandemic (Montesi, 2021). Since 24 February 2022, the main attention
all over the world has been directed to the crisis resulting from Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
The crisis gave rise to a large-scale uncertainty because it was feared that the war could
escalate into a wider pan-European conflict or even World War 3.
JD
79,7
30
© Reijo Savolainen. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the
Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and
create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full
attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://
creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0022-0418.htm
Received 5 August 2022
Revised 14 October 2022
Accepted 16 October 2022
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 79 No. 7, 2023
pp. 30-50
Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-08-2022-0172
As a small, militarily non-allied country with 5.5 million inhabitants, Finland has a risky
position in this regard because it shares a 1,344-km-long border with Russia. Finland is a member
of the European Union since 1995 but this alliance alone may not protect the country if the war
escalates. On the other hand, since the mid of 1990s, Finland has cooperated with the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It is an intergovernmental military alliance of 30 countries
that was established in 1949, in the aftermath of World War 2. NATO’s most important task is to
maintain a credible defence capability against any threat of aggression if the security of an
individual ally is targeted. More specifically, Article 5—thecornerstone of NATO—states that an
attack on one member of NATO is an attack on all of its members (Olsen, 2020). In recent years,
Finland has actively participated in NATO’s military exercises and systematically strengthened
the compatibility of military equipment for NATO forces by purchasing F-35 fighter jets.
Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the public opinion in Finland was quite strongly
against the full membership in NATO; only about 25% of Finns supported it. The majority of
people preferred the traditional non-allied status; it was assumed that it would serve best the
country’s security policy. However, immediately after Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the public
opinion began to change radically in Finland. An opinion poll conducted on 28 February 2022
revealed that the share of respondents supporting the NATO membership had risen to 53%
(Wieslander and Skaluba, 2022). Similarly, most political parties took a positive view on the
full membership because it was believed that NATO would offer the best security guarantee
for Finland. However, the NATO issue became more complicated. Russia forewarned already
on 25 February 2022 that the NATO membership application would lead to serious political
and military consequences for Finland (Wieslander and Skaluba, 2022). The announcement
gave rise to a growing worry and uncertainty. They were reflected in heated debates about
the pros and cons of the NATO membership in the Finnish Parliament, as well as in the legacy
media, for example, major newspapers, and social media forums. Despite Russia’s warning,
the Finnish Government started the work to prepare the NATO membership application,
thereby signalling that Finland will independently make its security policy choices.
By focussing on the above context, the present study contributes to research on
information behaviour occurring in social media in times of uncertainty. More specifically, an
attempt will be made to elaborate picture of credibility assessment of information sources
relevant to uncertainty management. To achieve this, a sample of 40 online discussion
threads debating Finland’s intent to join NATO were analysed. The posts submitted to these
threads during the period of 25 February–16 March 2022 offer a rich picture of the views
expressed by ordinary citizens in times when the national security risks involved in the
membership project were particularly high. As the participants of online discussion are lay
people lacking in-depth knowledge about the preparation of the membership project, they are
necessarily dependent on external information sources while considering the advantages and
potential dangers involved in joining the military alliance. Due to the controversial nature of
this issue, there is a lot of competing information about the NATO membership in diverse
sources such as newspaper articles, television talk shows and social media forums. Therefore,
the question about the credibility of information sources becomes particularly important. In
this regard, the type of information source is significant because it offers clues about the
believability of information available in the source. As an information source, a prominent
researcher specialised in NATO-related issues may be found more credible than a
parliamentary politician, for example. The former can be perceived as an expert capable of
objectively specifying the pros and cons of the NATO membership while the latter may be
labelled as a “NATO zealot”marketing the advantages offered by the alliance.
This suggests that the credibility of an information depends on who says it and what is
said. As explained in greater detail below, the aspect of “who says”can be elaborated further
by examining the qualities of expert power associated with the author of information, for
example, a scholar with credentials in the field of security policy research. The aspect of
Credibility of
information
sources
31
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