Listening to the news today, it seems to me that we are living in an age of distrust towards traditional media. In place of information from the large media corporations, people are increasingly turning to decentralized social media. Unlike traditional media corporations, people often associate these new alternative information sources with personalities rather than with a corporate body. Another major characteristics of these new media types is they tend to disseminate information from existing media platforms such as YouTube or Twitter rather than maintaining their own platforms.
This trend of media decentralization holds true in the tech journalism industry as well. Over the decades of the 2010s, tech journalism has grown and flourished on different social networks. On such social media outlets, one-man shows or relatively small production teams are the norm. Today, some of these social media tech outlets have grown to such an extent their influence can have drastic impact on decisions taken by large tech companies and manufacturers.
I, too, found myself drifting towards these smaller media outlets as I researched the components I should purchase for my new DIY computer. The more research I did, the more I found myself consuming content from the likes of Gamers Nexus, Paul’s Hardware, and Hardware Canucks, rather than their larger and more established tech journalism counterparts such as Anandtech, Tom’s Hardware, or TechRadar.
After noticing the shift in my own personal preferences, I began to wonder why people trust certain media outlets but not others. From my experience, I realized in an industry as competitive as tech journalism, trust the right tech reviewer is crucial for the customer to make the right decision. Conversely, the tech journalist must make their pieces engaging if they do not want their audience to simply drift away in boredom. To develop this trust with their audience, tech journalists use a mix of persuasion with “scientific evidence”, improve their presentation quality, and produce seemingly accurate predictions.
I concluded is the process by which probably most people come to trust the information sources that they do. After the media outlet has persuaded the consumer to them, the consumer effectively lets the media into their “trusted sources” group. From that point on, the consumer will use the information from the trusted media outlet as a reference point. They will filter out future information based on information they received from these trusted media outlets.
Experts and Trust
In the tech media industry, journalists play a particularly important role in providing information that allows consumers to make informed purchases decisions. Without these technology journalists, it would be difficult for individual consumers to compare different product offerings and purchase the one that is the fit for their needs. For instance, it is impractical for the average consumer to test the hundreds of cooling solutions on offer and compare the pros and cons of different pump and radiator designs. Instead, tech reviewers fill this independent quality assurance role by publishing their own test data to inform consumers which products work as advertised, and which products are all marketing and no substance.
For an industry as dependent on science as consumer electronics, tech media is particularly dependent on accurate reports “experts”. I learned that in the tech industry, there are many places where with information may be difficult for the average layman to understand. For instance, the recent debacle surrounding manufacturers secretly downgrading SSD involved the said manufacturers switching out internal components for cheaper versions that downgraded the SSD’s performance, all without changing the model number. To realize this manipulation was going on, the whistleblowers must have knowledge on how SSDs work and had test the same “models” from different years and compared the resulting performance data. But for the average consumer, the switch would have been all but unnoticeable. Manufacturers would have gotten scot-free if it had not been for independent technical experts pouring over the data went public with the news.
Another area that shows the importance of expert knowledge in tech journalism is in interpreting the spec sheets that come with every electronic product. Manufacturers like to emphasize specs that intuitively should indicate of how well a product performs, but in reality do not reflect the whole picture. The classic spec that is useless, but which manufacturers like to emphasize, is the CPU clock speed. In short, clock speed is only one measure of how quickly the CPU can carry out calculations. It is entirely possible for a lower clock speed CPU to outperform a higher clock one. Unless there are other experts present to call out such manipulations, it would be difficult for consumers to identify the market manipulation and defend their rights.
This role as providers of crucial information places particular gatekeeping power on the technology media journalists. Tech journalists must be able to understand both the dry technical aspects of the products they are reporting on, and be able to engage the non-technical audience who just want a tool to work the way it is advertised. Consumers must be able to trust the tech journalists to give accurate assessments on fashionable products and be willing to hold manufacturers accountable. Without this trust, consumers can easily be led to purchase substandard products while being none the wiser.
Why We Trust
With the importance of trust in the tech space established, we now consider why people trust certain media outlets over others. This is especially applicable in with the rise of social media and the independent tech media journalists.
Logically, smaller independent channels should be less trustworthy compared to their larger counterparts. Smaller media outlets have less resources, more prone to biases from their directors, and have smaller audience. Smaller audiences should mean less scrutiny and fact-checking compared to larger media outlets with tens or thousands of readers on the look-out for factual errors.
The fact that many smaller tech journalist channels rely on a few “celebrity” personalities to sell their information should also present problems for the audience to trust them. Given the dominance of a few personalities in many of the smaller media channels, these star presenters can easily allow bias to color their reviews and make unsubstantiated claims without the need for too much accountability. First, these presenters may know they legions of fans who are willing to back them to the hilt. Second, they can simply pack up and close down their channel if things get too hot.
In my own foray into the world of technology journalism, I too began to wonder why we trust these smaller media outlets. From my experience, I think there are probably three main reasons. The first reason that is actually common to all media outlets is the use of statistics used in presentations. A second driver of the audience’s trust is the presentation quality of the presentation. Thirdly, people are more likely to trust an information source if the source has previously proven to be correct (which I term the “Macbeth Effect”).
Statistics and Information
Every day, we hear of academics and pundits making use of statistics to back up their arguments. In our increasingly data oriented age, statistics is a powerful tool of argument. Numbers gives any argument an air of objectivity; that the argument made is backed by sound evidence and rigorous testing.
I admit, using numbers is an excellent way of persuading an audience of one’s argument. At least, that was the case with the technology channels I follow. Channels such as Gamers Nexus and Hardware Unboxed use a lot of comparative data from their testing to back up their arguments. Gamers Nexus is particularly famous (or infamous) for using a lot of charts to put their data into context. Similarly, Hardware Unboxed also uses a lot of numbers to show the results of their GPU testing. To me, these numbers seemed persuasive, because the channels claimed they are derived from rigorous testing of the computer component in their labs.
However, it is also important to remember that statistics can be manipulated to suit false narratives. Even when researchers are not deliberately making up their numbers, the testing methodology can be manipulated to give the edge to misleading conclusions. For example, in 2018 many tech outlets broke the story alleging Intel was colluding with a third party benchmark tester to manipulate benchmarks to make its CPU offering look better than that of their competition. The alleged manipulation involved using statistical sleight of hand such as using the “median of three test runs”; to using different parameters such as different bios settings for Intel CPUs and their competitors. This teaches us that we should always take their numbers with a grain of salt. Wherever possible, consumers should read the testing methodologies and search for any alternative information that rebut the statistics. Only then can the consumer be relatively sure the numbers are reliable.
Presentation Quality
One realization I had as I browsed through the videos and blogs during my research was that the quality of the presentation heavily influences how much trust people place in any particular news source. We have been taught to instinctively mistrust products that look “low quality”, and trust products that look “high quality”. It is no secret that product packaging and marketing play a big part in any product’s success. In the world of technology social media, low-quality often translates to not filming in a studio, spelling mistakes in publications, antiquated-looking websites, and the presenter’s inability to speak coherently. Conversely, high production quality usually involves a lot of scripting, video editing, and animation to make the presentation more engaging than a talking head.
This assumption of quality equals trustworthiness is not entirely unfounded. One of the lessons taught to anyone on how to identify fraud is whether materials sent from seemingly “official” sources have sub-par quality. For example, if they are directed to an “official” government/corporate website that appears to be haphazardly put together, then they can be sure it is a fraud. Unfortunately, people also carry this distrust towards low-quality presentations when they analyze information sources.
Ideally, production quality should not be a determinant in information reliability. There are many reasons why a production appears to be “low quality” but many be chock-full of useful information. For example, the presenter may not be a naturally engaging person, they may be raised in another country and speak with an accent, or they simply do not have the money for high quality photography and filming equipment. The smaller scale of many of the tech channels magnify these problems. However, we do not live in a world where people evaluate information irrespective of the presentation quality. Just like movies and TV shows, the amount of money the producer is willing to throw at production has a large impact on how the audience judges whether the show is worth watching and be taken seriously.
The “Macbeth Effect”
Another consideration when consumers evaluate whether a source is trustworthy is whether the previous conclusions and recommendations given by a media source has worked out for them. If a consumer concluded the advice they have received from a tech reviewer has helped them to buy the right equipment, then they are more likely to trust that reviewer’s other recommendations.
This is the same process where people develop brand loyalty. If a customer buys certain products from a particular brand and decide they like it, that customer is more likely to try other products in the brand’s other product lines. These same satisfied customers may also be willing to defend the brand when negative news appear accusing the brand of bad behavior or bad quality control.
I term this process the “Macbeth Effect”, following the story of how the titular character in Shakespeare’s famous play was misled. In Shakespeare’s play, three witches tricked the titular into trusting them by making two prophecies regarding events that had already happened. The “prophecies” convinced Macbeth to trust the witches’ pronouncements. Having gained Macbeth’s trust, the witches spurred Macbeth onto ever greater heights of villainy until it all came crashing down in the end.
The reason this technique works is that most people are likely to trust someone after some initial success. Viewers may initially approach a new information source with skepticism, but they will drop that caution as trust develops between the audience and the source. Here, the smaller tech channels may have an advantage over their larger counterparts. The smaller scale and more personality based approach of these smaller tech channels may give viewers more of a sense of “personal” connection. Compared to dealing with faceless corporate representatives, audiences may feel they can much more relate to a tech channel’s presenter, and are more likely to trust the channel as a result.
There is nothing inherently wrong with trusting someone because you think they give good advice. However, once trust develops, many people start to unequivocally trust their information source. Sometimes, the information source’s followers will trust their information outlet beyond their initial area of “expertise”. This is why celebrity endorsements work, and why influences are highly sought after. Even when influencers promote products which they should not have reasonable knowledge of, people will follow these influencers’ advice because they come from a “trustworthy” source.
Conclusion: What is Trust?
My personal experience of how I came to trust certain technology media points to three main parts of building trust. First, people trust the media outlets they do, because of the presence of “scientific evidence” from statistics. Secondly, people are more likely to trust media sources where the apparent presentation quality of the materials is high. Third, people are also more likely to trust a media outlet if previous advice from the media has proven to be correct in the past or fit with their personal experience.
As an industry, tech journalism fills a particular niche in providing reliable data for consumers to make informed decisions. Tech journalism requires a precipitous balance of scientific knowledge and ability to engage the audience. Often, the task of the media is to translate information from technical experts into a format that is meaningful to the average user, who can then use the information to make informed purchase decisions. The tech journalist must have both the tech knowledge to tell market spin from hard facts, and the ability to engage their audience to rouse action. As consumer technologies grow increasingly complex, maintaining this balance will become an ever more difficult task ahead.
In a time when traditional media is increasingly distrusted, social media and their information are increasingly occupying the space left behind by large media corporations. However, this development does not inherently enhance the reliability of information available to the average consumer. As customers and end users, we must become savvy in detecting untrustworthy information. Making informed choices involve researching information from multiple sources and compare the gathered data. Relying on information from a single source or a collection of related sources, no matter how trustworthy they might appear, is detrimental to good decision-making. For those more inclined, looking at the citations and testing methodologies is a good way to detect flaws and potentially false information. Only with increased scrutiny from both within the media industry and from an informed user base, can reliable information be maintained and both media outlets and manufacturers are hold accountable for market manipulation and other breach of ethics.