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Perspektiven und Trends der Privatheit
Abstract
Privatheit ist gewinnt vor allem in einem sozialen und kommunikativen Kontext an Bedeutung. Die Perspektiven und Trends der Privatheit beziehen sich also immer darauf, welchen Stellenwert Fragen des Datenschutzes, der Selbst-Preisgabe und der informationellen Selbstbestimmung in unserem Alltag haben. Wir möchten in diesem Beitrag aus verschiedenen Blickwinkeln die sich verändernden sozialen und kommunikativen Bedingungen und Umgangsweisen der Privatheit betrachten: Zunächst werden wir die Bedeutung interpersonaler Kommunikation für die Wahrnehmung, Aneignung und Nutzung neuer privatheitsgefährdender Medientechnologien diskutieren. Anschließend gehen wir auf die Ergebnisse einer inhaltsanalytischen Untersuchung der deutschen Berichterstattung zum Thema Privatheit ein. Aufbauend auf diese Verortung neuer Technologien in die kommunikative Umwelt der Menschen gehen wir exemplarisch auf individuelles Privatheitsverhalten im Kontext von Suchmaschinen und sozialen Netzwerkseiten ein. Wir schließen diesen Beitrag mit einer Reflexion der Forschungsergebnisse hinsichtlich aktueller gesellschaftlicher und technologischer Trends sowie politischer Entwicklungen.
... Vgl. Mühlichen (2018: S. 34 f.); in der Praxis konnten diese Effekte in Experimenten jüngst nicht nachgewiesen werden, vgl.Braun et al. (2018). ...
The increasing complexity of networked systems casts doubt on the self-determination in the digital sphere. Externally predetermined algorithms and practices of third-party data processing raise questions as to the protection of and the danger to autonomy and the freedom of expression. At the same time, the legal, political, ethical, social, and economic responsibility for the consequences of digital transformation processes for societies, collectives, and individuals remains undetermined. Precisely in this field, the present interdisciplinary volume would like to stimulate a discussion on responsibilities and impact assessments; in which regard, it researches problems in digital cultures, tackles possible solutions, and discusses conflicts of economic, political, and social systems. With contributions by Anna K. Bernzen, Barbara Büttner & Carsten Ochs, Stephan Dreyer, Hans-Christian Gräfe & Andrea Hamm, Hermann Jakobi & Elizaveta Saponchik, Thomas Krämer-Badoni & Jens Crueger, Wulf Loh, Tim Raupach & Phillip Siedenburg, Caroline Richter & Christian Lenk, Alexander Schiff, Julia Schröder, Lea Watzinger and Florian Wittner
Social networking sites have become an online realm where users are exposed to news about current affairs. People mainly encounter news incidentally because they are re-distributed by users whom they befriended or follow on social media platforms. In my dissertation project, I draw on shared reality theory in order to examine the question of how the relationship to the news endorser, the person who shares news content, determines social influence on opinion formation about shared news. The shared reality theory posits that people strive to achieve socially shared beliefs about any object and topic because of the fundamental epistemic need to establish what is real. Social verification of beliefs in interpersonal communication renders uncertain and ambiguous individual perceptions as valid and objectively true. However, reliable social verification may be provided only by others who are regarded as epistemic authority, in other words as someone whose judgment one can trust. People assign epistemic authority particularly to socially close others, such as friends and family, or to members of their in-group. I inferred from this that people should be influenced by the view of a socially close news endorser when forming an opinion about shared news content but not by the view of a socially distant news endorser. In Study 1, a laboratory experiment (N = 226), I manipulated a female news endorsers social closeness by presenting her as an in-group or out-group member. Participants opinion and memory of a news article were not affected by the news endorsers opinion in either of the conditions. I concluded that the news article did not elicit motivation to strive for shared reality because participants were confident about their own judgment. Therefore, they did not rely on the news endorsers view when forming an opinion about the news topic. Moreover, the results revealed that participants had stronger trust in the news endorser when she expressed a positive (vs. negative) opinion about the news topic, while social closeness to the news endorser did not predict trust. On the one hand, this is in line with the social norm of sharing positive thoughts and experiences on social networking sites: adherence to the positivity norm results in more favorable social ratings. On the other hand, my findings indicate that participants generally had a positive opinion about the topic of the stimulus article and thus had more trust in news endorsers who expressed a similar opinion. In Study 2, an online experiment (N = 1, 116), I exposed participants to a news post by a relational close vs. relational distant news endorser by having them name a close or distant actual Facebook friend. There was a small influence of the news endorsers opinion on participants thought and opinion valence irrespective of whether the news endorser was a close or distant friend. The finding was surprising, particularly because participants reported stronger trust in the view of the close friend than in the view of a distant friend. I concluded that in light of an ambiguity eliciting news article, people may even rely on the views of less trustworthy news endorsers in order to establish a socially shared and, therefore, valid opinion about a news topic. Drawing on shared reality theory, I hypothesized that social influence on opinion formation is mediated by news endorser congruent responses to a news post. The results indicated a tendency for the proposed indirect relation however, the effect size was small and the sample in Study 2 was not large enough to provide the necessary statistical power to detect the mediation. In conclusion, the results of my empirical studies provide first insights regarding the conditions under which a single news endorser influences opinion formation about news shared on social networking sites. I found limited support for shared reality creation as underlying mechanism of such social influence. Thus, my work contributes to the understanding of social influence on news perception happening in social networking sites and proposes theoretical refinements to shared reality theory. I suggest that future research should focus on the role of social and affiliative motivation for social influences on opinion formation about news shared on social networking sites.
Available here: http://opus.uni-hohenheim.de/volltexte/2021/1897/
Online-Privatheitskompetenz wird häufig als Voraussetzung für informationelle Selbstbestimmung angesehen. Eine entsprechende Förderung wird damit oftmals als potenzielle Lösung für Datenschutzprobleme im Internet diskutiert. Bisher wurde Online-Privatheitskompetenz dabei vorrangig als Wissenskonstrukt operationalisiert. Es konnte auch gezeigt werden, dass höheres Privatheitswissen mit mehr Selbstdatenschutz einhergeht. Es ist jedoch unklar, inwiefern eine entsprechende Förderung tatsächlich zu mehr Selbstbestimmung im Internet führt und dazu beiträgt, dass Individuen sich im Internet reflektiert und im Einklang mit ihren Privatheitsbedürfnissen bewegen. Der vorliegende Beitrag argumentiert, dass Online-Privatheitskompetenz allgemeiner als eine Kombination aus Wissen und besonderen Fähig- und Fertigkeiten konzeptualisiert werden muss. Zu diesem Zweck wird eine Rekonzeptualisierung vorgeschlagen, die neben faktischen Wissen über ökonomische, technische und rechtliche Aspekte der Online-Privatheit auch privatheitsbezogene Reflexions- und Kritikfähigkeit sowie konkrete Privatheits- und Datenschutzfertigkeiten umfasst.
©2017, IGI Global.When considering the use of mobile or wearable health technologies to collect health data, a majority of users state security and privacy of their data is a primary concern. With users being connected 24/7, there is a higher risk today of data theft or the misappropriate use of health data. Furthermore, data ownership is often a misunderstood topic in wearable technology, with many users unaware who owns the data collected by a device, what that data can be used for and who can receive that data. Many countries are reviewing privacy governance in an attempt to clarify data privacy and ownership. But is it too late? This chapter explores the concepts of security and privacy of data from mobile and wearable technology, with specific examples, and the implications for the future.
Digital technologies challenge the existing expectations of privacy for both individual users and societies at large. Although numerous surveys and experiments have studied how individual users respond to these challenges, we know little about such perceptions and debates in the larger public. This study investigated this question by analysing German media coverage of the issue of privacy during the current age in times of widespread digital technology. We asked which events journalists report when they broach the issue, what aspects of privacy they cover and whether the coverage refers to different kinds of privacy-related events and to different publication contexts. The results showed that it is not necessarily disasters that give coverage a new orientation. Instead, changes come from events that have the potential to enhance privacy in the future. The publication context also influences the presentation of privacy.
Online-Privatheitskompetenz gilt in der medienpsychologischen Forschung als wichtiger Einflussfaktor auf das Privatheitsverhalten in Online-Umgebungen. Eine Skala zur Erfassung dieser Kompetenz fehlt jedoch. Ziel dieser Arbeit war entsprechend die Entwicklung und Validierung einer umfassenden Skala zur Messung von Online-Privatheitskompetenz. In Vorarbeiten wurden anhand einer qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse die Dimensionen des Konstrukts identifiziert (Trepte et al., 2015). Darauf aufbauend wurde aus 113 Wissensfragen eine aus 20 Fragen bestehende Skala entwickelt, die vier Wissensbereiche abdeckt: Wissen über 1) institutionelle Praktiken, 2) technische Aspekte des Datenschutzes, 3) Datenschutzrecht und 4) Datenschutzstrategien. Die Ergebnisse von drei konsekutiven Studien sprechen für ein Bi-Faktor-Modell, wobei der globale Faktor die Online-Privatheitskompetenz widerspiegelt. Die Konstrukt- und Kriteriumsvalidität wurde anhand einer Quotenstichprobe deutscher Internetnutzender (N = 1 945) überprüft: Der globale Faktor korrelierte positiv mit der subjektiven Kompetenzeinschätzung der Probandinnen und Probanden und erwies sich als angemessener Prädiktor für die Umsetzung unterschiedlicher Datenschutzmaßnahmen.
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The “privacy calculus” approach to studying online privacy implies that willingness to engage in disclosures on social network sites (SNSs) depends on evaluation of the resulting risks and benefits. In this article, we propose that cultural factors influence the perception of privacy risks and social gratifications. Based on survey data collected from participants from five countries (Germany [n = 740], the Netherlands [n = 89], the United Kingdom [n = 67], the United States [n = 489], and China [n = 165]), we successfully replicated the privacy calculus. Furthermore, we found that culture plays an important role: As expected, people from cultures ranking high in individualism found it less important to generate social gratifications on SNSs as compared to people from collectivist-oriented countries. However, the latter placed greater emphasis on privacy risks—presumably to safeguard the collective. Furthermore, we identified uncertainty avoidance to be a cultural dimension crucially influencing the perception of SNS risks and benefits. As expected, people from cultures ranking high in uncertainty avoidance found privacy risks to be more important when making privacy-related disclosure decisions. At the same time, these participants ascribed lower importance to social gratifications—possibly because social encounters are perceived to be less controllable in the social media environment.
This chapter presents a theoretical and methodological approach to the study of communication and its effects through the diffusion of innovation from a communication approach. It demonstrates through the history of diffusion research how diffusion of innovations occurs and how it impacts communication outcomes. Based on rural sociology of the 1930s and 1940s, the impact of communication platforms and an "inside out" approach are introduced as ways to test and evaluate communication change through message and source strategies.
Wearables have become popular in several application domains, including healthcare, entertainment and security. Their pervasiveness, small size and autonomy, enlarges the potential of these devices to be employed in different activities and scenarios. Wearable devices collect data ubiquitously and continuously, about the individual user and also her surroundings, which can pose many privacy challenges that neither users nor stakeholders are ready to deal with. Before designing effective solutions for developing privacy-enhanced wearables, we need first to identify and understand what are the potential privacy concerns that users have and how they are perceived. To contribute to that purpose, in this paper we present findings from a qualitative content analysis of online comments regarding privacy concerns of wearable device users. We also discuss how form factors, sensors employed, and the type of data collected impact the users’ perception of privacy. Our results show that users have different levels and types of privacy concerns depending on the type of wearable they use. By better understanding the users’ perspectives about wearable privacy, we aim at helping designers and researchers to develop effective solutions to create privacy-enhanced wearables.
Lukasz Piwek and colleagues consider whether wearable technology can become a valuable asset for health care.
Time will tell if smartwatches will find their niche.
The struggle we currently perceive in terms of social media privacy may be the result of the incompatible natures of “warm” and “cold” affordances. Whereas social media’s warm affordances reflect long-standing privacy routines and expectations, cold affordances seem to challenge and sometimes violate them. Sharing under the realm of warm affordances means sharing according to the routines and habits we know. Sharing under the realm of cold affordances means understanding social media’s terms and conditions and how they reflect on our relationships and experiences - similar to assimilating to a new culture that seems opaque and constantly in flux.
This article summarizes and draws connections among diverse streams of empirical and theoretical research on the economics of privacy. Our focus is on the economic value and consequences of privacy and of personal information, and on consumers' understanding of and decisions about the costs and benefits associated with data protection and data sharing. We highlight how the economic analysis of privacy evolved through the decades, as, together with progress in information technology, more nuanced issues associated with the protection and sharing of personal information arose. We use three themes to connect insights from the literature. First, there are theoretical and empirical situations where the protection of privacy can both enhance and detract from economic surplus and allocative efficiency. Second, consumers' ability to make informed decisions about their privacy is severely hindered, because most of the time they are in a position of imperfect information regarding when their data is collected, with what purposes, and with what consequences. Third, specific heuristics can profoundly influence privacy decision-making. We conclude by highlighting some of the ongoing issues in the privacy debate.
Television and mobile telephone constitute two media technologies that are strongly anchored in most consumers' everyday life. Hence, combining those two seems a promising bet. Not surprisingly, early expectations on the success of mobile TV were extremely confident (European Commission 2008, Abiniak, 2008, Cugnini, 2008). While no reliable data for a realistic evaluation of the global market for mobile TV can be found today, there is a general agreement that the early expectations were far too optimistic. As Goggin sums up in 2010, consumers have been slow to turn to mobile television (Goggin, 2010, p. 83). © VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften | Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH 2012. All rights reserved.
Persuasive technology to motivate healthy behavior is a growing area of research within HCI and ubiquitous computing. The emergence of commercial wearable devices for tracking health- and fitness-related activities arguably represents the first widespread adoption of dedicated ubiquitous persuasive technology. The recent ubiquity of commercial systems allows us to learn about their value and use in truly “in the wild” contexts and understand how practices evolve over long-term, naturalistic use. We present a study with 30 participants who had adopted wearable activity-tracking devices of their own volition and had continued to use them for between 3 and 54 months. The findings, which both support and contrast with those of previous research, paint a picture of the evolving benefits and practices surrounding these emerging technologies over long periods of use. They also serve as the basis for design implications for personal informatics technologies for long-term health and fitness support.
The following article develops a new model of privacy referred to as the Privacy Process Model (PPM). Drawing on extant literature on privacy, the PPM analyses the distinct conditions, mechanisms and regulations of privacy. First, it identifies an objective privacy context, which is subdivided into informational, social, psychological and physical dimensions. Second, it examines subjective privacy perceptions, which are divided into the same dimensions. Third, it observes privacy behaviour, which is the amount of self-disclosure people show. If either privacy perception or privacy behaviour differ from a desired status, people will engage in a privacy regulation, meaning that they will try to alter their privacy context or their privacy behaviour. Able to account for online as well as offline contexts, the PPM offers a novel and universal approach to understanding privacy.
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This article investigates how developments in nanotechnology were framed in the British national newspaper press during a formative period in their rising public salience. Specifically, an intervention by Prince Charles in April 2003 is shown to have acted as the principal catalyst for much of the ensuing newspaper reporting over the next fifteen months. This study, in taking as its focus the operation of specific news frames, identifies a range of factors that shaped the initial terms of the subsequent debate (between both advocates and critics of nanotechnology) from one newspaper to the next during this period. The analysis suggests that the involvement of a celebrity may play a crucial role in enhancing the newsworthiness of an issue and influencing its subsequent framing in the newspaper press.
This study examined the impact of three dimensions of digital literacy on privacy-related online behaviors: (a) familiarity with technical aspects of the Internet, (b) awareness of common institutional practices, and (c) understanding of current privacy policy. Hierarchical regression models analyzed data from a national sample of 419 adult Internet users. The analyses showed strong predictive powers of user knowledge, as indicated by the three discrete dimensions, on privacy control behavior. However, the findings were mixed when accounting for the interaction between knowledge and Internet experiences. There were limitations on the extents of knowledge and action related to personalized information. Furthermore, those limitations divided with sociodemographic characteristics such as age, gender, income, and education. Ramifications for the current status of the FTC policy are discussed.
This investigation analysed the kinds of communicative acts that are considered privacy-invading, which communication strategies are used to restore privacy when it has been violated and how relationship type affects communication of privacy. A preliminary self-report survey and a pilot study employing open-ended interviews (n=43) led to the development of a questionnaire in which respondents (n=444) rated 39 possible actions on invasiveness and rated the likelihood of using 40 different tactics to restore privacy. Types of privacy violations formed five dimensions: (1) psychological and informational violations, (2) non-verbal interactional violations, (3) verbal interactional violations, (4) physical violations and (5) impersonal violations. Strategies used to restore privacy included: (1) interaction control, (2) dyadic intimacy, (3) negative arousal, (4) distancing, (5) blocking and (6) confrontation. Significant differences emerged across doctor-patient, employeremployee, teacher-student, parent-child, spouse-spouse and siblingsibling relationships.
In this chapter, we examine the extant research literature on self-disclosure and the Internet, in particular by focussing on disclosure in Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and to web-based forms - both to surveys and in e-commerce applications. We also consider the links between privacy and self-disclosure, and the unique challenges (and opportunities) that the Internet poses for the protection of privacy. Finally, we propose three critical issues that unite the ways in which we can best understand the links between privacy, self-disclosure and new technology: trust
Different methods of inducing self-awareness have generally been assumed to be interchangeable. The present paper argues that the two most widely used manipulations of self-awareness—audiences and mirrors—differ in an important way: specifically, audiences increase focus on the public aspects of the self, whereas mirrors focus attention on the private aspects of the self. It is further argued that the standards that are used to regulate behavior depend upon which of these self-aspects is taken as the object of attention. Attention to the private self may result in behavior that reflects personal attitudes; attention to the public self may cause behavior to become more consistent with societal expectations. This reasoning was tested in two studies in which subjects served as “teachers” in an aggression paradigm. Each subject in Experiment 1 opposed the use of punishment in learing, but felt that other people favored it. Compared to the control condition, the presence of a mirror led to decreased levels of shock, and the presence of an evaluative audience led to increased levels of shock. Experiment 2 made use of subjects who favored the use of punishment but felt that others were against its use. Compared to the control group, the presence of a mirror led to increased levels of shock whereas the presence of an evaluative audience led to decreased levels of shock. Taken together, these findings indicate that self-awareness manipulations need to be chosen according to the aspect of self that is to be the object of self-attention. Discussion centers on the implications of the public-private distinction.
Wearable sensors are revolutionizing healthcare and science by enabling capture of physiological, psychological, and behavioral measurements in natural environments. However, these seemingly innocuous measurements can be used to infer potentially private behaviors such as stress, conversation, smoking, drinking, illicit drug usage, and others. We conducted a study to assess how concerned people are about disclosure of a variety of behaviors and contexts that are embedded in wearable sensor data. Our results show participants are most concerned about disclosures of conversation episodes and stress - inferences that are not yet widely publicized. These concerns are mediated by temporal and physical context associated with the data and the participant's personal stake in the data. Our results provide key guidance on the extent to which people understand the potential for harm and data characteristics researchers should focus on to reduce the perceived harm from such datasets.
Abstract Social network,sites,(SNSs) are increasingly attracting the attention of academic,and,industry researchers intrigued by their affordances and reach.,This special theme section of the,Journal,of Computer-Mediated,Communicationbrings ,together scholarship on these emergent phenomena.,In this introductory article, we describe features of SNSs and propose a comprehensive definition. We then present one perspective on the history of such sites, discussing key changes and developments. After briefly summarizing existing scholarship concerning SNSs, we discuss the articles,in this special section and conclude with considerations for future,research.
The global use of online communities has exploded to involve hundreds of millions of users. Despite the tremendous social impact and business opportunities afforded by these communities, little information systems (IS) research has addressed them - especially in a cross-cultural context. Our research proposes an online community self-disclosure model, tested in a cross-cultural setting using data provided by French and British working professionals. Our model is based on social exchange theory (SET) and social penetration theory (SPT), as well as on cross-cultural theory related to individualism-collectivism. SET explains that individuals engage in relationships when the perceived costs associated with the relationship are less than the expected benefits. SPT extends SET to explain that individuals participate in self-disclosure to foster relationships - reciprocation is the primary benefit of self-disclosure, whereas risk is the foundational cost of self-disclosure. Our study established several important findings: Positive social influence to use an online community increases online community self-disclosure; reciprocity increases self-disclosure; online community trust increases self-disclosure; and privacy risk beliefs decrease self-disclosure. Meanwhile, a tendency toward collectivism increases self-disclosure. We further found that French participants had higher scores on horizontal individualism than British participants. Several other findings and their implications for practice are also discussed.
Although studies have investigated how the technical features of wearable fitness trackers promote physical activity, we understand less about how communication surrounding such devices may contribute to their success. Addressing current opportunities for inquiry is important, as the popularity of fitness trackers and other wearable devices grows. Through interviews with 25 people wearing fitness devices, this study elucidates how and with whom people communicate fitness tracker messages and explains the effects of sociomaterial practice on interactions between wearable fitness device users. Our findings show the vital role of communication in sharing and encouraging physical activity.
The privacy calculus established that online self-disclosures are based on a cost-benefit tradeoff. For the context of SNSs, however, the privacy calculus still needs further support as most studies consist of small student samples and analyze self-disclosure only, excluding self-withdrawal (e.g., the deletion of posts), which is essential in SNS contexts. Thus, this study used a U.S. representative sample to test the privacy calculus' generalizability and extend its theoretical framework by including both self-withdrawal behaviors and privacy self-efficacy. Results confirmed the extended privacy calculus model. Moreover, both privacy concerns and privacy self-efficacy positively predicted use of self-withdrawal. With regard to predicting self-disclosure in SNSs, benefits outweighed privacy concerns; regarding self-withdrawal, privacy concerns outweighed both privacy self-efficacy and benefits.
Wearable devices indicate objects encompassing both mobile computing and fashion characteristics. Although the combination of the two characteristics is relatively new, consumers’ recognition of smartwatches, one type of wearable, is increasing. However, despite the heightened interest in smartwatches, sales are growing more slowly than expected. In order to comprehend this, we should understand potential consumers’ perceptions of smartwatches. This study explored how much potential consumers value various smartwatch attributes by examining their preference structure of the wearable. The preference structure was generated from a conjoint analysis including five smartwatch attributes: brand, price, standalone communication, display shape, and display size. We also compared findings by user group (current wristwatch users vs. non-users). Results showed that display shape and standalone communication are more critical factors influencing respondents’ smartwatch choices than brand and price for both types of users. Results also revealed that a curved display shape is most preferred.
In the mid-1990s, the wearables community was convinced that body-worn computing devices would be a sure hit within a decade. Instead, many of the concepts initially designed wearable, such as positioning and imaging found their way into mobile phones. The following is a brief look into the history of wearable computing and it also discusses the reasons why mobile devices beat wearables at their own game.
In this study, we examined the portrayal of privacy and data protection on social network sites (SNS) in German media. As a widely used social web application, SNS arouse a considerable amount of media attention. By means of a value-framing analysis, the present study investigated how German media frame privacy and data protection on SNS. In a first step, the three value frames informational self-determination, security and psychosocial need satisfaction were identified through a qualitative framing analysis of online media. In a second step, we conducted a standardized content analysis of four preselected German newspapers to quantify the previously identified frames. Results show that newspapers mainly frame SNS in matters of users’ informational self-determination and that they predominantly present SNS as a threat to this value.
As new information technologies become ubiquitous, individuals are often prompted rethinking disclosure. Available media narratives may influence one's understanding of the benefits and costs related to sharing personal information. This study, guided by frame theory, undertakes a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of media discourse developed to discuss the privacy concerns related to the corporate collection and trade of personal information. The aim is to investigate the frames - the central organizing ideas - used in the media to discuss such an important aspect of the economics of personal data. The CDA explored 130 articles published in the New York Times between 2000 and 2012. Findings reveal that the articles utilized four frames: confusion and lack of transparency, justification and private interests, law and self-regulation, and commodification of information. Articles used episodic framing often discussing specific instances of infringements rather than broader thematic accounts. Media coverage tended to frame personal information as a commodity that may be traded, rather than as a fundamental value.
Social Network Sites (SNSs) rely exclusively on user-generated content to offer engaging and rewarding experience to its members. As a result, stimulating user communication and self-disclosure is vital for the sustainability of SNSs. However, considering that the SNS users are increasingly culturally diverse, motivating this audience to self-disclose requires understanding of their cultural intricacies. Yet existing research offers only limited insights into the role of culture behind the motivation of SNS users to self-disclose. Building on the privacy calculus framework, this study explores the role of two cultural dimensions - individualism and uncertainty avoidance - in self-disclosure decisions of SNS users. Survey responses of US and German Facebook members are used as the basis for our analysis. Structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis results reveal the distinct role of culture in the cognitive patterns of SNS users. The authors find that trusting beliefs play a key role in the self-disclosure decisions of users from individualistic cultures. At the same time, uncertainty avoidance determines the impact of privacy concerns. This paper contributes to the theory by rejecting the universal nature of privacy calculus processes. The findings provide for an array of managerial implications for SNS providers as they strive to encourage content creation and sharing by their heterogeneous members.
This article offers an analysis of controversies surrounding the coverage of climate change in the French press. The theoretical framework for the analysis combines the sociology of public problems, media sociology, and science and technology studies. We present these controversies as an expression of a struggle over the ownership and framing of climate change as a public problem. Specific social groups are involved in this process of definition, framing, and agenda-setting. The success or failure of these groups in closing debates results in the construction of issues as either consensual matters-of-fact or controversial matters-of-concern. This framework allows us to distinguish between two phases in the career of this public problem, characterised by differences in ownership-configurations and the visibility of controversial points of view. We identify four relevant groups—scientists, politicians, journalists and non-governmental organisations—as well as certain social processes that help to explain changes in the attention that controversies received from the media. We conclude with the hypothesis of a third phase characterised by a relatively high degree of attention on controversies in French media.
Although social network sites (SNS) users' privacy concerns cannot be completely removed by privacy policies and security safeguards, the user base of SNS is constantly expanding. To explain this phenomenon, we use the lens of the calculus of behavior within a cost–benefit framework suggesting privacy concerns as cost factors and behavior enticements as benefit factors and examine how the enticements operate against privacy concerns in users' cost–benefit calculus regarding disclosing personal information and using SNS continuously. Adopting social influence process theory, we examine three enticements—the motivation of relationship management through SNS, the perceived usefulness of SNS for self-presentation, and the subjective social norms of using SNS. From a survey of 362 Facebook users who have disclosed personal information on Facebook, we find that the motivation of relationship management through SNS and the perceived usefulness of SNS for self-presentation lead users to disclose information but that subjective social norms do not, suggesting that the perceived benefit of behavior enticements should be assimilated into users' own value systems to truly operate as benefit factors. The results regarding the positive and negative effects of suggested benefit and cost factors on information disclosure show that only the combined positive effects of all three behavior enticements exceed the negative effect of privacy concerns, suggesting that privacy concerns can be offset only by multiple benefit factors.
This paper discusses issues and ways of measuring the reliability of segmenting verbal protocols of design activity, a central focus of design research. Reliability is an important issue in distinguishing 'design moves'. In the present study, seven students working for a master in design degree, one graduated designer and two professors segment a 30 min protocol of a product design process into design moves. The intra and inter reliability was calculated for these observers using alpha coefficients. Neither the students', designer's nor professors' segmentation reached the desired cut-off value of 0.8. This negative finding questions the clarity of existing conceptions and urges more concise definitions, better training of analysts, and formulating more decisive instructions. (c) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A domain-specific model of public opinion is proposed in which attribution of issue responsibility is a significant determinant of individuals' issue opinions and attitudes. Two dimensions of issue responsibility are assessed: causal responsibility focuses on the origins of the issue, while treatment responsibility focuses on alleviation of the issue. The model is tested with a sample of four issues: poverty, racial inequality, crime, and terrorism. The results indicate that for all four issues attributions of responsibility significantly affect issue opinions independently of partisanship, liberal-conservative orientation, information, and socioeconomic status. In general, agents of causal responsibility are viewed negatively while agents of treatment responsibility are viewed positively. In conclusion, the importance of domain-specificity for public opinion research is considered.
Getting an innovation adopted is difficult; a common problem is increasing the rate of its diffusion. Diffusion is the communication of an innovation through certain channels over time among members of a social system. It is a communication whose messages are concerned with new ideas; it is a process where participants create and share information to achieve a mutual understanding. Initial chapters of the book discuss the history of diffusion research, some major criticisms of diffusion research, and the meta-research procedures used in the book. This text is the third edition of this well-respected work. The first edition was published in 1962, and the fifth edition in 2003. The book's theoretical framework relies on the concepts of information and uncertainty. Uncertainty is the degree to which alternatives are perceived with respect to an event and the relative probabilities of these alternatives; uncertainty implies a lack of predictability and motivates an individual to seek information. A technological innovation embodies information, thus reducing uncertainty. Information affects uncertainty in a situation where a choice exists among alternatives; information about a technological innovation can be software information or innovation-evaluation information. An innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or an other unit of adoption; innovation presents an individual or organization with a new alternative(s) or new means of solving problems. Whether new alternatives are superior is not precisely known by problem solvers. Thus people seek new information. Information about new ideas is exchanged through a process of convergence involving interpersonal networks. Thus, diffusion of innovations is a social process that communicates perceived information about a new idea; it produces an alteration in the structure and function of a social system, producing social consequences. Diffusion has four elements: (1) an innovation that is perceived as new, (2) communication channels, (3) time, and (4) a social system (members jointly solving to accomplish a common goal). Diffusion systems can be centralized or decentralized. The innovation-development process has five steps passing from recognition of a need, through R&D, commercialization, diffusions and adoption, to consequences. Time enters the diffusion process in three ways: (1) innovation-decision process, (2) innovativeness, and (3) rate of the innovation's adoption. The innovation-decision process is an information-seeking and information-processing activity that motivates an individual to reduce uncertainty about the (dis)advantages of the innovation. There are five steps in the process: (1) knowledge for an adoption/rejection/implementation decision; (2) persuasion to form an attitude, (3) decision, (4) implementation, and (5) confirmation (reinforcement or rejection). Innovations can also be re-invented (changed or modified) by the user. The innovation-decision period is the time required to pass through the innovation-decision process. Rates of adoption of an innovation depend on (and can be predicted by) how its characteristics are perceived in terms of relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability. The diffusion effect is the increasing, cumulative pressure from interpersonal networks to adopt (or reject) an innovation. Overadoption is an innovation's adoption when experts suggest its rejection. Diffusion networks convey innovation-evaluation information to decrease uncertainty about an idea's use. The heart of the diffusion process is the modeling and imitation by potential adopters of their network partners who have adopted already. Change agents influence innovation decisions in a direction deemed desirable. Opinion leadership is the degree individuals influence others' attitudes
Privacy is conceptualized as a dynamic, interpersonal boundary control process which regulates access to the self. Coupled with desired and achieved privacy levels, a series of social interaction cases are described involving satisfactory and unsatisfactory input-output relationships with others. Mechanisms used to implement desired levels of privacy are discussed. (Author/MA)
Reviews research from psychoanalysis, clinical and personality psychology, social psychology, and sociology on the social penetration process. Verbal, nonverbal, and environmentally oriented behaviors are described. States in the development and dissolution of social bonds are discussed. (14 p. ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Based on findings from previous interviews with 900 5–17 yr old children and adolescents and other research, a situational perspective of privacy is developed. Situations affecting an individual's perception and experience of privacy and invasions of privacy are described in terms of 3 dimensions: (a) self-ego (i.e., a developmental process that focuses on individuation and personal dignity); (b) environmental, which includes cultural, sociophysical, and life cycle elements; and (c) interpersonal, which involves interaction management and information management elements. The issue of control/choice is conceptualized as a mediating variable in the privacy system. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Can computers change what you think and do? Can they motivate you to stop smoking, persuade you to buy insurance, or convince you to join the Army? "Yes, they can," says Dr. B.J. Fogg, director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University. Fogg has coined the phrase "Captology"(an acronym for computers as persuasive technologies) to capture the domain of research, design, and applications of persuasive computers.In this thought-provoking book, based on nine years of research in captology, Dr. Fogg reveals how Web sites, software applications, and mobile devices can be used to change peoples attitudes and behavior. Technology designers, marketers, researchers, consumers-anyone who wants to leverage or simply understand the persuasive power of interactive technology-will appreciate the compelling insights and illuminating examples found inside. Persuasive technology can be controversial-and it should be. Who will wield this power of digital influence? And to what end? Now is the time to survey the issues and explore the principles of persuasive technology, and B.J. Fogg has written this book to be your guide.
This article analyzes 4 months of popular press articles from major publications about location-aware mobile phones. Our results identify 2 main areas: the control these devices offer over public spaces and the lack of control users have over their location information. This lack of control is often framed as a lack of privacy. We argue that the ability to control and personalize public spaces is not new because previous types of portable media already allowed users to manage interactions with public spaces. However, issues of privacy and control over public spaces are more pronounced with location-aware technologies. Our conclusions suggest that popular press discourses often overlook more complex social issues related to privacy in public spaces.
Using e-health portals to the internet seeking information about one’s illness and to exchange experience with other sick persons can result in more self-responsible patients and in a more partnership-based physician-patient relationship. Especially with serious and chronic diseases like cancer, HIV infection, eating disorders, and depression, concerned patients may find support by accessing web pages and by using internet communication like message boards, mailing lists, and chat rooms. In an online questionnaire, internet users with eating disorders stated that they felt understood by their internet peers and, therefore, were encouraged to start therapy.
Physicians may fear their advance in knowledge to decrease, resulting in an overprotective attitude to the informed patient. Nevertheless, they will recognize, by active participation, that the medical internet may promote an earlier start of expert-guided therapy, improved compliance, aftercare, and basic care independent of place and time. However, further evaluation of internet-supported treatment is required.
Teenagers will freely give up personal information to join social networks on the Internet. Afterwards, they are surprised when their parents read their journals. Communities are outraged by the personal information posted by young people online and colleges keep track of student activities on and off campus. The posting of personal information by teens and students has consequences. This article will discuss the uproar over privacy issues in social networks by describing a privacy paradox; private versus public space; and, social networking privacy issues. It will finally discuss proposed privacy solutions and steps that can be taken to help resolve the privacy paradox.