If immediacy is inextricably linked to online journalism, the question arises how journalists organise credibility within that space. Classical studies of credibility point to the sender, the communication channel or the message with which that credibility can be established. But credibility is not only reserved for the producer concerned: there are online network effects that determine credibility and consumers themselves also actively work with the information they are offered.

Credibility is not a product, but the result of a process of negotiation between producers and (news) consumers. How and under what circumstances do both parties reach an agreement, is researched based on a relatively new online, journalistic genre: the liveblog. The objective is to test journalistic strategies of credibility on understanding and acceptance by news consumers. With use of a genre analysis, content analysis and semi-experiments, insights are gained into mechanisms for journalistic credibility under immediate circumstances.