Conveying the Message of Trust through Written Texts in CouchSurfing.org

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Published: May 1, 2014
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/syn.16179
Alexander Ronzhyn
Eugenia Kuznetsova
Abstract

The present article describes the results of research on online identity construction during participation in hospitality social networks. One type of user submitted data, references, was analysed to uncover and describe the way trust is conveyed in Couchsurfing.org. Through corpus-based linguistic analysis, authors explore the relative importance of different types of user interactions in the network and describe how references contribute to the framework of trust built within the Couchsurfing.org social network. Among the findings are the increased use of adjectives in references and the concepts used by the Couchsurfing management. Trust is seldom used in the references directly, but rather expressed through euphemisms and metaphors.

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Author Biographies
Alexander Ronzhyn

Alexander Ronzhyn, a doctoral researcher at Deusto University, Bilbao is currently working on his thesis on online social networks, trust and tolerance. Having obtained his degree in International Relations from Taras-Shevchenko National University, Kyiv, he continued his academic career in sociology. Ronzhyn’s interests include the influence of the social networks on the social life of people, trust and tolerance in the information age, and information law. He is also a part of Human Rights working group at Deusto University. 

Eugenia Kuznetsova

Eugenia Kuznetsova is a doctoral researcher of the Social Challenges research group at Deusto University in Bilbao, Spain. Her scientific interests include all forms of written texts, social sciences and the borderland between the two. 

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