Trust in the Digital World : The Return of the Kings of Old

Drawing principally on examples and literature from the Anglosphere, the author argues that the high salience given to quot;trustquot; and quot;trustworthinessquot; in recent scholarly literature, and which (notably in Putnam's work) attributes declining trust to a widely mistrusted mass media does not acknowledge the trustbuilding potential (realised in some instances) of interactive quot;Web 2.0quot; applications. Drawing on O'Neill's proposal that trust inheres in dialogue and mutual checking and verification, the author argues that quot;Web 2.0quot; media provide a variety of instances where the quot;dialogicquot; character of quot;Web 2.0quot; has established and enhanced trustworthiness. He argues normatively for a combination of quot;Web 2.0quot; interactivity and the adoption and implementation of self-regulatory codes in order to enhance the trustworthiness of the media