Online Interaction with Millenials: Institution vs. Community

Background

Much of the relevant literature related to this topic falls into the arena of technology acceptance and usage. That stream of literature has a number of useful models and brings in concepts such as technology and personal characteristics that are of interest. We’ll discuss these shortly, but all depend in some way on the idea of trust, which is core to approaching websites, accessing and accepting information, and completing exchanges. As this is the broader topic, we’ll address trust first.

The conceptual basis of trust came out of sociology (e.g. Gambetta 1988). Garfinkel (1963) established a number of critical ideas: trust is apparent in individual action; it is interactive in terms of relationships, expectations and behavior of others; and it is based on symbiosis and exchange. Further, trust is dependent on situation and circumstance (Baier 1986), and individuals develop routines based on the conditions of a particular trust relationship (Giddens 1991).