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PERSONALIZATION
(Based in part on work by Sundar, Ness and Marathe at Penn State University )
Research confirms that personalized content tends to generate more positive attitudes because users perceive the content to be more relevant. At the same time, it has been shown that Web users who chose their own news stories often rated the content lower in quality, newsworthiness and likeability than those who read the same stories without choices. Why? Perhaps because the notion of “self-as-source" fosters positive attitudes by invoking a greater sense of "me-ness."
The PICK design strives to extend the concept of personalization beyond user choices or just aggregation of information. Effective personalization may also be how content in a multimedia story relates to you and your need for information, how other citizens are reporting and/or discussing the story, and your particular style of processing information. Multimedia journalism provides countless unique opportunities for the user to determine preferences at the level not possible with traditional media. Research has also found that merely manipulating the level of choice still may not enhance positive attitudes if the content is judged to be “mediocre.”
