Understanding young singaporeans gathering and credibility assessments of online sexual health information 1b

Chapter 4 Findings and Discussion Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion Chapter Four: Findings & Discussion In this chapter, data drawn from the questionnaires, interviews, and video screens will be discussed and analysed to present youths’ information seeking on the topic of sexual health. It will demonstrate how young Singaporeans employ different approaches in seeking sexual health information online. It will also facilitate our understanding of the thought processes that actualise the strategies employed by young Singaporeans in their online information seeking on this topic. With this, the chapter will address the research questions: (1) the manner in which young Singaporeans seek sexual health information online and the thought processes that come into play, and (2) the challenges that youths faced while seeking such information. Briefly, respondents completed their information seeking tasks at an average of 43.5 minutes, with Gordon taking the shortest time of 19 minutes, and Agnes taking the longest time at 1 hour and 34 minutes. Respondents conducted their information seeking in three ways, via: (1) websites (100%) and forums (13.9%) found via search engines, (2) websites (13.9%) and forums (5.6%) which they already knew of or had previously used, and (3) contacts via instant messengers (5.6%). These figures show that the bulk of information respondents received was from websites clicked via search engines. These statistics show similarity to past studies (Buhi et al., 2010; Hargittai, n.d.) where respondents mainly used search engines to gather information. Findings show that respondents’ media literacy affects their information seeking. As mentioned in the literature review, it is not possible for an 64 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion individual to have no literacy or to be fully literate; therefore, media literacy is a continuum. Thus, the strength of individuals’ perspective on media determines the various points they are placed along this continuum. Therefore, different people may experience the same media message differently. The following sections will discuss different aspects of respondents’ media literacy – personal locus, knowledge structures, and skills – and how they influence respondents in seeking information online. While the analysis was divided into personal locus, knowledge structure, and skills – there are times where the examples show the different facets combined as they are inter-related and intricately woven into respondents’ information seeking. The examples were placed under the most closely related sections. In addition, there is also a section on personal influence and a discussion of how the nature of the information sought which influenced respondents’ information seeking. 4.1. Personal Locus Past literature suggests that personal locus, consisting of goals and drives, plays an important part in information seeking (Potter, 2004; 2008). In this research, the manner in which young Singaporeans seek sexual health information online was similarly seen to depend on how they treated the goaloriented tasks. Respondents’ information seeking behaviour appeared to vary according to their attitudes. There were three types of respondents. Briefly, the first type of respondents took into consideration the topic and the people for whom they were gathering the information. For the next type of respondents, they also took into consideration that they were collecting the 65 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion data for other people but in this case, they were more concerned of other people’s perceptions of them. The last type of respondents viewed the research as a mere experimental set-up and at times, they looked at the online information based on what caught their attention. 4.1.1 Attitudes of respondents To explain the three types of respondents in greater detail - the first type of respondents, despite being consciously aware that their actions were part of a research, they tried to enact the case scenarios in their minds and sought to find solutions to the best of their abilities. They imagined what information they would search for in such situations and went to the extent of carefully planning how they intended to pass the information to their friends. For example, Badrisah said “[she] want[ed] her [friend] to steer away from sex. Find things to make her change her mind.” She collated the website URLs and placed them on a Microsoft Word document and planned to pass them to her ‘friend’ as an email attachment. Her actions reflected thoughtfulness thus showing that she was aware of how her information seeking would affect other people, and implicitly as part of her personal locus took it into consideration in her information search. Also, as the task was related to health, there were a handful of respondents who emphasised the need to be more selective in gathering information. This selectiveness referred to the need to gather more reliable information. For instance, Jamal said that considering that the topic is on sexual health, there is a need to have credible information. This is similar to past literature where despite being goal oriented, in cases where youths seek information for other people, they 66 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion demonstrate awareness and importance of credibility assessments (Erdelez & Rioux, 2000; Rieh & Hilligoss, 2008). For the second type of respondents, they were also selective of the information gathered and did their selection based on the types of information they found suitable to be passed to their friends. In particular, they explained that this was due to the fact that the information was for their friends. In this instance, it was not to assess the information for credibility but to ascertain its suitability for their friends. They specifically expressed more concerns about their friends’ perceptions of them. For example, Zarina chose to look for photos and videos of content (see Figures 4.1 and 4.2) that would be more fun and creative as she did not want to be “preaching” to her friend. Felix sought a sing-a-long video on STDs which he had watched previously. There are also other respondents who watched videos – in total, 8.3% of the respondents visited Youtube, 2.8% visited Metacafe, and 2.8% visited Howcast. Apart from fun and creativity, Bharat explained that the visuals allowed him to better understand the information that he was receiving. Earlier literature mentions the rise of electronic health on the Internet and its potential benefits for more users (Norman & Skinner, 2006). The screenshot of a video in Figure 4.2 shows that the video uploaded contains information by a medical doctor. Figure 4.1 Images from Google Figure 4.2 Video from YouTube 67 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion For the third type of respondents, it remains that this is a research set-up and they viewed the given tasks as fictitious scenarios. As these respondents viewed it as a mere task assigned by the researcher, their information seeking behaviour was based on this personal locus. A case in point is Ali who said: it “[f]eels like a task I must find.” They did not seem to take into consideration the fact that the topic related to health and the diseases could be lifethreatening. When Ali was asked if he had gathered sufficient information, he reflected that he may have to look for more information in an actual situation. In addition, these respondents also looked at related information based on their own interests. This was demonstrated in the respondents’ information seeking, for example, Sunil searched for dental dams and Ali sought female condoms. Therefore, while the cases indicate that respondents may behave differently compared to an actual situation, it may be a manifestation of their customary information seeking behaviour. Similarly, past literature shows that youths tend to obtain information in a cursory fashion when the outcome of using the information was not critical enough to warrant the additional time needed to acquire more credible information (Rieh & Hilligoss, 2008). In addition, these incidences also indicate that since youths think that misfortunes will happen to someone else and not to them, they are not as anxious in seeking information. 4.1.2 Convenience and Speed In a next point relating to personal locus, although it is not an explicit goal, it is palpable that individuals would want to complete the tasks given to them as fast as they could. Hence it is not surprising that the issue of convenience and speed persists in youths’ information seeking. Earlier 68 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion literature states that youths use the Internet because of these characteristics (Stern & Willis, 2007; Suzuki & Calzo, 2004). Similarly, respondents in this study consider the Internet to be a suitable source in seeking information on sexual health. To exemplify, Ali mentioned that he would still use the Internet to look for the information even if he was not restricted to using it. Amelia explained her preference of “using the Internet at home” to going to the library to look for books as the latter is “more troublesome.” Next, video recordings will be used to provide examples of youths’ web navigations in relation to time factor. The video recordings showed that not all respondents looked at the whole page and finished watching the videos. Having to browse through the myriad of information online and wanting to complete their information seeking process quickly, several respondents had scanned through the webpages and videos. For instance, Eric clicked on the page and bookmarked the page almost immediately. He explained that he had done so as he was performing a scan of relevant words and the page happened to have term. In another example, Bharat bookmarked a video after watching 2 minutes of a 3:09 clip. One rationale that could explain why conducting information seeking for this task and normal information seeking is very different in spite that the topic is on sexual health is that the study is conducted on youths. The personal locus of youths in seeking information differs depending on the context. Zarina explained that for school projects, she would use online databases such as Factiva to retrieve newspaper articles to get "statistics and "hard facts." Being students, youths are more familiar in information seeking for schoolwork compared to health information. This is also an indication of the importance that respondents placed on their schoolwork. 69 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion 4.1.3 Other concomitant factors Apart from the respondents’ personal locus, concomitant factors namely, prior knowledge, habits, technological fluency, and social influences also play pertinent roles in respondents’ choices and navigation of these information sources. Habit is a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behaviour that is acquired through frequent repetition (The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary, 2010). Prior knowledge refers to respondents’ past knowledge on sexual health information and/or any health issues. ‘Technological fluency’ is the skill to effectively employ and adapt technology to changing circumstances (p. 188, McKay, Thurlow & Zimmerman, 2005). All these factors will be identified as knowledge structures and skills in the next two sections. In the last section, the chapter will discuss the role of social influences, referring to parents, friends or acquaintances, in information seeking. The examples of youth’s actions presented in the next sections will present a better overview of youths’ information seeking process. It will also provide the challenges faced by young Singaporeans. 4.2. Knowledge Structure Past literature shows that people interpret and recontextualise scientific knowledge by locating it within their own social contexts and experiences (Mager, 2009). In this study, another factor that affects the manner in which young Singaporeans seek sexual health information online is their knowledge structure. As for previously seeking health information, 75% of respondents had done this through various means, and specifically, 44.4% had utilised the 70 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion Internet to look for these information. Four types of health information, namely physical, psychological, sexual, and others, were listed in the questionnaire. Focusing on the item of sexual health information, the study shows that 50% of respondents had previously sought this information. In Chapter One, I described the different channels available for youths to receive sexual health information in Singapore. According to the interview sessions, respondents had similarly received such information from (a) schools, via the sex education and moral education types of classes, and science classes, (b) siblings, (c) parents, (d) friends, (e) traditional media like books, magazines and television, and (f) the Internet. Also, as elaborated earlier in Chapter 1, as the respondents are Singaporean students, all of them would have received sex education in school. However, the experience of sex education classes was uneven across the respondent pool, with some recalling the lessons more clearly than others. For example, Badrisah, who is in Secondary five, explained that in secondary two, her school showed different episodes of videos during pastoral care period held every Monday. Male and female students were separated when they viewed the videos. According to her, the main ideas taught in school were to say ‘no’, as sex leads to pregnancy. Therefore, the lessons did not teach students how to prevent pregnancy and instead, the videos demonstrated how youths’ lives were ruined once they engaged in sex. Badrisah was thus able to distil the relevant message which the school attempted to convey to students. In contrast, most other respondents had difficulty recalling what they had learnt in such classes, e.g., Ali used the term “vaguely” to describe his memory of learning sex health education in the 71 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion secondary school. Similarly, Kai Jie remembered being taught sex education in primary school and can “remember some of the names [of diseases]” but claimed that the teachers “did not teach anything in secondary school.” Given the poor recall of such sex education lessons by most respondents, it would appear that the possession of prior sex related knowledge was not a factor which influenced my respondents’ search for sex-related information online. 4.2.1 Search string permutations Next, the chapter will look at the search string permutations utilised by the respondents in their information-seeking. Table 4.1 shows the different permutations by using the samples by 11 respondents who utilised the Internet daily for more than 6 hours to 12 hours daily. The search strings have been separated into (1) phrases found in tasks list, (2) phrases found closely related to task list, and (3) other search strings. Type of Search string Search Strings Phrases found in task (a) Safe Sex practices of safe sex, practicing safe sex, practising safe sex, safe sex, safe sex + ministry of health (pages from Singapore), Safe sex by women, safe sex for females, safe sex for girls, safe sex practices, sex [in hpb.gov.sg search box], sex and pressure, sex vs. Love, how to apply safe sex, how to have safe sex, how to practice safe sex, methods of safe sex (b) Sexually transmitted diseases how do humans got sexually transmitted diseases, how do we know that we got sexually transmitted diseases, how do you know that a male get sexually transmitted diseases?, sexually transmitted diseases, sexually transmitted diseases in men , Signs and Symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases, Symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases Phrases found closely related to task (a) STDs a list of STDs, do what to prevent getting HIV and STD, symptoms of STD, symptoms of stds, STD, STDs, possible female STDs Other search strings first sex experience, Chlamydia, Safety precaution for women, contraception for women, dental dam, Trichomoniasis, is condom safe?, japanese condom studies Table 4.1 Different permutations of search strings 72 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion Overall, results from the entire study show that although all respondents did not have a common search string, several respondents shared three similar searches – safe sex, sexually transmitted diseases, and STD. To identify, safe sex and sexually transmitted diseases are phrases taken from the tasks given to the respondents. It is noteworthy that no respondents had typed sexually transmitted infections or STIs as part of their search string as this emphasises the poor recall of sex education lesson by respondents. Despite having learnt about sex-related diseases in schools, respondents remained unfamiliar or have vague knowledge of the topic. For instance, Felix had grouped STIs and STDs together in his knowledge base as he typed the 12 STDs of Christmas in his search string while in fact, the video was called 12 STIs of Christmas. There were many other search string permutations conceptualised by respondents. Other than extracting the phrases from the text, there were several reasons which accounts for how the different search string permutations were thought of by respondents although they did not contain phrases from the tasks. Findings show that prior knowledge that were retained in their memories, affected this group’s information seeking behaviours. Therefore, comparatively this incident indicates that only selected information is stored in their memory. Moreover, in fact, as indicated earlier in the methodology chapter, more than half of the respondents (55.6%) had previously looked for sexual health information either online or offline for school projects and personal interests. In general, the interviews indicated that respondents learnt about these terms from school, having attended sex education classes or biology classes, 73 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion seeing them in traditional media, noticing them in other websites’ content, and talking about sex with their peers. Keegan said: “secondary school la, sex education” and “a lot of…outside advertise[ments] on “TV, brochures.” The interviews correspond to Chapter 1 which elaborates on the background information of the available sources of sexual health information. Therefore in seeking information online, youths tap on their knowledge structures to utilise current knowledge and by doing so, are better able to expand their knowledge base. To further illustrate, the chapter will look at specific search strings. In the case of typing STD, respondents mainly cited the abbreviation to be a common one, and that they learnt it from schools or saw them on advertisements. Amelia typed contraceptives, and said: “from my knowledge, I know safe sex is contraceptives.” The next example is the phrase applying safe sex. Earlier, the methodology chapter had elaborated on the careful selection of text for the task list to sieve out if respondents would simply ‘lift’ phrases from the task or would utilise their knowledge structure in typing their search strings. Despite the oddity of this phrase, 1 respondent used applying safe sex as given in the task as her second search string. Gayathri had typed applying safe sex for teens. In the first search string, she had typed having safe sex. This phrase was used by one other respondent. Most respondents used the term practicing safe sex. For instance, Jamal typed practices of safe sex, practicing safe sex and how to practice safe sex. Zarina explained "messages from outside" channels such as safe sex health campaigns, radio ads and lecturers used the term practice safe sex. The latter illustrations showed that most respondents’ loci were in a conscious state and this is so, 74 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion especially at the start of information seeking as respondents utilised the knowledge which they already possess to develop their search. Although youths do not appear to rely on past knowledge learnt in school, respondents can be seen incorporating prior knowledge from traditional media, such as magazines and television shows. Yuping visited the online versions of Cosmopolitan and Glamour, Felix visited Men’s Health and Zarina was looking for clips of television programmes on Get Real and Tyra Banks which she said contained relevant information. Zarina tried looking for those clips as she had previously seen such issues being featured in these programmes. To do this, she used associative words in the search string such as CNA (the channel where the program had been aired) and Cheryl Fox (program host) for the “Get Real” program. However, in all the aforementioned cases, respondents were unable to derive relevant information from the tasks. This incident shows that although they remember the main source, they could not retrieve that information via this channel because their search strings were not sufficiently targeted and they were thus unable to unearth what they wanted from the overwhelming amount of online information available. Nonetheless, these incidences also show basic functional media literacy since the youths tried to utilise the Internet to gather information which they initially observed from traditional media. The Internet is seen as a universal repository to extract information. The search strings also showed a small percentage of respondents (11.1%) looking for local government websites like the Health Promotion Board, the Ministry of Health and Singapore General Hospital. In such circumstances, respondents were clearly making good use of their pre- 75 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion existing knowledge because they recognised that the websites of government agencies which deal with health matters are likely to provide credible health information. 4.2.2 Navigation within websites Respondents’ knowledge structures also play a part when navigating the websites. When clicking on STD links, most respondents clicked on gonorrhoea, herpes, and AIDS which are common sexually transmitted diseases found in the science textbooks or taught in sex education lessons, and provided these as their answers in their Microsoft word document. It would appear that they seemed to be more comfortable in providing information that they were more familiar with. However, in explaining why they clicked on these links or copying the documents, most respondents only reply that they have learnt them in school. Earlier literature on information seeking (eg. Flanagin & Metzger, 2008; Rieh & Hilligoss, 2008) mentioned that respondents usually refer to trusted places, and in these cases, youths are most confident and therefore most comfortable in sharing information learnt from school. In cases where respondents do not understand certain terms which they read in the websites’ content, they typed them as search strings or looked for their meanings in the online dictionary. The incorporation of new knowledge is seen when search strings such as dental dams, chlamydia and trichomoniasis emerged as they were seen in the websites’ content and respondents wanted to know more about them. This shows that the respondents’ loci were functioning in conscious mode. While filtering the 76 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion available content, they found information which was unknown to them and tried to gather further information. 4.2.3 Keying of web addresses Respondents also directly keyed in addresses of websites which they had either heard of or previously used in their information seeking. More than half of the respondents (58.3%) keyed in web addresses which includes blogs, search engines, government health websites, forums, online dictionary, and email accounts. Specifically, respondents visited specific blogs from Livejournal and Blogspot, YouTube, Gmail, Hotmail, Google, Yahoo, Dictionary, Wikipedia, Ministry of Health, and forum Vibe MB. For example, Jamal typed moh.gov.sg to gather information from the Ministry of Health’s website, Anthony visited Vibe MB which is a forum to receive feedback from members in the online community and Zarina used Technorati to look for blogs as she had remembered previously seeing information relevant to the task in several blogs. Therefore, despite the significant aforementioned figure of 58.3% of respondents keying websites directly, most respondents were merely typing search engines’ web addresses. This is similar to present literature which shows that as health questions do not often occur, individuals may not have a trusted website in their mind to begin a search related to health. Nonetheless, the examples of Jamal, Anthony, and Zarina showed the influence of knowledge structure in information seeking. By typing the website addresses of the local government’s website, particularly Ministry of Health, Jamal showed that he is tapping onto his prior knowledge. Although the page did not load as where Jamal should have typed www.moh.gov.sg instead of 77 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion moh.gov.sg, he did not give up and tried typing Ministry of Health in the search engine. Similarly, in the case of Zarina, her locus was in conscious mode as she actively thought of ways to gather information from her knowledge structure. She displayed a manifestation of Potter’s (2004) meaning matching - she remembered reading random blogs with issues related to the task. However, as she could not remember the exact blogs, she tried to match this information to another piece of information she had, which is she knew Technorati houses blogs. Therefore by using Technorati, she would be able to find the blogs to perform the tasks. However, she did not manage to fully execute her plan because she was unable to find the blogs that she wanted. 4.2.4 Use of bookmarks As for the use of bookmarks, 3 respondents (8.3%) opened their bookmark list with two of them doing so as a focused exercise, and one using it only in a random fashion. The first group looked at the bookmark list with an intention to look for particular websites. For the first example, Felix opened his bookmark to Men’s Health because of his interest in health issues and is also a regular visitor to the website. He remembered reading related articles and wanted to incorporate them as part of his answers. As for Bharat, he had wanted to use Youtube, and therefore opened his bookmark list to conveniently access the website. Arguably, both respondents’ had their personal locus in conscious mode and were therefore in full control of their information processing. However, in the case of Jonathan, it was a random exercise when he decided to scan through his bookmark list to look for a suitable link. When he initially opened his bookmark list, he did not choose 78 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion any links. However, he later returned to the bookmark list and clicked on Wikipedia. The way respondents choose their information from these sources also show evidence of their utilising their knowledge structures. In one of Amelia’s searches, she had differentiated her findings of protection methods into boys and girls. Referring to Figure 4.3, the protection methods were not separated in the website. However, as shown in Figure 4.4 Amelia categorized the protection methods according to gender when transferring the content to Microsoft Word, demonstrating her ability to engage in meaning matching / making (Potter, 2004; 2008). Figure 4.3 List of protection methods grouped 79 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion Figure 4.4 List of protection methods grouped by gender In addition, respondents also explained their rationales for moving from website to website. In general, they mentioned that they did so as a way of cross-referencing, checking for credibility, and/or simply adding on to information that they had gathered. They would stop when they felt that they have gathered sufficient information. Therefore, in sum, in their seeking, respondents show that they tapped on their knowledge structure as they mentioned that they verified the information based on past knowledge. This is evident from the aforementioned examples of typing of search strings and URLs, and choosing of websites. 4.2.5 Presentation of data Next, the manner in which respondents present their data will be further analysed. Findings show that many respondents were more concerned about the information itself than about its credibility. These respondents were more goal-oriented and leaned towards information gathering. In this study, few respondents directly mentioned that they assessed the credibility of the websites they visited. As they are more concerned with content, respondents 80 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion mainly explained how they gathered the information. As an example, for those gathering content, the recordings showed that instead of assessing the data, respondents were more concerned about preparing their answers. For example, they categorized information in accordance with their knowledge of sexual health information seeking. Respondents’ prior knowledge in gathering information is also affecting their information seeking in this study. According to the respondents, this was the way they usually conduct their information seeking for schools or other uses. Therefore, it is ‘brought’ into this information seeking. Respondents had different ways in planning to present their information search. Ian saved chosen webpages while Cathy bookmarked the chosen websites. Bard pasted chunks of text from various websites into Microsoft Word. Caleb combined both actions of Cathy and Bard. Darren and Eric typed their own words and provided their own opinions while putting together content into document. However, for the second task, Eric pasted chunks of text on sexually transmitted diseases from one website into his document. Jamal’s method was the most extensive; he bookmarked the websites, pasted chunks of text and links from various websites into Microsoft Word, and provided his own opinion. On the other hand, Hannah, Jessica and Keegan merely moved from website to website without any indications on how they wished to communicate the information to their ‘friend.’ Use of prior knowledge may come into play either consciously or unconsciously. For Anthony, his use was unconscious for his forum posting; when he asked “What about eating out?” When enquired he paused before replying that he had seen it on an earlier website. Upon further probing, he 81 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion said that he has also previously learnt the term from his friends. He said that if he was not mistaken, it was a friend who had explained the meaning of the term. He also said Urbandictionary.com can clarify "those type[s] of urban slangs." Therefore, at times, respondents may not even be aware that they are influenced these knowledge. Therefore, in information seeking, respondents consciously and unconsciously use information within their knowledge structure. 4.3. Skills All respondents have computers/laptops and Internet access at home. Specifically, Table 4.2 indicates their daily Internet use as follows: Time spend on the Internet daily Percentage of respondents 1 hour or less 2.8% 1 to 6 hours 63.9% More than 6 hours to 12 hours 27.8% More than 12 hours to 16 hours 5.6% More than 16 hours 0% Table 4.2 Respondents and time spend on Internet daily Past studies (eg. Livingstone & Helsper, 2007) have shown that with greater Internet access, individuals could better harness their skills. The table demonstrates that most respondents use the Internet between 1 to 6 hours daily, and 1/3 of the respondents use the Internet for more than 6 hours. In Chapter One, the paper has explained the use of ICT in Singapore. The chapter will also demonstrate how skills affect the manner in which young Singaporeans seek sexual health information online. In this section, I discuss how the respondents’ information-seeking skills vary with their exposure to the Internet and demonstrate the challenges that youths face in seeking sexual health information online. 82 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion 4.3.1 Search engines Not surprisingly, search engines are an integral part of the respondents’ online information seeking, with 100 per cent of them search engines. Given the prominence in the use of search engines, the chapter will first look at the reason behind its prevalence and use in information seeking. Being a central location where unlimited information could be easily sorted and accessed, respondents cited familiarity and convenience as reasons for using search engines. Hence, using search engines in seeking information has easily become a habit. Earlier literature on information seeking mentioned that respondents start their information seeking at a trusted place (Flanagin & Metzger, 2008; Rieh & Hilligoss, 2008). Place here could even refer to familiar and trusted people they know such as parents, siblings, teachers, coaches, or friends. Information obtained could be in the form of getting direct or indirect information/advice on how to begin their information-searching. Indirect information means that the information received from the first source could be something which the first source had learnt from other people. (Flanagin & Metzger, 2008; Rieh & Hilligoss, 2008). In this study, search engines play dual roles; firstly, as the first point of getting information, and next, as a place for youths to gather their thoughts where respondents often return to, so that they can re-start the entire process. As the Internet contains massive amount of data, the use of search engines is pertinent in getting relevant information. Thus, search engines are often central actors in youths’ information seeking, and therefore, become this familiar and trusted place. Search engines help to create information order as typing search strings into 83 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion search boxes structure the information. By doing so, they aid respondents in making sense of the vast data on the Internet. Although youths automatically turn to search engines, they do not merely use any search engine. This act of using specific search engines has also become a habit. For the respondents in this study, the frequently used search engines were Google (72.2%) and Yahoo (36.1%). Other search engines that youths utilised were Youtube (8.3%), Google Scholar (2.8%), Ask (2.8%), MSN (5.6%), Rednano (2.8%), and Technorati (2.8%). There were varying reasons for respondents’ preferences for different search engines. These preferences were clearly demonstrated when they automatically changed to a different search engine although their homepages are search engines. For example, Yahoo appeared as Aisyah’s home page which contained a search box but instead she typed Google’s address to use its search function. Aisyah says that “Google has technically more information and when you type in layman’s term, the information will appear as you want it...unlike Yahoo, [where the information] it may not come out ...in layman’s terms.” She had thus actively chosen a search engine that was comprehensible to her. This action suggests that Aisyah is engaging in meaning matching (Potter, 2004; 2008), where she tries to make sense of the data presented to her and in order to do so, she preferred to use Google. In another example, Amelia said: “I hear [that MSN search engine] is more lousy than Yahoo...they [my friends] say Yahoo is the best search engine... hey [my teachers] never say MSN or Hotmail. They also did not mention Google.” This illustration shows that Amelia was affected by the social influences of her teachers and friends. Also, she had previously tried 84 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion MSN’s search box function and explained that she was “unfamiliar with it and went to Yahoo.” Respondents also gathered information using multiple search engines or multiple types of search engines. For instance, Priya typed how to apply safe sex and sexually transmitted diseases in Yahoo, Google and MSN search engines. While most respondents recognise suitable search engines for different purposes, thus manifesting their technological fluency, there were a few respondents who do not display these skills. For instance, Priya explained that she does this because “maybe different website[s] you know, [present] different links.” However, in actual fact, the links were similar; it was just that they were not placed in the same order. For those respondents with more technological know-how, they recognised that search engines today could be sorted using text, images and video searches. They also knew that information could also be categorised by countries. For instance, Zarina would "first go to Google” and when she wanted to use videos as examples, her “next solution is Youtube.” In another example, Kai Ling used the search engine’s image search function. In the examples, Jonathan used RedNano and several respondents used Yahoo Singapore or Yahoo and Google sites and clicked on the button for “within Singapore”. This was evidence of media literacy as the youths knew that they had to gather information for the Singapore context, and they did so by using the necessary tools. 4.3.2 Websites The respondents clicked on many different types of websites from within the search results including content by government agencies, corporate 85 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion organisations, charities, schools, private individuals and more. As an illustration, Table 4.3 showcases the accumulated websites visited by 11 respondents who used the Internet for more than 6 hours to 12 hours on a daily basis. Type of websites Government / Hospitals / Clinics / Managed Care Organization Blogs Activist organization Charity / Not-for profit News/broadcasting / Online publications/ Writer’s network Education Online aid:dictionary, encyclopaedia and reference Photo / Video sharing Religion Emails Networking Insurance Ebook Content (Organization / Individual) / Content Sharing communities Website Visited American Social Health Association, American Association for Clinical Chemistry, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ministry of Health, HCA Affiliated Hospital Houston, Health Promotion Board, Family Planning Victoria, Mayo Clinic, National Institute for Health, Royal Adelaide Hospital, John Hopkins, Kaiser Permanente, American Academy of Family Physicians, Singapore discreet HIV/STDs screening, AIDS-Aufklärung Schweiz, Live journal, Blogspot, Today Coalition for Positive Sexuality, Advocates for Youths Avert, The Well Project, Kids’ Health AP via Yahoo! Singapore news, AsiaOne, Cable News Network, KFOX-TV, Women’s eNews Inc, The Daily Orange, Suite101 Leadership University, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, City University of New York, William College Dictionary, Wikipedia, Howcast, Youtube Good Samaritan Project Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Flixter Bupa UK Google Ebook About , Epigee, Kissmegoodnight, Teen Advisor, WedMD, HubPages, iVillage Limited, eHow, Mama’s Health, MedicineNet Inc, InfoMedSearch, Body, Playnetjay.net, Topix, Healthcommunities.com, Craig Web, Safe Sex Rip n Roll Inc, Rockeby, Mission Pharmacal Company, Tstd Services Group, Revolution Health, Street Directory, Streetdirectory Malaysia Corporate / Online stores Advertisement content Directory Getforme Singapore Miscellaneous / Google Map, AIDS, AnswerBoy, Std Services, STD Unknown Symptoms, STD testing Table 4.3 Different types of websites and websites visited The table shows that respondents were exposed to a myriad of information sources, but not all of were necessarily verified before being published online. Therefore, there is a need to understand how young people assessed the information, especially those from unknown sources. This is 86 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion especially pertinent as Potter’s framework showed that during information seeking, an individual’s locus may be in unconscious mode and therefore, he will automatically take in the information without paying attention to the sources. Therefore, it is necessary for youths to have the requisite media literacy in their information seeking. In the following paragraphs, the chapter looks at how youths conduct filtering, meaning matching and meaning construction in information seeking. 4.3.3 Information seeking Process From the results in the search engines, respondents visited many types of websites; for example, government, education, commercial, non-profit organisation and personal websites, encyclopaedias, forums, and news portals. How did youths get to these pages? What are the strategies and thought processes involved in the clicking of these links? To mention briefly, a typical information seeking scenario in the study which uses a search engine looks like this: Respondents logged onto search engines. They first typed a search string based on the task list. The permutations of search strings could be based on a multitude of reasons. When the search results page was loaded, they clicked on one of the links either based on the titles, by-lines and/or web addresses. They looked at the content presented in the links. At times, they did click on in-links and top bar buttons to move to other relevant pages in the website. However, these actions are seldom carried out. Instead, respondents often returned to the results pages and they would repeat the process again. However, at other times, respondents forgo the factors and instead randomly selected links from the search results page. When they 87 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion found that the links from the search results page were unsuitable, they typed a new search string. Search engines clearly served as a guide for the respondents. For instance, previous studies demonstrate that search engines’ corrections of spelling mistakes have helped younger users in their information seeking. The Yahoo search engine’, used by several respondents, offered guidance in various ways: (1) search aid provided in search box, (2) search aids provided within the search page, like Also Try and Searches related to, refer to Figure 4.5 and (3) the way in which the results were placed. Respondents did click on the search string suggestions provided. Figure 4.5 Examples of search aids When using the search box, respondents may choose to follow the help provided by the platforms. Other than using these search functions, several respondents used the search aid provided by the search engines to correct their spelling mistakes. This happened in the case of Priya, as shown in Figure 4.6. Figures 4.6 Spelling mistakes 88 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion Despite the help rendered by search engines, these aids also proved to be a challenge for respondents. Today, Yahoo’s newer features, like the search assist function, further aid users in their information search. This search assist function does not only provide more specific search terms, but also suggests related concepts. This is particularly helpful when youths have just started learning about a topic. However, at the same time, the search engine’s assistance is almost ubiquitous. Aids behave like advertisements with their availability at the top and bottom of the search engine. Search engines use phrases which are instruction-like such as Also Try, and under Search related to the search string, providing a list of words. Also, as search engines are not foolproof and would not be able to recognise the exact thoughts of the respondent, it becomes a problem when users placed high trust in them. For instance, Ali typed ‘pragnent’ as a search string, and the search engine prompt was also ‘pragnent’. He proceeded to click on this prompt when he was actually looking for the word ‘pregnant’. Therefore, he accepted the word as he was under the impression that it had the correct spelling. Past studies (eg. Hansen, Derry, Resnick & Richardson, 2003; Shenton & Dixon, 2004) show that one of the reasons why youths are unable to answer health questions using the Internet is because of spelling errors. Although this is an isolated case, this issue of literacy remains a crucial and basic issue which must be addressed. The findings show that respondents hold various misconceptions about how websites are listed in search engine results. For instance, in his explanation of websites displayed in search string results, Anthony said that the first few links were usually “credible.” This showed that he believed in the 89 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion information as they were placed in the first few search results of the search engine. Therefore it is pertinent for youths to have strong media literacy. One way to build media literacy could be done by understanding the politics of search engines and having the knowledge that search strings depend on a combination of factors – the design of their search engine’s algorithm, the search engine’s revenue stream and business model, and the original source of the content (Hargittai, 2004). In this way, youths could then make more informed decisions. Findings showed that there was systematic and random clicking of links from the list of search string results by respondents. Also, it is often seen that respondents clicked the first few links. The reason that they provided was not based on rational but intuition. Zarina and Anthony respectively used the phrases “natural reaction” and “it’s sort of instinct” to refer to their clicking on the first link. The next reason given by respondents shows a more rational reasoning and indicative of media literacy. Badrisah explained that “the first one had more information” that is related to the search. This point was elaborated by Aishah that “the information [on the search engine] is ranked” and that “the first one is usually the most informative one.” She explained that “as [she] move[s] down, further down and pick the information….. information [are not as] specific, and ….may not be relevant to what you want.”] Therefore, she gives her opinion that “it’s always the above one that is much more precise.” This is a result of the skill inculcated from regular Internet access. As indicated by their clicking of other links, respondents also mentioned that they looked at indicators such as titles, by-lines and 90 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion addresses. Keegan explained that he looked at “each and every title” from the list of search string results and that his choice of links was “not [a product of] a random search.” This is interesting as the respondent shows that he is a conscious participator in his information seeking. Comparatively, Anthony says that he will “glance through” the by-lines. For one of the entries, he was also compelled to click on a link because of the brevity of its title and web address – “the title is safe sex and [the url] is positive.org.” This showed an indication of randomness to his search choice as well. On another occasion, while respondents thought that their link selections were random, they were seen clicking on the first few search engines, and were even doing so in sequence. This was shown in Amelia’s case. She verbalised that her clicks were usually “random,” however; the video recordings showed that she only clicked on three links. In terms of navigation, most respondents (77.8%) remained on the first page of the text-based search results. Therefore, the remaining 22.2% who moved on to other search pages were probed given this anomaly in their behaviour. For example, Priya, Denisa and Kaijie. Priya clicked until page 3 of the search results for how to apply safe sex, and Denisa clicked until page 2 of the search results for sexually transmitted disease. Denisa explained that she “stop[s] [when] there is enough information. If I feel there is not enough information I look [for] more.” Although in this study, Kaijie only clicked to the second page of search string results, he shared that he had a current record of looking at 31 pages, attributed to his love for music. The incident had occurred during the clampdown of websites for music piracy in Singapore several years ago and he was looking for legal means to download music. 91 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion However, there were differences in using search engines for seeking text and graphics. At the initial stage, Kai Ling showed that her search remained on the first page of the search engine results and that she would not go beyond it. Later, she demonstrated otherwise when the video showed her looking beyond the first results page for images embedded within the search engine. Kai Ling was not able to clearly explain the difference in threshold for text and images and could only declare that “this is different.” To explain respondents’ navigation within websites, there is no exact manner to show how individuals navigate through the websites as their information seeking behaviours differ from person to person. Nonetheless, three types of respondents can be identified: (1) respondents who looked at pages within the websites by clicking on in-line links, links in the top bar and links in the side bar, (2) respondents who only looked at the page referred to by the search engine, and (3) respondents who did a combination of both activities. Respondents choose to either gather more information from very few websites or go through several websites. For example, Cathy and Caleb visited three websites in approximately half an hour. Comparatively, Hannah who carried out the third activity visited eleven websites in two thirds of the time. From the given time spent on each website, alternatively, it can be said that while there were websites that respondents read thoroughly, more often than not, they mostly browsed through the content. In addition, this is evident as (a) respondents may partially or fully scroll down the page that they were viewing, (b) respondents almost immediately clicked on the back arrow to return to search results page, and as mentioned earlier where (c) respondents 92 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion click on in-line links, buttons and arrows within the website. This is the filtering process in seeking information. As there is a myriad of information online, regardless of how they choose, it is necessary to select information to meet their goals. To exemplify, Ali skimmed through the content and stopped to read when he found that “it's interesting, if things are interesting to me then I would find more information about it.” For example, he read on female contraceptives as he “d[id] not know this thing [female condoms] exist[ed].” Another method that Ali used was to scan and skip words that he found relevant to sex and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). For example, he looked out for symptoms, and skipped dental dams. Again, aesthetics will be shown to play a part in information seeking and especially so in the filtering of information. Respondents locate this form of information which they perceive as helpful to convey the information. Talking about a page in Wikipedia, Aisyah said, “sometimes, you will have the graphic images, it helps [to] better understand the [content] on that website” as opposed to those in “other websites.” Kai Ling also added graphics in her Word document. People indicate a preference for images because, as many respondents rationalised, images allow for better recall. For example, Felix was seen searching for a video entitled 12 STIs of Christmas that he had previously viewed. Related particularly to filtering, selected respondents were particularly inclined towards looking at graphics. Compared to text, they liked to look at the images available on the website, and visited video portals. In the first example, Ali explained that although he planned “to see through” the content on the website, he eventually “s[aw] the pictures only.” In his case where the page contained both text and images as shown in Figure 4.7, he 93 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion said: “No la...this one, I never read... [I was attracted to the photos]...I didn’t read at all.” In another instance, Ali had immediately moved from Wikipedia as “a lot of text...then you know, words...I [didn’t] understand la....” Figure 4.7 Ali was attracted to the graphics In another example, to know more about dental dam, Sunil first keyed dental dams into the search box of Youtube instead of Google. This showed his preference for moving images. His presentation of data was also filled with graphic representations. Past studies have opposing views with several youths’ information seeking studies suggesting that the aesthetics factor is salient, and other studies suggesting that content plays a significant role in information seeking. In this study, the above illustrations extracted from the interviews show similarities to past literature (eg. Clark & Slotta, 2000; Eysenbach, Powell, Kuss & Sa, 2002; Fallis & Frické, 2002; Haddow, 2003; Hong, 2006; Kress, 2003) as different respondents still hold different preferences. Given that advertisements are usually graphical in nature, it will be discussed next. With regards to advertisements, the links clicked were (a) 94 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion sponsored links – presented in a box at the top and bottom of search engine results page, and (b) Ads – presented within content, refer to Figure 4.8. Past studies show that people generally choose to avoid advertisements. Most respondents in this study did not click on the advertisements while seeking information. Nonetheless, there were respondents who did click on these links. These respondents were Aisyah who just finished studying at a centralised institution, Cathy from NAFA, Priya who is awaiting her ‘O’ level results, and Jessica, Ingrid and Keegan who are from ITE. These respondents are those from the lower education levels. Figure 4.8 Ads presented within content As clicking on advertisements was atypical, respondents who did so were further queried during the interviews. These respondents explained that they did not notice the heading of Ads by Google, Sponsored site and AIDS and HIV Ads. For example, Aishah clicked on a link under the heading of Ads by Google, which led to a list of links, and clicked on one of the links. In another instance, Ingrid clicked on Condom under the heading AIDS and HIV Ads, refer to Figure 4.9, left box, which is placed within the content. Comparatively, the advertisement in Figure 4.9, right box, is prominent and easily identified as an advertisement. 95 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion Figure 4.9 Ads presented within content Keegan said that he “will not click on ads, will definitely not click on ads if he knows it is one.” The recording showed that had clicked on an advertisement link which opened to a list of links. When he saw this page, he had closed it without clicking on any links. However, the video recordings showed that he did not notice that he clicked on an advertisement page. In fact, he did not seem to recognise that he had clicked on link. When I asked him to describe the page, he simply referred to it as a page that could provide him links relevant to the information he was searching. As the video recording showed him closing the page immediately, I asked him the reason for this action. Instead of giving the reason that it was an advertisement page, he explained that he closed the page because he was looking for the word STD and it was not on the page. He did not notice that he was on an advertisement page. In another instance, Priya happened to click on a link listed as a sponsored site. Priya was asked if she would click on a sponsored site. She replied with a query, “What’s a sponsored site?” Therefore, this illustration demonstrates that it has become difficult to distinguish between text links and 96 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion advertisement links. In these instances, advertisements blend in with the content, resulting respondents to click on the link unintentionally. These advertisements were not explicitly differentiated by colours or boxes. The above illustrations support Potter’s argument (2004) that distinguishing between various messages has become increasingly problematic. In information filtering, respondents should know they are supposed to look for information that are relevant and reliable. However, using Badrisah’s case to illustrate, when she happened to be on a website that had contact information and when asked if she saw the information, her response was: “I just glanced; not important.” She said that when she was looking for the information, she “did not think of who wrote [the content on the website].” This shows a flaw in youths’ information seeking as although they are supposed to be looking for information and verifying the robustness or credibility and reliability of the information, they do not. Instead, Badrisah had automatically assumed that the online information is correct. She likened the Internet to traditional media with gatekeepers when she said that if “people post[ed] [information] online and no one corrected it, obviously it should be correct.” While several youths did a systematic web searching, it was certainly difficult to maintain this system in their information seeking process. Youths were mainly concerned about getting the content. For respondents who opened the links in new tab and moved to them while content in other pages were loading, respondents appeared to be lost during their search. A case in point, Zarina had opened a few tabs at one go. Having done this, a limitation observed from this action is that when she was asked what website she had looked at, she consistently mentioned that “she did not notice the website 97 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion names.” In another instance, Jamal did not systematically close tabs after reading. As a result, the recordings showed that he did not read all the opened tabs but he did not notice this. Pockets of information seeking thoughts are extracted as follows: Aisyah said that she would “look for key words and then, from the website alone look....for more important and deem relevant for the task.” And also, when I first look for the information for task 1, I could find other information related to task 2 so I could just go back to the same web site and get the information.” On the other hand, Ali said when he found the information to be “interesting,” he “would find more information about it.” From here, it is found that respondents looked for key words from websites, and continued looking for information on things personally categorised by respondents as interesting. Lastly, there were 2 websites that were prominent in the information seeking. Firstly, the website Condom Essential Wear, when visited, retained the respondents for a longer period compared to other websites. The videos showed that respondents clicked on most links placed in its left bar. To illustrate, refer to Figure 4.10 to see Jonathan reading all 16 pages of one of its links. In other cases, Adeela and Sunil clicked on all 7 pages of another of its link. These acts also indicate with more certainty that respondents read rather than simply browse through the pages. 98 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion Figure 4.10 Pages that were possibly read instead browsed by respondents Next is the prominence of Wikipedia in looking for information. In fact, several students even shared that they often utilise Wikipedia as a source of information for assignments. 61.1% visited Wikipedia - 19 respondents visited Wikipedia from clicking on the search links, 2 directly keyed the web addresses and 1 had the link in his bookmark list. As from the list of search results, Wikipedia was often clicked by respondents in the initial stage of the sessions. Respondents were subsequently probed even when it was not visited by them to identify a possible trend. The visits were purposeful and accidental – respondents retrieved Wikipedia from their bookmark list or as mentioned, clicked from search string results. Wikipedia is viewed as a useful and reliable information resource as ““[i]t is easy to just find the information from Wikipedia because the details are usually there,” said Aisyah. Amelia did not visit Wikipedia when looking for information, nonetheless when asked during the interview, she said she had previously visited the page and it was recommended by her teachers. They informed her that “it is mostly for definitions” and “so she usually use[d] [Wikipedia] when she want[ed] to know 99 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion the meaning of a word.” However, she would not intentionally use the website and would only do so if it appeared as one of the search engine results. Similarly, both respondents from the Institute of Technical education (ITE), Ingrid and Kai Ling, called Wikipedia “a dictionary” and would visit it to “get the meaning.” There were two types of respondents – one group who could accept that the content on the website could be contributed by the common people and the other group who found it to be unreliable. The earlier group recognised and purposely chose Wikipedia from the search results to be an information source. They explained that the website was recommended by friends, classmates and teachers. A case in point, Aisyah used Wikipedia because “it is highly recommended by [her] friends, classmates who are very good in their English and general knowledge about things ... they recommended me to surf Wikipedia.” Wikipedia has been “useful in giving them general knowledge about things that they want to know of.” In addition, she said “[her] teachers in class also sort of recommended [use of Wikipedia] and other encyclopaedias.” This showed that she was socially influenced by them. Among the respondents, most of them appeared to be aware that any individual can create and edit the entries. Anthony said that he knew Wikipedia “may not be exactly accurate [and] anyone can edit it." However, he explained that in the event of "nonsense" information, "the moderators [would] remove it; like almost instantly," and therefore this allowed him to "sort of trust” the information presented in Wikipedia. However, this enthusiasm for participatory process of knowledge creation and information sharing is not 100 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion shared among all respondents. In fact, another group of respondents were wary when they previously received “unreliable information” on the Internet and specifically mentioned Wikipedia. These respondents opted out of visiting Wikipedia which they viewed as being not credible. For instance, Kai Ling and Ellen mentioned that they would not visit Wikipedia as they did not trust the website since it had previously provided them with wrong information. Hence, as a result of prior knowledge, respondents are more careful in receiving information from selected websites. Similarly, Keegan labelled Wikipedia as “not stable” when he was shown that it was possible to edit the website. Initially, he thought that only the person who edits the page can see the additions. However, when I informed him that “anyone in the world” can make the changes, he mentioned that he would not use the website. Also, few respondents display the advanced technological fluency of the Internet through their use of the search engine. Only 1 respondent indicated having skills in using search engines by using Boolean search. Jamal typed the search string safe sex + Ministry of Health in the search engine. From the search results, he clicked on a page from the Health Promotion Board website. He again demonstrated his knowledge of how websites worked when he removed extensions from the website address to become http://www.hpb.gov.sg. Also worth mentioning is that Jamal used Flock browser, one of the new browsers meant for social networking. This exemplify that the respondent has more than basic IT skills and utilised them in his information seeking. Other than typing their own search strings, respondents were also observed clicking on search string suggestions provided by the search 101 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion engines. For instance, Keegan opened in a new tab, Also try: signs and symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases suggested by Yahoo. Several respondents showed systematic clicking of links while other respondents clicked randomly. In the next illustration, Zarina appeared uncertain of the credibility of the information on forum. Using the search engine, Zarina had typed for flowerpod forum, a website that she had "stumbled onto" when conducting research for a school project on anorexic using the Google search engine. Therefore, she was familiar with its content and knew that it contained health, beauty and "relationship" issues. She said that "anybody can just comment in forums" as "it is very open to anyone", "you get comments from different walks of life....but sometimes it is not credible....but it's good if you want more opinions.” Therefore, to her, it is a form of supplementary data. However, she While she displayed media literacy through her understanding of the nature of forums, she did have misplaced conceptions of the credibility of forums. Specifically, she was of the opinion that "they don't really use real names in forums right so they will really really share their true experiences" and that they would not “lie” since it was merely the “sharing of everyday experience[s]." Zarina’s last opinion was echoed by Ali. He said “why should they lie about these things man? They gain nothing actually if they lie or what because people don't know them.” This shows that Ali showed his trust in forum content and appeared to assume that sources are not lying. This was the first time that Ali had visited this forum which appeared in the search engine results. I asked for his view of the information in consideration that anyone may write in forums and therefore if he believed the information he 102 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion read. He explained that content in the forum are “the truth” as it is “what they experience[d], [and] what they kn[e]w.” In addition, he further explored the idea of sharing by saying that they also asked questions on forums. Nonetheless, he admitted that only “[the forum writers] know [whether] it's true or not.” Next, the chapter will look at the issue of sufficient content versus information credibility in relation to media literacy in youths’ information seeking. Findings show that there were two types of respondents – one group was concerned with the process of gathering sufficient or relevant information for the allocated tasks they were given while the other group was conscious of the nature of the information to be gathered and their target audience. There is also a problem in assessing credibility among respondents as it was seen that, while respondents mentioned the importance of seeking credible content online, the video footages of their information seeking did not substantiate these claims. Firstly, I shall elaborate on credibility assessments. In moving from website to website, respondents mentioned the need to check on information sources. However, there was usually for a gap between what respondents knew they had to do and what they would actually do. As for navigation within websites, respondents said that they did not notice details such as author’s name and the last updated dates on articles. Aside from failing to notice the dates that information was updated, respondent Ali implied the lack of importance in noticing updated dates. He said the content of sexual information was “the same” over time. This shows a lack of literacy as he was 103 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion unable to see the importance for content to be updated with new diseases and medical advancements. Past literature suggests indicators which show whether respondents make credibility assessments in information seeking, including judging information by dates and the presence/absence of broken links. However, in this study, this is not so. In fact, no respondents mentioned looking at the dates or addressing the broken links that they encounter. When respondents see 404 pages, they would simply click on the back arrow and continue to view and browse other sections of the websites. Unless prompted, respondents also did not mention Wikipedia’s warning about quality standards. Therefore, although the ‘signs’ are demarcated for respondents, they are deeply involved in their thoughts that they do not stop to think and assess the information that they were viewing. Literature has shown that there are instances where one is required to verify or re-evaluate information making judgments. Hence, cross-referencing multiple resources was one of the most common information-seeking strategies employed by the respondents. Several respondents in the study did not make credibility judgments based on information from a single source, but instead looked at several websites. The manner in which respondents crossreferenced the content among websites was by ensuring that they contained “phrases [that] are similar.” A case in point was Aishah who opened different browser pages to do a “cross-reference” – to compare if the information on the different websites is “reliable or not.” When she read information that she deemed potentially “useful and [then] when [she] read[s] it again, [and she finds that] some phrases are the same”, she concluded that “the [content] of 104 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion the information [were the same].” And “when [she] see[s] the phrases are similar, [she] think[s] that it is reliable [information].” She further linked it to credibility and said that “as the information links to each other, [it] further enhances the credibility of the website so like I said the Wikipedia is also linked to Google. The information are somewhat similar.” This strategy is important because as Aisyah explained, she felt the need to check “[b]ecause some web sites can be manipulated.” Hence, she elaborated that “as readers we need to know where we are getting our facts and information from so when we search for more information, we actually know where is the benchmark for this kind of information and whether it is reliable to a large extent.” The method which this respondent used approximates the contextual approach as explained in the literature review (Meola, 2004) and occurs when youths consider the source to be correct as it has similar information to another source. However, in his framework, Potter (2002; 2008) mentioned availability heuristics as one of the traps in constructing meaning while seeking information. There was also an instance where Aisyah mentioned she was looking for the author of the website and the source. However, it did not show her looking at the about us page. This was in fact the US Center for Disease Control website which she assumed “is information that [she is] getting from erm, a center that is doing research on these things.” When the screen showed the Wikipedia page with boxes that says: the articles requires “cleanup to meet Wikipedia’s quality standards” and “does not cite any references or sources,” I intentionally paused the video and asked the respondent if she has comments about Wikipedia. However, she did not make any comments about these boxes. 105 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion All the above illustrations demonstrate deficient media literacy skills where although Aisyah claimed that credibility of information is important, she did not have the know-how to do so. She is certainly able to recognise the importance of credibility assessments when dealing with online information, which goes to show although youths may possess the requisite media literacy skills, they may not necessarily put them into practice / use. With regards to the earlier issue of cross-referencing, Keegan rationalised that as the Internet allowed for duplication of content; “a lot [of people] may just copy and paste from other sites,” therefore, the situation had become such that it “[didn’t] matter who wrote this [article].” This shows that he is discerning as he felt a lack in need to check for content credibility among similar-looking content. Next, one way of conducting credibility assessment is for respondents to make distinctions between the different types of websites. This is conducted by looking at their extensions of web addresses. For instance, government and organisation websites are recognised by their .org or .gov. extensions. In past studies, these extensions have been shown to be reliable or credible indicators for Internet sources. Agnes demonstrated media literacy when she said that she would go to websites that are “more formal” like .org or .gov. because they are “more reliable.” This demonstrates that Agnes identifies the importance of such website by using heuristics to determine credibility of information. In another case, Aisyah seemed to show preference for content from the .co.uk extensions. However, she reasoned that “it's not..ah..it's like specifically [didn’t] need to choose a country .... usually, this information will come out from UK or usually Western countries because they 106 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion are more open-minded about safe sex.” This shows that she also use heuristics to determine credibility of information. It is significant because Aisyah showed that she is perceptive as she understands that .uk indicates the origins of the website. This is in line with Potter’s (2004) idea of meaning matching in which she matches the information she knows about UK in the context of people in the country to be more open-minded. On another website, it was pointed out to Badrisah that one of the web pages was an article written by Dr. John Hui. She was asked if it mattered the article was written by him and she replied, “Yes, because he’s a doctor.” Similarly, this further enhanced the point of the lack of credibility assessment as it was only upon prompt that she realises such information would be useful because the person was in fact a doctor. However, she failed to make the connection herself. A person with higher level of media literacy would be able to evaluate and try to do a meaning matching from the content that he was exposed to. 4.4. Personal Influences and Nature of Information In Chapter two, past literature shows that personal influences play a part in respondents’ decision making. As respondents were restricted to using the Internet for this study, personal influences came from contacts via instant messenger (IM) and forum pages. Past literature indicates that Instant Messenger (IM) is a popular social tool consumed daily. Despite the research settings, it is significant that 22.2 % (N = 8) respondents logged onto IM, specifically Windows Live Messenger. In total, 6 respondents chatted with their friends while conducting their 107 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion information seeking activity. From the online conversations, 5 respondents mentioned to their friends that they were undergoing a study. From there, 2 respondents, Anthony and Faisal had asked their friends for assistance. In addition, Anthony had also logged onto a general forum, VibeMB and send postings, and this became part of his information seeking process. Using the case of Anthony, I will elaborate on how personal influences affect or do not affect information seeking in this study. Anthony first looked through his list of IM friends to sieve for people “who may know” about the topic as they “may have [prior] experiences.” However, at this initial stage, the relevant people were not online. At a later stage, Anthony’s friend, who is a forum user of Vibe MB immediately dropped him a line on IM when he saw Anthony’s forum posting. To explain Anthony’s use of the forum, he said that: it “serves as a platform for me to [pause] clarify, sort of, clarify whatever I have seen because what’s on the website may not necessarily like be entirely true so I’ll just go to the forum and ask, oh, I read this, this, this; is this true?” He said that the forum is “a good alternative to IM” as “people are already online” and “they are all over the world.” He added that “you’re almost guaranteed to have an instant reply.” Anthony posted a new topic in the forum under the sex folder. In the first posting, he asked for recommendations on safe sex. He then occasionally checked for responses while he looked for information on other websites. He received several replies for his postings and followed up on the leads provided by his forum ‘friends’. For instance, when someone posted condoms, which he mentioned to "obviously knew," he posted a question for clarification on plastic wraps for females. He explained that he 108 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion saw this on another website during his information seeking process. Anthony explained that in seeking information for sexual health, he uses "common sense ...... Like officially learnt in school; it comes into play and you remember then you tally... this is not true...". He also added that the online information helped to "supplement ... what little [he had] learnt [in school]" and that it served as a check. He gave the illustration using condoms where he said "for example, he know, [he] must use condoms" and a website stated that he should use condoms; "then it matches, it tallies" but for more information like "what to do about using condoms," he would look for it on websites. Also, when the forum users and friends on IM provided information that is “similar and parallel to the websites,” Anthony believed that “it is correct” since “if more people think this way, it should be accurate." These examples show he is influenced by heuristics which Potter (2004) explains to be a pitfall in information seeking. Nonetheless, Sundar (2008) explains that this is normal youths’ information seeking behaviour – to deem information to be credible and trustworthy when they originate from various sources, as long as there’s no discrepancy At the same time, being part of the forum community, Anthony noticed that there was an establishment of "identity" of contributors within this forum. For example, there are forum users who he said "post[ed] nonsense" and have a "reputation" for doing so. The person who mentioned dental dam in her post to Anthony has this reputation. He classified it as "nonsense" when he saw the picture and its relation to dentist. When pointed to him that there is relevance of dental dams through the video playback, he explained that he "did not see" the information and he was more focused on the picture. 109 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion Therefore, this incident showed how the reputation of the user made it an additional reason for him to disbelieve her so quickly. With this being so, this personal influence had stopped him from seeking information on dental dam which is a relevant method for safe sex. 4.5. Conclusion Chapter Four shows that information seeking is a complex process of (a) logging into search engines, thinking of search strings, and choosing of websites to visit from search results, (b) typing web addresses directly, and (c) logging into IM. Respondents may choose to thoroughly read or quickly scan a page, and carefully decide or bookmark a website as an impromptu act. While seeking information, respondents may choose to multi-task or conduct one task at a time. The process is much dependent on role of one’s personal locus, knowledge structure and skills. In the next chapter, I will discuss my findings in the context of extant literature, explain the need to shore up media literacy levels for young Singaporeans, and discuss the study’s limitations. 110 Chapter 5 Conclusion 111 Chapter Five – Conclusion Chapter Five Conclusion The research reported in this study is carried out during December 2008 to January 2009 in NUS in which 36 respondents were interviewed. In this concluding chapter, the paper recapitulates the key findings from the sessions, explains the limitations, and offers suggestions for future research. 5.1 Key findings in relation to literature Media literacy is a continuum, and that the strength of individuals’ perspective on media determines the various points they are placed along this continuum. The study shows that the strength of youths’ media literacy – personal locus, knowledge structures, and skills – influence them in their information seeking using the Internet. Findings show that all respondents displayed basic exposure to the Internet in terms of browsing websites. There are respondents who show online skills of greater breadth and depth when they show discernment in information processing – through filtering, meaning matching and meaning construction. At the same time, there are also respondents who show challenges in seeking sexual health information. In this section, I will summarise the salient points from the study in the context of extant literature. I will highlight the challenges which respondents face in their information seeking exercise. Firstly, the way young Singaporeans sought sexual health information online depended on how they treated the goal-oriented tasks. Hence, their behaviour appeared to vary according to their attitudes. Also, findings show that youths’ personal loci differ depending on the context. 112 Chapter Five – Conclusion The next factor that affects the manner in which young Singaporeans seek sexual health information online is their knowledge structure. As the respondents are Singaporean students, all of them would have received sex education in school. However, the experience of sex education classes was unequal among the respondents with some recollecting the lessons more clearly than others. Nonetheless, respondents have also received such information from other media sources. Youths’ use their knowledge structure are illustrated from their use of search strings and the way that they present their data findings. This use of the knowledge structure may be conscious or unconscious. This is because at times, respondents seem to be deeply entrenched in conducting the task that they do not stop to reflect on the data collected. Therefore, it is important for youths to have a stronger knowledge structure. In so doing, in their state of automaticity, they would still be able to sieve relevant information. The third factor which affects information seeking is respondents’ skills. Findings show that all respondents used search engine to gather information instead of going to reliable and well-known health portals. This is despite the fact that Table 3.2a showed 80.5% respondents had previously looked for general health information. Nonetheless, only 52.8% had looked for such information using the Internet, and 55.6% had looked for sexual health information. Therefore, it may explain why there is no known health portal they would immediately visit. This is similar to past literature on information seeking related to health. Hence, being that they have limited knowledge on repute health websites, the challenge youths faced in seeking information online is that they then have difficulty choosing the links for reliable health 113 Chapter Five – Conclusion information. This is clearly demonstrated from the wide range of websites that were eventually visited by respondents in the study. Also, a challenge that selected youths seem to face is reliance of search engines. For a majority of the respondents, they know the existence of local health websites. Yet eventually, only 2 respondents had directly typed for the Ministry of Health (MOH) and Health Promotion Board (HPB) website, while 1 respondent typed Health Promotion Board, and another respondent typed SGH as their search strings. Hence, instead of using these reliable websites, they immediately utilised search engines. Another problem identified in the study is that there remain a small but significant number of youths who do not demonstrate understanding of how search results are positioned. Instead, they looked at the search engine as an existing universal repository. Another challenge faced by respondents is that they surf the Internet with the belief that there are gatekeepers who are regulating the Internet like traditional media. Respondents appear to believe that there is an “invisible hand” as they believe in the strength of the Internet community. They mentioned that someone will quickly point any misinformation, and the content will be automatically removed. Being so, they do not weigh the reliability of the content on the Internet. There were several respondents who were more concerned on convenience and speed. The video recordings showed that they had only looked at the website pages yet bookmarked the page fairly quickly. They spent a relatively longer time on websites based on their aesthetic appeal. 114 Chapter Five – Conclusion This challenge that youths face in relation to aesthetics is also present for advertisements. When advertisements are woven into the very fabric of these online worlds in the form of banners at the top and sides of websites, they are easily recognisable by respondents. However, when advertisements are embedded within the websites and did not look like banners, it is difficult to be recognised. Therefore, it is pertinent for youths to have increased media literacy to differentiate between the different types of information that is available on the Internet. Therefore, although the interview sessions indicate that young people are equipped with basic media literacy skills, there is still a gap in youths’ information seeking. Also, often, youths become absorbed in only gathering information that they do not stop to evaluate them. Therefore, youths still need to be equipped with strong knowledge structures, to be in control of their locus in looking for information, and to continually upgrade their skills through frequent use. In order to aid these youths, the school curriculum also needs to move from the trend of functional media literacy to that of critical literacy. It is hoped that the findings of this study have contributed to the sparse literature of sexual health information seeking among youths. The theoretical framework on media literacy is chosen to aid in the understanding of the complexities involved in the cognitive processes of information seeking online. 115 Chapter Five – Conclusion 5.2 Limitations and Future Research This research encounters several limitations. Firstly, the information search was only based on the given tasks. Their search strings were also influenced by the text in the task sheet. Future studies could consider measuring young Singaporeans’ information seeking of other types of sexual health information. The second limitation is the sampling. Although the paper plans for a representative study, there may be other external validity issues. Thus, further work is required to verify the findings among this age group and new work could be conducted on a larger youth population in Singapore. There is also a limitation in the dissertation writing. Despite the rich data gathered from 36 respondents, only selected respondents’ replies could eventually be fitted as illustrations in the preceding chapters. Nonetheless, the chosen quotes and examples were chosen as they were exemplary of the overall study. Lastly, although the assessment of the credibility of the information was investigated, the accuracy of the information that was eventually chosen by the respondents was not thoroughly examined. 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International Nursing Review, 51, 15–22. 133 [...]... in which young Singaporeans seek sexual health information online In this section, I discuss how the respondents’ information- seeking skills vary with their exposure to the Internet and demonstrate the challenges that youths face in seeking sexual health information online 82 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion 4.3.1 Search engines Not surprisingly, search engines are an integral part of the respondents’... and Discussion seeing them in traditional media, noticing them in other websites’ content, and talking about sex with their peers Keegan said: “secondary school la, sex education” and “a lot of outside advertise[ments] on “TV, brochures.” The interviews correspond to Chapter 1 which elaborates on the background information of the available sources of sexual health information Therefore in seeking information. .. was unknown to them and tried to gather further information 4.2.3 Keying of web addresses Respondents also directly keyed in addresses of websites which they had either heard of or previously used in their information seeking More than half of the respondents (58.3%) keyed in web addresses which includes blogs, search engines, government health websites, forums, online dictionary, and email accounts... Livejournal and Blogspot, YouTube, Gmail, Hotmail, Google, Yahoo, Dictionary, Wikipedia, Ministry of Health, and forum Vibe MB For example, Jamal typed moh.gov.sg to gather information from the Ministry of Health s website, Anthony visited Vibe MB which is a forum to receive feedback from members in the online community and Zarina used Technorati to look for blogs as she had remembered previously seeing information. .. knowledge of sexual health information seeking Respondents’ prior knowledge in gathering information is also affecting their information seeking in this study According to the respondents, this was the way they usually conduct their information seeking for schools or other uses Therefore, it is ‘brought’ into this information seeking Respondents had different ways in planning to present their information. .. government websites like the Health Promotion Board, the Ministry of Health and Singapore General Hospital In such circumstances, respondents were clearly making good use of their pre- 75 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion existing knowledge because they recognised that the websites of government agencies which deal with health matters are likely to provide credible health information 4.2.2 Navigation... influences of her teachers and friends Also, she had previously tried 84 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion MSN’s search box function and explained that she was “unfamiliar with it and went to Yahoo.” Respondents also gathered information using multiple search engines or multiple types of search engines For instance, Priya typed how to apply safe sex and sexually transmitted diseases in Yahoo, Google and. .. results page, and as mentioned earlier where (c) respondents 92 Chapter Four – Findings and Discussion click on in-line links, buttons and arrows within the website This is the filtering process in seeking information As there is a myriad of information online, regardless of how they choose, it is necessary to select information to meet their goals To exemplify, Ali skimmed through the content and stopped... looking for the information, she “did not think of who wrote [the content on the website].” This shows a flaw in youths’ information seeking as although they are supposed to be looking for information and verifying the robustness or credibility and reliability of the information, they do not Instead, Badrisah had automatically assumed that the online information is correct She likened the Internet... respondents can be seen incorporating prior knowledge from traditional media, such as magazines and television shows Yuping visited the online versions of Cosmopolitan and Glamour, Felix visited Men’s Health and Zarina was looking for clips of television programmes on Get Real and Tyra Banks which she said contained relevant information Zarina tried looking for those clips as she had previously seen such issues ... the topic of sexual health It will demonstrate how young Singaporeans employ different approaches in seeking sexual health information online It will also facilitate our understanding of the thought... by young Singaporeans in their online information seeking on this topic With this, the chapter will address the research questions: (1) the manner in which young Singaporeans seek sexual health. .. consisting of goals and drives, plays an important part in information seeking (Potter, 2004; 2008) In this research, the manner in which young Singaporeans seek sexual health information online was similarly