On The Road: The Establishment Of Trust Among Chinese Donkey Friends

Abstract

This thesis is about the trust among Chinese online donkey friends , a group of young people finding travel companions on the web, in the different stages of their journey. The burgeoning phenomenon of donkey friends is, on the one hand, rooted in the guanxi networks of traditional Chinese society, and on the other hand reflects the characteristics of the socioeconomic transformation taking place in contemporary China. In order to understand why and how Chinese online donkey friends trust tourism websites and their travel companions, and what roles trust plays before, during and after the trip, I adopted qualitative research methods, including interviews, textual analyses and participant observation. To analyze my data, I employ the theoretical framework of trust theory, developed by Anthony Gidden. Trust among donkey friends is generated from online and offline interactions, and can be categorized into a) trust in websites, b) in persons and c) in the social norms shared and recognized by the majority of donkey friends. The aim of my study is to map the Chinese online donkey friends behaviors of trust and to offer a hint at how to solve trust-related issues in donkey-friend tourism in the future. My first findings suggest that individuals choose donkey-friend travel for both social-economic reason and personal reasons. The second finding is that donkey friends trust take on different characteristics at different stages. Before the trip, the individual depends on the reputation and professionality of a website to trust the website system; during the trip, he or she tends to trust the social norms and so-called donkey-friend rules ; after the trip, based on the interactions with his or her travel companions and understandings of their personalities, an individual will stop contact or continue to develop personal trust in donkey friends. While a dominant kind of trust has been established in each stage, I would also argue that the process is a dynamic one, and that different kinds of trust interlace and change throughout the donkey friends journey.

This thesis is about the trust among Chinese online donkey friends , a group of young people finding travel companions on the web, in the different stages of their journey. The burgeoning phenomenon of donkey friends is, on the one hand, rooted in the guanxi networks of traditional Chinese society, and on the other hand reflects the characteristics of the socioeconomic transformation taking place in contemporary China. In order to understand why and how Chinese online donkey friends trust tourism websites and their travel companions, and what roles trust plays before, during and after the trip, I adopted qualitative research methods, including interviews, textual analyses and participant observation. To analyze my data, I employ the theoretical framework of trust theory, developed by Anthony Gidden. Trust among donkey friends is generated from online and offline interactions, and can be categorized into a) trust in websites, b) in persons and c) in the social norms shared and recognized by the majority of donkey friends. The aim of my study is to map the Chinese online donkey friends behaviors of trust and to offer a hint at how to solve trust-related issues in donkey-friend tourism in the future. My first findings suggest that individuals choose donkey-friend travel for both social-economic reason and personal reasons. The second finding is that donkey friends trust take on different characteristics at different stages. Before the trip, the individual depends on the reputation and professionality of a website to trust the website system; during the trip, he or she tends to trust the social norms and so-called donkey-friend rules ; after the trip, based on the interactions with his or her travel companions and understandings of their personalities, an individual will stop contact or continue to develop personal trust in donkey friends. While a dominant kind of trust has been established in each stage, I would also argue that the process is a dynamic one, and that different kinds of trust interlace and change throughout the donkey friends journey.