“Let's keep this video as real as possible”: young video bloggers constructing cognitive authority through a health-related information creation process
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-02-2021-0027 |
| Published date | 31 May 2021 |
| Date | 31 May 2021 |
| Pages | 42-64 |
| 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 | Anna-Maija Multas,Noora Hirvonen |
“Let’s keep this video as real as
possible”: young video bloggers
constructing cognitive authority
through a health-related
information creation process
Anna-Maija Multas and Noora Hirvonen
Information Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
Abstract
Purpose –This study examines the information literacy practices of young video bloggers, focusing on the
ways in which they construct their cognitive authority through a health-related information creation process.
Design/methodology/approach –This study draws upon socially oriented information literacy research
and nexus analysis as its methodological framework. Data, including YouTube videos, theme interviews and
video diaries, were collected with three Finnish video bloggers and qualitatively analysed using nexus
analytical concepts to describe the central elements of social action.
Findings –The study shows that video bloggers employ several information practices during the information
creation process, including pla nning, information-seeking, o rganization, editing and presenta tion of
information. They construct their cognitive authority in relation to their anticipated audience by grounding
it on different types of information: experience-based, embodied and scientific. Trustworthiness, emphasized
with authenticity and genuineness, and competence, based on experience, expertise and second-hand
information, were recognized as key components of credibility in this context.
Originality/value –This study increases the understanding of the complex ways in which young people
create information on social media and influence their audiences. The study contributes to information literacy
research by offering insights intothe under-researched area of information creation. It is among the few studies
to examine cognitive authority construction in the information creation process. The notion of authority as
constructed through trustworthiness and competence and grounded on different types of information, can be
taken into account in practice by information professionals and educators when planning information literacy
instruction.
Keywords Cognitive authority, Information literacy, Information creation, Nexus analysis, Video blogging,
YouTube
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
YouTube, a video sharing service founded in 2005, has become the most popular online
platform among young people all over the world (see, e.g. Anderson and Jiang, 2018). It has
over 2 billion users, most of whom are between 18 and 34 years old (YouTube, 2021). Through
YouTube, users can upload and view videos; rate, share, report or comment on videos; and
JD
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© Anna-Maija Multas and Noora Hirvonen. 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 authors would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the Eudaimonia doctoral
programme, the Academy of Finland (Grant No. 299112) and The University of Oulu Scholarship
Foundation. They also thank Professor Maija-Leena Huotari for her valuable comments regarding this
article and all the participants for their contributions.
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 4 February 2021
Revised 30 April 2021
Accepted 1 May 2021
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 78 No. 7, 2022
pp. 42-64
Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-02-2021-0027
subscribe to other users’channels. According to the Pew Research Center, in January 2019,
nearly 44,000 YouTube channels had at least 250,000 subscribers (van Kessel et al., 2019).
These channels collectively produced approximately 48,000 h of content, mainly in languages
other than English (van Kessel et al., 2019). This study concerns the video production practice
(Balleys et al., 2020) of video blogging, or vlogging. A vlog can be defined as “a video in which
the author(s) express thoughts or opinions on their daily experiences and concerns through
the use of the first-person point of view”(Balleys et al., 2020).
As young people are increasingly turning to social media to find information, such as
news (Purdue, 2019) or health-related information (Swist et al., 2015;Wartella et al., 2016),
social media influencers, such as video bloggers, may act as new types of authoritative voices
for young people regarding health issues (see, e.g. Balabanis and Chatzopoulou, 2019;Coates
et al., 2019). This became evident in Finland during the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020,
when the government recruited social media influencers to spread timely and accurate
information about the coronavirus (Ping Helsinki, 2020). According to Ping Helsinki (2020),
the campaign reached over 4 million people, half of whom expressed that it had an influence
on how they behaved during the pandemic.
In addition to offering young people a platform on which to connect, find and share
information, social media provides opportunities to influence other peoples’social lives (see,
e.g. Huang et al., 2014). For example, YouTube videos may serve as a social recognition
process, enabling young video producers and viewers to recognize themselves in others
(Balleys et al., 2020). However, there are indications that social media content that displays
risky health behaviour, particularly drinking or smoking, may have an effect on young
people’s health behaviours (see, e.g. Goodyear et al., 2019;Huang et al., 2014;Vaterlaus et al.,
2014). Moreover, researchers have expressed concerns that young people have difficulties to
assess the credibility of information (Hargittai et al., 2010;Subramaniam et al., 2015;Nygren
and Guath, 2019) or the authority of online sources (Hirvonen and Palmgren-Neuvonen, 2019),
which might make them vulnerable to misleading or harmful information (Cusack et al., 2017).
As such, it is vital for the viewers and producers of health-related content on social media
to exercise critical thinking in order to mitigate the effects of information overload and handle
the variety of information, including misinformation, on the web (Koltay, 2017). The
Association of College and Research Libraries (2016) emphasizes information-seeking and
evaluation, information creation and recognition of authoritative voices as core competencies
in their Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. These competencies are
essential not only in educational contexts but also in the everyday information environments
of young people, including social media.
This study examines the ways in w hich young video bloggers con struct their
authoritative voices through health-related vlogging. As such, it adds to the socially
oriented body of research on information literacy, viewing information literacy as not only
encompassing individual-level skills related to seeking, evaluating and using information but
also emerging through social and material practices (see, e.g. Lloyd, 2017). Moreover, the
study contributes to an under-researched area within information studies (Huvila et al., 2020)
by studying information creation as an information literacy practice. It particularly focuses
on the concept of cognitive authority (Wilson, 1983) to investigate how young video bloggers
use information sources to construct their own cognitive authority through health-related
information creation and in relation to the viewers of their videos.
2. Literature review
2.1 Information creation as an information literacy practice
Although there is a long tradition of research on creating, producing or making informational
things in other fields, these notions have not been well recognized or developed within
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constructing
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