A propos of credibility on the web: everyone knew that the Dean campaign had bloggers on their payroll. But these bloggers?
And does it matter how much they were paid, relative to staffers? I am intrigued by the issue of how much can be cured through transparency and disclosure, as Kos and others have argued. (Z points us to an earlier thread, for more on this theme, before you get to lots of comment spam.)
She also draws out the distinction, to my mind quite important, between credibility and trustworthiness:
“Credibility is a different matter — credibility is a technical term (are they believable vs. should they be believed) [sic] isn’t necessarily built on trustworthiness. We regularly trust people and institutions we shouldn’t. If the project is building credibility, that’s another matter — and an equally interesting one. As I mentioned to Bill Mitchell in a comment on the blog getting ready for the conference, right wing talk radio hosts have an enormous amount of credibility with their audience, and there is much to be learned from them if you want to build a trusting public :)”
Obviously much here that is worthy of discussion on Jan. 21 and 22.
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