What Makes an Answer Feel Credible: An Empirical Study on Information Credibility in Social Q&A Community

ABSTRACT Although the Social Q&A community has gained increasing popularity in solving issues in various fields, how users perceive the information credibility on this platform remains inconclusive. This paper developed the model to discuss the relationship between linguistic cues/perceived reputation and information credibility. Methodologically, the paper used an online survey to collect 759 units of valid data and test the model through the SEM technique. The results showed that perceived specificity, logic, relevance, and reputation are positively related to information credibility, while perceived expressed emotion showed a negative association. These findings help to inspire answer contributors to employ strategies to make their answers more credible.