The Affordances of Social Networking Sites for Relational Maintenance in a Distrustful Society: The Case of Azerbaijan:

Social Media + Society

Katy E. Pearce¹ 

关键词: social media;    trust;    distrust;    relational maintenance;    social networking sites;    Azerbaijan;   

DOI  :  10.1177/2056305115616150

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Sage Journals

【 摘 要 】

The Internet and social media afford opportunities for relational maintenance, but most scholarship has focused on relational maintenance in high-trust environments. This study explores relational maintenance online and offline in a distrustful society. In distrustful societies, trust is situated within one’s particularized kin network, and friendships have strategic significance and are characterized by norms of reciprocity. In distrustful societies, relational maintenance behaviors are different from trustful societies and take on greater significance. This preliminary study, based on informant interviews in Azerbaijan, examines both offline relational maintenance and the affordances of social networking sites (SNSs) for relational maintenance in such an environment. SNSs do provide for some relational maintenance behaviors through supplementing offline behaviors at a low cost and give some additional benefits like status display, yet SNSs do not replace traditional relational maintenance behaviors in Azerbaijan.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC