Documentation practices and recordkeeping: a matter of trust or distrust?

Records are more and more important as instruments of trust, for instance to ascertain accountability. However, they are also objects to be trusted upon themselves. Rather rigorous requirements are established to guarantee the trustworthiness of records; requirements are more elaborated in the digital environment than those that have previously been attributed to analogue records. The purpose of this study is to discuss the conceptualization of trust and trustworthiness in relation to records, and to analyze the relation between the increasing reliance on formal documentation in contemporary organizations and the requirements on records and recordkeeping systems that has been advanced recent years. It can be argued that the effort to enhance trustworthiness actually is a manifestation of diminishing trust.     

Can AI communication tools increase legislative responsiveness and trust in democratic institutions?

Smart replies, writing enhancements, and virtual assistants powered by artificial intelligence (AI) language technologies are becoming part of consumer products and everyday experiences. This study explores the opportunities and risks of using language-generating AI systems in politics to increase legislative responsiveness. Legislators receive a large volume of constituent communication and often cannot devote individual consideration and timely response to each. Here, AI language technologies may allow legislators to process constituent communication more efficiently. For example, AI writing tools can suggest reply snippets when a staffer responds to a common concern. However, legislative human-AI collaboration could reduce constituent trust or undermine the representative process. In two experiments, we compared constituents' impressions of human-written legislative correspondence to correspondences partially or fully generated by GPT-3, a state-of-the-art language model. Our results suggest that legislative correspondence generated by AI with human oversight may be received favorably and increase constituent trust compared to generic auto-responses that busy legislators may employ. However, poorly performing AI language technologies may damage confidence in the legislator. Our findings highlight the potential and risks of introducing AI-mediated communication to the representation process. We discuss the importance of disclosure, transparency, and maintaining human-in-the-loop accountability for political deployments of AI language technologies.     

Is it a question of trust or why are we afraid to go to Nineveh?

Trust is an overused concept in our contemporary world. This paper explores the complex relationship of trust, efficiency, accountability, transparency and responsibility and their relationship to recordkeeping in our globalizing culture. It focuses on the profound changes that have taken place in the meaning and practice of audit within neo-liberal societies and how the ??rituals of verification?? and the ??managerialism?? may pervert the resulting record. It challenges the unthinking use of much of the rhetoric surrounding these concepts by archivists to justify their existence. It reflects on why the archival voice often remains silent or at best goes unheard in much of the discussion about these questions that have profound consequences for democratic societies. It is easy to lay the blame at the door of a perceived breakdown of trust rather than to consider whether the root of the problem lies with archivists and records managers themselves. This paper draws on my experience in directing the Information Management and Preservation MSC programme at the University of Glasgow and wide and serendipitous reading, which has sometimes been brought to my notice by students.     

Sibling communication satisfaction as a function of interpersonal solidarity,individualized trust,and self‐disclosure

The purpose of this study was to examine sibling communication satisfaction, with a specific focus on interpersonal solidarity, individualized trust, and self‐disclosure. Respondents (N = 360) were asked to report on a relationship with either an older sister, younger sister, older brother, or younger brother. Results indicate that interpersonal solidarity is the largest predictor of sibling communication satisfaction, followed by individualized trust, and self‐disclosure.     

Teaching to trust: How a virtual archives and preservation curriculum laboratory creates a global education community?

Building virtual archives and preservation curriculum laboratories centered around born-digital and digitized records is a collaborative project currently underway between Simmons College (US) and Mid-Sweden University. In this virtual environment, issues of trust are central to the process, in terms of the both archival curriculum and the collaborative education process itself. The article describes the project, the collaboration, and offers a range of scenarios that demonstrate how the laboratories work within curriculum.     

Communcating emotional support and its relationship to feelings of being understood,trust, and self‐disclosure

The communicating of emotional support would seem to be an aspect of any successful relationship. Additionally, it would seem to reason that how one communicates emotional support would be an aspect of a relationship pertinent to communication research. Unfortunately, there is very little empirical evidence that illuminates how this is related to other relational outcomes such as trust. Weber and Patterson (1996) first developed a measure that taps into how much emotional support one receives from a specific other. In their initial scale development piece the authors validate the Communication Based Emotional Support Scale (CBESS) by finding positive correlations with both relationship solidarity and relationship satisfaction. This current study aimed to further validate the CBESS by exploring its relationship to trust, self‐disclosure, and feelings of being understood.     

Can government’s presence on social media stimulate citizens’ online political participation? Investigating the influence of transparency,trust, and responsiveness

This paper empirically investigates the association of quality information provided by a government agency on social media and citizen’s online political participation. It further answers the why and how questions regarding the existence of this relationship by examining the mediating influence of transparency, trust, and responsiveness. The data was collected from 388 followers of the social media platforms of a government agency i.e. Punjab Food Authority and the findings of the analysis were obtained using structural equation modeling technique. The results reveal that the agency’s provision of quality information on social media was significantly related to perceived transparency, trust in agency, perceived responsiveness, and citizens’ online political participation. Moreover, the results show that perceived transparency mediates the relationship between agency’s provision of quality information on social media and citizens’ trust in agency. Additionally, trust in agency was an insignificant predictor and perceived responsiveness was a negative predictor of citizens online political participation, Also, trust in agency and perceived responsiveness suppressed the relationship between agency’s provision of quality information on social media and citizens’ online political participation. This study aims to bring awareness and contribution to the body of knowledge about the governmental use of social media and its resulting benefits since in developing countries like Pakistan the research in this area is sparse. Further, it provides strategic and practical suggestions to agencies regarding advantages of utilizing social media in their communication with citizens.     

“If I knew then what I know now”: Seropositive individuals' perceptions of partner trust,safety and risk prior to HIV infection

The purpose of this study was to examine personal and relational characteristics of HIV positive individuals. Forty HIV positive heterosexuals, who were infected through heterosexual sex, completed an on‐line questionnaire designed to assess perceived risk of HIV, perceived partner safety and trust, and reasons for these perceptions prior to HIV infection. Results indicated that prior to infection, HIV positive heterosexuals reported having similar sexual attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to those not infected with the virus. Participants reported moderate to high levels of trust for their partners, low levels of perceived risk of infection, and high levels of perceived partner safety. A moderately strong, negative, linear relationship existed between perceived partner safety and partner trust and perceived risk. In addition, women perceived their partners as “safer”; than did men and those in serious relationships perceived their partners as safer than those in casual relationships. Results from this study shed light on the personal and relational characteristics of heterosexuals living with HIV and the utility of social comparison theory in raising awareness about HIV positive and negative individuals.     

Comparing social media use,discussion, political trust and political engagement among university students in China and Hong Kong: an application of the O–S–R–O–R model

Adopting the Orientation–Stimuli–Reasoning–Orientation–Response (O–S–R–O–R) model of political communication effects, this study examines the mediating roles of online/offline political discussion and political trust on the relationship between social media information seeking and online/offline political participation in China and Hong Kong. Findings through structural equation modeling showed that the relationship between information seeking and online participation was mediated by online discussion for both samples. Moreover, the relationship between information seeking and offline participation was mediated by offline discussion, and offline discussion mediated the relationship between information seeking and online participation. Political trust did not mediate any of the relationships in China and Hong Kong and all significant paths involving political trust were negative. Implications of the findings for youth political participation in China and Hong Kong are discussed.