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PP 646
The Experience of the Concept of Justice by the Witnesses in Witness Hearing
T.R. Valikoski
1
1
University of Tampere, School of communication- media and theatre, Tampere, Finland
Mediated (through Skype or videotaped) witnessing is nowadays possible in Finnish trials (CJP 2015/732). Normally, however, a witness will be personally
present in a trial and will be heard in witness hearing. He/she will be in a courtroom only during the witness hearing. A witness is an individual who was
present when the crime was committed. However, a witness can also be an expert witness.The goal of the criminal trial is to achieve a profound and perma‑
nent verdict in a fair trial. Fair trial means that the judgment is formally correct and reasoned and the case is handled publicly, equally, fast and all parties
have been heard (CrPA 97/689). Witness hearing is a part of institutional communication (Ruusuvuori, Haakana & Raevaara 2001). It is also a situation
where an individual and a layman meets the legal agents (judge, prosecutor, lawyer). All participants of the trial create a professional relationship, which
will be enhanced by their communication. The concept of Justice will then be operationalized by the communication between legal agents and litigant
parties. In the legal context communication relationships are formal, hierarchical, distant and asymmetric (Välikoski 2004). During the witness hearing, it is
possible for a witness to get an experience of what the professional communication in a courtroom context is like and how it supports the picture of legit‑
imized Justice. According to Perttula (2008) the witness can create an experience of a fair trial through the relationship between him/herself (subject) and
the legal agent representing the system (object). In this qualitative study 32 witnesses (of which 10 expert witnesses) from criminal cases were interviewed
in 3 district courts in Middle Finland in Spring 2015. The goal of the study is to find out how the witnesses ´experience of the fairness of a trial (fair trial) is
related to the experience of the communicative nature of witnessing during the witness hearing.There are 3 Research questions posed: R1: how do witness‑
es describe their experience of witnessing as a communication situation? R2: how do witnesses describe the concept of Justice (fair trial)? R3: how are these
two (R1 & R2) related to each other? Legal agents are required to listen to the other participants because of the principle of a fair trial. Previous results show
that legal professionals understand the importance of listening as a part of their professional communication competence (Ala-Kortesmaa & Isotalus 2015;
Ala-Kortesmaa & Isotalus 202014; Välikoski & Ala-Kortesmaa 2014) but their listening behavior is somehow unclear (Välikoski 2000; Välikoski, Paulanto
& Kulmakorpi 2015). However, preliminary results of the study show that prosecutors´ communicative behavior is more person-centered than lawyers´
and judges. The result is not supported by earlier findings (Välikoski 2000; Ala-Kortesmaa & Välikoski 2008). The results also indicate that while describing
the characters of a fair trial, witnesses actually describe the different communicative behaviors of the legal agents. However, listening behaviors are difficult
to separate from other communication behaviors (Bodie 2011; Imhof & Janusik 2006; Pecchioni & Halone 2000).
PP 647
Examining Perceived Credibility of Blogs: How a Blog’s Quality Effects Its Perceived Credibility and How This Relationship Is Mediated by
Parasocial Relationships
F. Offelder
1
, L.M. Lademann
1
, B. Augustin
1
, M. Schubert
1
, F. Dobrick
1
, A. Obermüller
1
1
Technische Universität Dresden, Institute of Media and Communication, Dresden, Germany
The Internet’s relevance for health communication has increased significantly within the last years. More and more people tend to search for health infor‑
mation online. In addition to health information, people search online for interpersonal relationships in the form of social support and exchange of personal
experiences. In this context, especially blogs are becoming an important platform for people with severe diseases and health problems such as diabetes.
With its character of being a rather personal medium, some people even develop a mostly fictional and unidirectional relationship to the blogger called
‘parasocial relationship’(PSR). Keeping in mind that the blogger does not have to be a health expert, which can have serious consequences for the readers’
health, we posed the following research questions: What makes information found online credible? Does the actual quality of a blog influence its perceived
credibility? And what influence has the type of relationship between reader and blogger on the perception of credibility? The purpose of this study was to
test the influence of a blog’s quality on its credibility, which was divided into content and blogger credibility. This relation was expected to be mediated by
the degree of PSR between reader and blogger. Moreover, the direct effect of PSR on the two forms of credibility was examined. Based on the Continuum
of Social–Parasocial Encounters (Giles, 2002) the relationship to the blogger was divided into three sub-groups: ‘plain parasocial relationships’, ‘communi‑
cative parasocial relationship’and ‘social relationships’. Data were collected using a quantitative online survey (N=103) which was posted on five diabetes
blogs to measure PSRs and credibility. PSR was measured using an adapted version of the parasocial interaction scale by Gleich (1997) and content and blog‑
ger credibility were measured by the use of a translated credibility scale by Kang (2010). A quantitative content analysis of blog articles (N=96) was con‑
ducted to measure the blog’s quality using a self-developed quality scale for blogs. Whereas the results indicate no significant correlation between a blog’s
quality and its credibility, the degree of PSR to the blogger influenced both blogger and content credibility. Moreover, a significant distinction between plain
PSR and both communicative parasocial and social relationship showed an effect on blogger credibility judgment. There was also a significant interaction
between content and blogger credibility, but no evidence for effects of gender have been found. The findings expand the current state of research regarding
the relation between credibility and parasocial relationships. Gleich, U. (1997). Parasoziale Interaktionen und Beziehungen von Fernsehzuschauern mit
Personen auf dem Bildschirm: ein theoretischer und empirischer Beitrag zum Konzept des aktiven Rezipienten [Parasocial interactions and relationships
of TV viewers with people on the screen: A theoretical and empirical input to the concept oft he active recipient]. Landau: Verlag Empirische Pädagogik.
Giles, D. C. (2002). Parasocial interaction: A review of the literature and a model for future research, Media Psychology, 4(3), pp. 279–305. Kang, M. (2010).
Measuring Social Media Credibility: A Study on a Measure of Blog Credibility. Institute for Public Relations.