Civility and Trust in Social Media

Antoci, Angelo and Bonelli, Laura and Paglieri, Fabio and Reggiani, Tommaso and Sabatini, Fabio (2018): Civility and Trust in Social Media.

Abstract

Abstract Social media have been credited with the potential of reinvigorating trust by offering new opportunities for social and political participation. This view has been recently challenged by the rising phenomenon of online incivility, which has made the environment of social networking sites hostile to many users. We conduct a novel experiment in a Facebook setting to study how the effect of social media on trust varies depending on the civility or incivility of online interaction. We find that participants exposed to civil Facebook interaction are significantly more trusting. In contrast, when the use of Facebook is accompanied by the experience of online incivility, no significant changes occur in users' behavior. These results are robust to alternative configurations of the treatments.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: social media, Facebook, online incivility, trust, social networks, cooperation, trust game
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C9 - Design of Experiments > C91 - Laboratory, Individual Behavior; Z - Other Special Topics > Z0 - General; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z13 - Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology ; Social and Economic Stratification

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