What makes your message credible? : A descriptive study on the effect of source credibility on message credibility.

Message credibility is a commonly used term to indicate how well the recipients approve the message. Source credibility, on the other hand is a “communicator's positive characteristics that affect the receiver's acceptance of a message” (Ohanian, 1990, pp 41). It has been stated that an effect is apparent between the two, therefore the purpose of this study is to describe the effect of source credibility characteristics; trustworthiness, expertise and attractiveness on message credibility. The study utilized a quantitative research approach in order to describe the effect between the concepts. The researchers used a Likert-scale online questionnaire as the data collection method. The findings of this research suggest that all of the characteristics within the source credibility model are proven to have a significant and positive effect on the message credibility