Can interpersonal trust be digitally mediated? A panoramic view of trust relations on Airbnb
Micol Mieli
Roskilde University, Denmark
“Airbnb is a business fueled by trust” (Airbnb, 2019). The peer-to-peer accommodation platform that disrupted the hospitality industry since 2008 has made a point time and again to tell the public and their customers how their business is built on trust and how they work actively to build trust among users (Airbnb, 2017, 2025). Public media and academic discourse have followed suit, with articles, blog posts, TED talks, podcasts, books and hundreds of academic articles on the specific topic of trust on Airbnb (Scopus, 2025).
In this study, Airbnb is used as a paradigmatic case of digital mediation of trust between strangers, which involves both online and offline experience of trust. I adopt a panoramic view of trust to understand what trust relations are involved in the functioning of the platform, and how they are mediated by digital technologies. The panoramic view of trust identifies four trust relations: interpersonal trust, institutional trust, self-trust and trust in technology (Pedersen, 2010, 2024). The theory posits that trust relations unfold on two levels: a habitual and a reflexive level and that trust and distrust are not mutually exclusive but exist on a continuum (Pedersen, 2010).
In my research, I offer an empirical investigation of trust on Airbnb to show how different trust relations are involved in the use of online platforms. The digitally enhanced environment works as a relatively new context that has developed over the last four decades (Domenicucci, 2018). Being able to study the evolution of this digital enhancement reveals the time dimension of the two-level theory of trust, where habitual trust is created over time through reflexive trust. The analysis further shows that trust relations expand online and through digital mediation trust is never just between people, but it emerges in an assemblage of people, institutions and technologies (DeLanda, 2006). This leads to question whether interpersonal trust between strangers can be mediated at all, and even more so if it can be “built” between strangers through the online platform.
While on one hand it appears that different relations are not discrete and mutually exclusive but coexist in the same experience, on the other hand, an analysis of the sociotechnical devices used to mediate trust relations on Airbnb reveals how trust and distrust are also fundamentally complementary in the process of digital mediation (Pumputis, 2024). Technical tools like verification systems, predictive and verification algorithms, online profile pages, “badges”, reviews, can only go as far as removing reasons for distrust and only indirectly help create trust as a result. The technical mediation by the platform does not directly build trust between strangers but by mediating institutional trust, self-trust and trust in technology, it can create a space where the possibility of interpersonal trust emerges. On the other hand, a discourse of trust is the main tool used to directly build trust, for example through marketing, policies, community standards and general communication (Pumputis & Mieli, 2024).
Airbnb. (2017). Perfect strangers: How Airbnb is building trust between hosts and guests. Airbnb Newsroom. Retrieved January 14, 2025, from https://news.airbnb.com/perfect-strangers-how-airbnb-is-building-trust-between-hosts-and-guests/
Airbnb. (2019). In the business of trust. Airbnb Newsroom. Retrieved January 14, 2025, from https://news.airbnb.com/in-the-business-of-trust/
Airbnb. (2025). How do I create an Airbnb account? Airbnb Help Center. Retrieved January 14, 2025, from https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/4
De Landa, M. (2006). A new philosophy of society: Assemblage theory and social complexity. London: Continuum.
Domenicucci, J. (2018). Trust, Extended Memories and Social Media. Towards a Philosophy of Digital Media, 119-142.
Pedersen, E. O. (2010). A Two-Level Theory of Trust. Balkan Journal of Philosophy, 2(1), 47-56.
Pedersen, E. O. (2024). A Panoramic View of Trust in the Time of Digital Automated Decision Making – Failings of Trust in the Post Office and the Tax Authorities. Sats (Aarhus), 25(1), 29–47. https://doi.org/10.1515/sats-2024-0008
Pumputis, A. (2024). Trust and control on peer-to-peer platforms : A sociomaterial analysis of guest-host relationships in digital environments. Lund University.
Pumputis, A., & Mieli, M. (2024). From trust to trustworthiness: Formalising consumer behaviour with discourse on Airbnb platform. In Consumer Behaviour in Hospitality and Tourism (pp. 83-102). Routledge.
Scopus. (2025). Search query: [airbnb AND trust]. Retrieved [14 january 2025], from https://www.scopus.com
Design and the Contemporary Self as Extimate Form
Jesse Josua Benjamin
Eindhoven University of Technology
Contemporary technical systems challenge existing analytic paradigms of technological mediation, operating on (differential and dislocated) spatial and temporal scales that cannot be reduced to localized human-technology relations (cf. Benjamin, 2023). Simply put, in the isolated here and now, artefacts with and via which we interface with these systems do not account exhaustively for the formation of subjectivities and objectivities. Rather, there are systemic properties—such as extractive techniques, but also lag, compression and noise—that texture these artefacts, and infiltrate mediation. This paper considers the effect of such properties on mediation through extimacy, as adopted from Lacan by Aydin (Aydin, 2021); and relates this to design through Tafdrup's proposals on introducing Cassirer's symbolic form to technological mediation via Flusser's 'informatic' phenomenology of design. First, extimacy is here considered as accounting for the hard problem of perceived boundaries between the self and the world by considering them as co-constitutive of each other, rather than imaginary separate spheres of being. I further suggest that the technological mediation of extimacy (relating to prior work on Foucauldian technologies of the self, cf. Berger and Verbeek, 2020; Verbeek, 2011), when considered through Tafdrup's work, can be considered as a form in Cassirer's sense, that is, as a conception of reality through functional symbols that meaningfully bind perception and action. Lastly, the contemporary impact and responsibilities of design on such forms is laid out through Flusser's 'informatic' phenomenology: when design in the information age in-forms abstract forms (the technical images of programs, routines, procedures), it does not add concepts to matter, but matter to concepts. The matter of contemporary technical systems, then, requires a full accounting in technological mediation if the latter is to be of any sufficient relevance to contemporary design, and in turn, the position of the human self in everyday life. In closing, lag, compression and noise are showcased as means with which designers sensitive to this contemporary circumstance are already operating.
References
Aydin, Ciano. 2021. Extimate Technology : Self-Formation in a Technological World. New York: Routledge.
Benjamin, Jesse Josua. 2023. “Machine Horizons: Post-Phenomenological AI Studies.” Doctoral dissertation, University of Twente.
Bergen, Jan Peter, and Peter-Paul Verbeek. 2020. “To-Do Is to Be: Foucault, Levinas, and Technologically Mediated Subjectivation.” Philosophy & Technology, January, 325–48. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-019-00390-7.
Cassirer, Ernst. 1956. An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture. Doubleday Anchor Books.
Flusser, Vilém. 1999. The Shape of Things : A Philosophy of Design. London, UK: Reaktion Books.
Tafdrup, Oliver Alexander. 2024. “Ernst Cassirer and the Symbolic Mediation of Technological Artefacts in Advance: An Addendum to the Vocabulary of Mediation Theory.” Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology. https://doi.org/10.5840/techne202438197.
Verbeek, Peter-Paul. 2011. Moralizing Technology : Understanding and Designing the Morality of Things. University of Chicago Press. https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo11309162.html.
A Critique of technological Ideology in Taiwanese folk religion
Wei Min Tsai
Aletheia University, Taiwan, Taiwan
In recent years, the biggest change among Taiwan's religions has been the introduction and widespread application of digital technology. When traditional religions face the impact of today's digital technology, they certainly have to face "digital disruption" - the deconstruction and collapse of traditional organizations. But that is also an opportunity for "digital transformation" - the reconstruction of digital technology. and reinterpretation. In the process of religious modernization, a large amount of information technology intermediary content has appeared. Technological intermediation may cause qualitative changes in the intermediary, and even cause changes in the content, spirit, doctrinal interpretation and rituals of religion.
Religion and science have always been antagonistic but interdependent. Throughout human history, the apocalyptic character of religion has been constantly challenged by the scientific discourse of the time, but it has also remained unshakable through the reinterpretation of sacred language. Religion has always been able to compete with technology. That is because the "faith" that has always been the key to human behavior and judgment, and the "spirituality" that supports the reasonable existence of beliefs cannot be completely eliminated through scientific methods; however, these two In 2006, "quantum entanglement" seemed to break this deadlock. In 2023, MIT research discovered that the human nervous system may have the characteristics of quantum entanglement. This seems to mean that human consciousness can break through the limitations of time and space, and perceive information at the energy level directly. Some people therefore believe that spirituality is actually a science.
Sociologist of religion Peter Berger mentioned in "The Sacred Curtain" that so-called religion is "the use of sacred methods to order human activities." In today's language, it can be said that religion is actually discussion on the sacredness of human survival technology in various eras. Will the impact of digital technology and the discovery of new physical science theories further impact the revealed authority of various religious traditions and gradually weaken it? Or is it because the mystical discourse is confirmed by scientific reason and the authority of reason is strengthened? How does religion face and respond to the impact of AI digital technology?
This article will take Taiwan Folk Religion as the research field, and use the method of Critical Theory -- especially the arguments in Habermas's "Technology and Science as Ideology" to analyze the technological ideology of Taiwan's folk religion. To discuss the problems and responses faced by Taiwan Folk Religion in the face of the impact of digital technology, especially the turning point and crisis in the integration of Taiwanese folk religion and digital technology.
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