Trust in Digital Media
The other day, I have participated in an event about Social Media; opportunities and risks from the perspective of corporations. During the presentation and especially in the following discussions we touched the topic of “trust”. I think this topic is generic for the wider use of electronic media and in my eyes worthwhile to share here.
The trigger of the discussion was the statement, or if you agree the fact, that people trust posts on social networking sites more than posts coming directly from corporations. Looking at this, it is even more astonishing that we trust posts from people we have never met before; these people might be friends of friends, but still, aren’t those people strangers to us?
This provoked some questions for me: why are we inclined to make actions based on strangers’ posts? Is this really based on trust? Is trust important? I don’t have answers to all the questions but during that event, we have shared some interesting thoughts.
One of the attending experts made a statement that I think is great; and it could lead to some answers:
“We trust when we can influence!”
Because we can comment, because we can (micro-) blog, because we can edit wiki pages; therefore we trust these media, we can rely on the the contributions of our peers.
Taking this thought a bit further, I would suggest some mechanics which could explain this behaviour:
- most of the social media abolish hierarchy and instead, the community is establishing the validation among peers
- the community is also self-correcting the content; contributions from the crowd are balancing the opinions on electronic platforms
- further, social media platforms provide context to information; conversations around topics are enriching and validating information
In practical terms, these thoughts might lead to a better understanding of people’s participation in electronic media. And we can design the functionality, the experience and the governance accordingly.
Do you have further thoughts on trust in electronic media?
2 Comments so far
- Tim Wieringa
Hi Eric
Thank you very much for sharing your experience; indeed very interesting.
I think in the near future, people will get more aware of the issues of disclosing private date; but I assume they will still be willing to provide it in a controlled, closed area which they can influence. As example, people are getting more aware of the privacy features of Facebook and making use of it.
At the same time, people will also appreciate transparency and have less problem disclosing for example their postal address; this is in most countries very public data anyway.
I hope I can bring more interesting thoughts to you soon.
Regards, Tim
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Hi Tim, that is indeed a very interesting thought: ‘we trust when we can influence’. I am currently participating as a moderator in a dutch government social media experiment. For the very first time the Culture department is performing an online discussion on archival policies for the national and local governmetal institutions. What strikes me is that participants who expose themselves fully in sometimes very personal expressions on twitter and blogpages, at the same time criticize the organizing departemantal bureau about using their personal (postal) adresses. So there is a kind of biassed attitude, where personal exposure is OK and trusted as long as the participant has the feeling he or she has an influence on the outcome. And at the same time is reluctant to give information on less personal (= less risky) matters as postal adresses. So, yes, I think it is important that the use of social media as a policy tool is being used very careful in the way participants may have the feeling that they are ‘in control’.
Love to read about your further thoughts on this subject!
Posted on September 28, 2010 at 04:10 PM | Comment permalink