Why don’t we share? Social networks and privacy concerns, a comparative analysis of academics of communication field in Turkiye and Malaysia


Önay Doğan B., Şener N. K., Kıran S., Mustafa H.

Connectist: İstanbul University Journal of Communication Sciences (Online), cilt.0, sa.63, ss.87-122, 2022 (Hakemli Dergi) identifier identifier

Özet

While Social Network Sites (SNSs) allow users to share content, some users may sometimes deliberately limit what they share for various reasons. The present research focuses the concerns about what academics share on SNSs in the field of communication in Turkey and Malaysia. Adopting a mixed-method approach, the collection of quantitative data through questionnaires was followed by indepth interviews with the participants. The findings obtained from both data collection tools were evaluated and the relation between the qualitative and quantitative data was discussed. The results showed that privacy awareness and self-censorship scores were similar in both countries. The privacy concern scores of Malaysian academics were higher than the respondents from Turkey, their concerns focusing on the followers. The concerns of respondents from Turkey about the use of shared information by third parties were higher than their Malaysian counterparts. Academic identity was found as a restrictive factor for social media sharing in both countries. In addition, regulation in the religious field was recommended by the respondents of Malaysia. The findings overall emphasized the significant differences between these two contexts.