Mediated Trust

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Time for Trust? Scale and relationality in understanding trust relations between people, technologies and institutions 

The term we have chosen to use to capture the contemporary dynamics of trust is mediated trust. In a paper focused on the rise of Blockchain as a technology of trust, Balasz Bodó has observed that ‘digital technologies shape how humans trust each other, and … in order to fulfill this task, they need to be trustworthy’ (Bodo, 2021, p. 2669). Focusing on the historical development of institutional trust, Bodó argues that the concept of mediated trust incorporates both the dimensions through which digital technologies promote trust through technology, and the discursive frameworks associated with trust in technology.

An Institutional Perspective on Digital Media and Culture: News, Trust, Platforms, Policy 

In 1987, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously said that “there is no such thing as society” (McSmith, 2010). I was startled by that statement when it was made in 1987, and I remain startled by it, 37 years later. At this time, I had undertaken both mainstream economics and political economy at The University of Sydney, where the question of whether economics needed to be understood as existing within a larger social system was a fundamental point of disagreement, to the point where students — some of whom would become future Prime Ministers — would occupy buildings and the iconic Quadrangle Clock Tower in order to make this point.

Mediated Trust short course curriculum

I have developed a short course curriculum on Trust as part of my Mediated Trust ARC Laureate. Over a 13 week period, we will examine different theories and disciplinary traditions associated with the concept of trust, practical applications of trust theory to news, digital platforms and public policy, and trust futures in an age of populism and artificial intelligence.