Special Collection: Trust and Digital Platforms

Guest Editors:
Terry Flew, The University of Sydney
Rosalie Gillett, Queensland University of Technology
Sora Park, University of Canberra

As online activities and experiences are increasingly mediated through digital platforms, a series of scandals and public shocks have raised concerns about privacy and security, the misuse of user data, algorithmic biases, and the public distribution of objectionable content through the internet. This special collection proposes to view such questions from the perspective of trust. Important contributions to trust research have been made from philosophy, political science, sociology, economics, and communication and media studies. Papers in this special collection consider the ways in which thinking about trust has developed over time in communication research, the trust potential of Blockchain technologies, building trust through social media in times of crisis, the policy preferences of digital platform companies, and uses of bots to automate manipulative online communication.