Negotiating Privacy Concerns and Social Capital Needs in a Social Media Environment

Abstract

This chapter will consider how SNS users balance the desire to share personal information (and thus potentially accrue the social capital benefits associated with disclosure) and the need to control these disclosures (by minimizing the risks associated with sharing private information). We describe three strategies by which users can control the audience for their disclosures on SNSs: Friending behaviors, managing audiences via privacy settings, and disclosures on the site. Below we briefly discuss social capital, privacy, and information disclosure on SNSs before presenting some preliminary findings about SNS privacy behaviors and social capital