Sociological Analysis of Trust Culture in Cyber Space

The present study aims to investigate the possibility of creation of trust culture in cyber space regarding its structural properties. We used the theory of social trust by Piotr Sztompka and Handerson as the theoretical framework of the study. The study was conducted in the city of Islamshahr in December 2012. The statistical population included all the people who went to an internet café in the cityfrom whom 383 people were chosen as the sample. The results indicate that trust culture has been formed in the cyber space, however at a lower average level compared to the physical world. The results also show a direct relation between the structure of cyber space and the formed trust culture. The structure of cyber space showed a stronger relation with the mental dimension of trust culture rather than its objective dimension. Different cyber space environments showed different levels of trust culture. Facebook showed the strongest trust culture and emails andgame environments came in second and third level.