Governance by Trust Mediators in the Digital Society: the Redistribution of Risk and Vulnerability

Online intermediaries and algorithmic technologies, such as platforms or AI, remediated and with it, transformed many of our social, economic, and political relations. This transformation of relationships also affects the trust which makes these relations possible, and which emerges through these interactions and beyond. We argue that digital technologies remediate trust, and in doing so, they produce new risks and vulnerabilities while redistribute old ones. We use six domains to illustrate how interpersonal and institutional trust are transformed through digital remediation. By reviewing contemporary literature on the impact of digital technologies on institutional and interpersonal trust, this article offers a new approach to conceptualising how trust mediators operate, how they succeed and fail to absorb and redistribute risks. The findings serve as an important stepping stone to identify new directions for a theoretical framework on trust in the digital society.