Comparative Privacy Research: Literature Review, Framework, and Research Agenda

Abstract

The ways in which privacy is defined, perceived, and enacted are contingent on cultural, social, political, economic, and technological structures. Privacy research, however, is often conducted in settings that do not account for variations in how privacy is perceived and enacted. A comparative perspective explicitly addresses this shortcoming by requiring the contextualization of privacy through investigating structural similarities and differences. This paper outlines a comparative privacy research framework, which proposes five interrelated structures (cultural, social, political, economic, and technological) as fruitful units of comparison and disentangles how these structures affect and interact with privacy processes at the micro-, meso-, and macro levels. We conclude by proposing a comparative privacy research agenda, which acknowledges the embeddedness of privacy in such structural settings, and informs efforts to address privacy as a valued outcome through policy formation, education, and research.

Relatedness and compatibility: The concept of privacy in Mandarin Chinese and American English corpora

“…This study has revealed that natural language is promising to operationalize intercultural privacy research and comparative privacy research (Masur et al, 2021). This study connects questions from intercultural information ethical discussions (e.g., Ess, 2005; 2019; Hongladarom, 2016) with the computational textual methods, and provides a multilevel description of how privacy as an abstract concept exists in the two languages.…”

Antecedents of Privacy Protection Behaviors at the Vertical and Horizontal Levels

“…Although previous research has examined antecedents of PPBs, it has rarely made clear distinctions and comparisons between the contexts in which different privacy threats arise in (Ortloff et al, 2021;Epstein & Quinn, 2020;Masur et al, 2021;Yun et al, 2019). This is a somewhat surprising omission, as context plays a major role in individuals' privacy perceptions and behaviors (Nissenbaum, 2010).…”