Gomaa Agag
email: gomaa.agag@plymouth.ac.uk

PhD Ibrahim Elbeltagi
email: i.elbeltagi@plymouth.ac.uk

E-retailing Ethics in Egypt and its effect on customer repurchase intention

Keywords: E-retailing, online retailing ethics, repurchase intention, structural equation modelling

des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Introduction

The internet has come as a strong alternative way of physical commerce. The internet itself is a global phenomenon, with over 2,7billion users worldwide in 2013, up from 420 million in 2000 and 1 billion in 2005 [START_REF]Internet world stats[END_REF]. In the developing world, 31%of the population is online, compared with 77% in the developed world [START_REF]Internet world stats[END_REF].The incredible growth of e-commerce presents ethical issues by the way Internet represents new environment for unethical behaviour [START_REF] Freestone | Generation Y attitudes towards e-ethics and Internet -related misbehaviours[END_REF]. Although many business are acknowledging the importance of e-commerce and online retailing activities, little attention has been given to the business community's perceptions of the ethicality of this new media [START_REF] Bush | ethics and marketing on the Internet: practioners perceptions of societal, industry and company concerns[END_REF].Given the latest technological developments in e-retailing, this paper advances our understanding of the ethical issues in the online retail context. In this respect we follow the call by [START_REF] James | The Theoretical Domains of retailing research: A Retrospective[END_REF].For internet researchers to make significant contribution to the retailing literature "by utilizing theories not frequently applied to internet issues as well as investigating antecedents variables heretofore overlooked ".

A number of studies have addressed consumers' ethical believes and practices [START_REF] Fullerton | Consumer Ethics: An Assessment of individual Behaviour in the market place[END_REF][START_REF] Muncy | Consumer Ethics: An investigation of the Ethical beliefs of the final consumer[END_REF][START_REF] Strutton | Ethical Behaviour in Retail Settings: Is there a Generation Gap?[END_REF][START_REF] Vitell | The Muncy-Vitell Consumer Ethics Scale:A modification and Application[END_REF], as well as consumers' perceptions of retailers ethics [START_REF] Burns | Business Students Ethical perceptions of Retail Situations:A microcultural Comparison[END_REF][START_REF] Lagace | The Relevance of Ethical Salesperson Behviour on Relationship Quality:The Pharmaceutical Industry[END_REF][START_REF] Mcintyre | Consumer segments and Perceptions of Retail Ethics[END_REF][START_REF] Roman | The Impact of Ethical Sales Behaviour on Customer Satisfaction, Trust And Loyalty to the company:An Impirical study in the financial service Industry[END_REF]]. Yet, little research has been conducted on the potential ethical issues regarding online retailing from the consumers' perspective. In addition, the vast majority of earlier research is conceptual in nature, and has primarily focused on privacy issues e.g., [START_REF] Beltramini | Application of the Unfairness Doctorine to Marketing Communications on the Internet[END_REF][START_REF] Caudill | Consumer Online Privacy:Lgal and Ethical Issues[END_REF][START_REF] Maury | E-Commerce, Ethical Commerce?[END_REF][START_REF] Pollach | A Typology of Communicative strategies in online privacy policies:Ethics,Power and informed Consent[END_REF][START_REF] Palmer | Pop-Ups, Cookies, and Spam:Toward a Deeper Analysis of the Ethical Significance of Internet Marketing Practices[END_REF] ignoring other important ethical marketing issues surrounding the Internet such as deception and dishonesty [START_REF] Bush | ethics and marketing on the Internet: practioners perceptions of societal, industry and company concerns[END_REF][START_REF] Murphy | Ethical Marketing:Basic Ethics in Action[END_REF]. The purpose of our study is to propose a theoretical model explaining what factors contribute to online retailing ethics and its effect on customer repurchase intention.

2

Literature review

According to the Aristotelian moral philosophy tradition, the meaning of the word "ethics" is "human actions from the point of view of their rightness or wrongness" [START_REF] Gaski | Does Marketing Ethics Really Have Anything to say?A critical Inventory of the Literature[END_REF]. Ethics corresponds to "what is good?" [START_REF] Pires | Ethnic Marketing Ethics[END_REF], however there is not any universal answer to this question [START_REF] Fisher | Attitudes towards consumer and Business Ethics among Canadian and NewZealand Business students: An assessment of 25 Scenarios[END_REF] "Marketing Ethics" could be defined as the standards of conduct and moral judgment applied to marketing practice or a code of morals for the marketing field [START_REF] Gaski | Does Marketing Ethics Really Have Anything to say?A critical Inventory of the Literature[END_REF]. There are many studies in the literature addressing various issues concerning marketing ethics [START_REF] Murphy | An Ethical Basis for Relationship Marketing:A virtue ethics perspective[END_REF][START_REF] Vitell | Ethical Decision making in Marketing:Asynthesis and evalution of scales measuring the various components of decision making in ethical situations[END_REF][START_REF] Fraedrich | Reviewed work(s): Ethics in Marketing by N. CraigSmith; John A. Quelch. Practical Business Ethics by Warren A[END_REF]. However, previous researchers have tended to ignore other potential important ethical marketing issues pertaining to the internet, such as deception, dishonesty, and accuracy [START_REF] Roman | Relational Consequences of Perceived Deception in Online Shopping: The Moderating Roles of Type of Product, Consumer's Attitude Toward the Internet and Consumer's Demographics[END_REF]. Though the CPEOR scale was developed in 2007, few studies e.g. [START_REF] Roman | The Ethics of Online Retailing: A Scale development and Validation from the Consumers' Perspective[END_REF][START_REF] Roman | The Perceptions of Consumers Regarding Online Retailers' Ethics and Their Relationship with Consumers' General Internet Expertise and Word of Mouth: A preliminary Analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Kurt | Ethics as a customer perceived value driver in the context of online retailing[END_REF][START_REF] Limbu | Consumers' perceptions of online ethics and its effects on customer satisfaction[END_REF][START_REF] Arjoon | Ethics and Customer Loyalty: Some Insights into Online Retailing Services[END_REF] have examined the antecedents e.g. consumers' general internet expertise and consequences e.g. trust, perceived value, satisfaction, loyalty, and word-of-mouth of CPEOR. Further, it is particularly relevant to understand how consumers evaluate the ethics of their web sites in the face of competition between merchants and constantly rising consumer expectations [START_REF] Roman | The Ethics of Online Retailing: A Scale development and Validation from the Consumers' Perspective[END_REF]. Drawing on the above studies, in this research, online retailing ethics (ORE) is defined as consumers' perceptions about the integrity and responsibility of the company (behind the website) in its attempt to deal with consumers in a secure, confidential, fair and honest manner that ultimately protects consumers' interests.

Theoretical model and research hypotheses

We expect ORE to be a higher-order construct composed of five dimensions. In particular, we conceive a second-order factor structure in which five distinct component factors (i.e., security, privacy, fulfilment, non-deception, and CSR) are the manifestation of a broader, more general and more abstract higher-order latent variable (ORE). This conceptualization is consistent with previous definitions of business ethics at highly abstract levels e.g., [START_REF] Barry | Moral Issues in Business[END_REF][START_REF] Bartels | A Model for Ethics in Marketing[END_REF][START_REF] Beauchamp | Ethical theory and Business[END_REF]. In such a second-order factorial structure, each factor can be considered a manifestation of ORE, and each item is a manifesta-tion of its respective factor. Based on this reasoning, we propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 1: ORE is a second-order construct composed of five dimensions (i.e., security, privacy, fulfilment, non-deception, and CSR).

ORE and repurchase intention

Repurchase intention is defined here as the intention to repurchase a particular brand of product again. A buyer who has higher levels of trust of the salesperson and the manufacturer with which he/she has had experience is more likely to repurchase that brand than is the customer with lower levels of trust. Holden, (1990) found that one of the outcomes of both trust of the salesperson and trust of the company is purchasing loyalty. It is understood that if a customer buys from the same supplier again and is well disposed toward it affectively, he or she is really loyal to the provider [START_REF] Sheth | Relationship marketing in Consumer Markets: Antecedents and Consequences[END_REF][START_REF] Gremler | The loyalty ripples effect[END_REF][START_REF] Oliver | Whence consumer loyalty[END_REF][START_REF] Cronin | Assessing the effects of quality, value, and customer satisfaction on consumer behavioral intentions in service environments[END_REF]. In the financial services the main outcomes of the service will then influence the customer's attitude. But other aspects related to the perceived social behaviour of the provider can determine the final attitude too [START_REF] Garca De Los Salmones | The social role of financial companies as a determinant of consumer behaviour[END_REF]. A review of the literature identified a number of studies on social programs that found positive effects of social and ethical business practices on customer attitudes toward the brand [START_REF] Lafferty | Cause-brand alliance: does the cause help the brand or does the brand help the cause[END_REF] with stronger identification with the company, greater brand purchase and greater intention to seek employment with the company [START_REF] Sen | The role of corporate social responsibility in strengthening multiple stakeholder relationships: a field experiment[END_REF]. In this sense, consumers are willing to actively support companies committed to cause-related marketing, environmentally friendly practices and ethics [START_REF] Maignan | Corporate social responsibility and marketing: an integrative framework[END_REF][START_REF] Mcdonald | Corporate social responsibility and bank customer satisfaction: a research agenda[END_REF]. [START_REF] Limbu | Consumers' perceptions of online ethics and its effects on customer satisfaction[END_REF] pointed out that perceived ethics of an Internet retailer's website significantly affect consumers' trust and attitudes to the retailer's website that eventually have positive impacts on purchase and revisit intentions. The ORE is proposed to positively influence the customer's repurchase intentions. The following hypothesis is suggested regarding the impact of ORE on repurchase intention.

Hypothesis 2: As security increase, consumer repurchase intention will increase. Hypothesis 3: As privacy increase, consumer repurchase intention will increase. Hypothesis 4: As fulfilment increase, consumer repurchase intention will increase. Hypothesis 5: As non-deception increase, consumer repurchase intention will increase.

Hypothesis 6: As CSR increase, consumer repurchase intention will increase.

Method

Sample selection and data collection

To empirically test the hypotheses, we used a questionnaire survey. Data was collected from the American university in Egypt. Student samples have often been used in online shopping research e.g., [START_REF] Balabanis | Consumer attitudes towards multi-Channel retailers' Web Sites: The role of involvement, brand attitude, internet knowledge and visit duration[END_REF][START_REF] Kim | Influence of online store perception, shopping enjoyment, and shopping involvement on consumer patronage behaviour towards an online retailer[END_REF]. We obtained a usable sample of 280 students. Demographic details of the sample profile are provided in Table 1.

Measurement scales

We used existing multi-item scales for the measurement of (Privacy, Security, Fulfilment/Reliability, and Non-deception). This scale developed by [START_REF] Roman | The Ethics of Online Retailing: A Scale development and Validation from the Consumers' Perspective[END_REF] and has four dimensions: security (5 items), privacy (4 items), non-deception (4 items) and fulfilment/reliability (4 items). All scales consisted of 5-point Likert questions, ranging from ''1 = strongly disagree'' to ''5 = strongly agree''. CSR was measured using a scale adapted from [START_REF] Wagner | The dark side of retailing: towards a scale of corporate social irresponsibility[END_REF] scale of "corporate social irresponsibility" and followed the conceptualization of [START_REF] Sen | The role of corporate social responsibility in strengthening multiple stakeholder relationships[END_REF]. Repurchase intention was measured using five items scale adapted from [START_REF] Siu | The Roles of Justice and Customer Satisfaction in Customer Retention: A Lesson from Service Recovery[END_REF].

Results

Descriptive statistics

A total of 280 respondents were surveyed online. Of these 280 participants, 155 were men (55.0%) and 125 were women (45.0%). The majority of respondents were aged between 20 and 30 (64.0%), had post-graduate education (master and doctorate) (89.5%), and had engaged in online shopping three times within the previous year (82.0%). The most recent online shoppers experience for the majority of respondents was within the previous 2 years (64.0%) and the most online shoppers income was £1000 or below (44.5%). Table1 shows the respondent demographics.

Measurement model

In contrast with LISREL, the partial least squares (PLS) method is an appropriate analytical tool in this case because it has minimal demands on measurement scales, sample size, and residual distributions [START_REF] Chin | A partial least squares latent variable modeling app roach for measuring interaction effects: Results from a monte carlo simulation study and voice mail emotion/adoption study[END_REF]. The assessment of a measurement model should examine (1) individual item reliability, (2) internal consistency, and (3) discriminate validity (Barclay, Higgins, & Thompson, 1995). This study employs the structural equation modelling tool WarpPLS (version 4.0) for confirmatory factor analysis to estimate the measurement model using WarpPLS analysis to test construct reliability and validity. The results in Table 2 show that composite reliabilities ranged from 0.891 to 0.917, all exceeding 0.7 [START_REF] Bagozzzi | On the evaluation of structural equation models[END_REF], and the AVE of each construct ranged from 0.651 to 0.701, all exceeding 0.5 [START_REF] Chin | A partial least squares latent variable modeling app roach for measuring interaction effects: Results from a monte carlo simulation study and voice mail emotion/adoption study[END_REF]. Table 2 shows that all indices fit with heuristics. Discriminate validity is tested in the measurement model analysis to determine the correlations between the latent variables and other constructs. The convergent and discriminant validity were assessed by checking whether the AVE (average variance extracted) of each construct is larger than its correlation with the other constructs, and whether each item had a higher loading on its assigned construct than on the other constructs [START_REF] Fornell | Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables, and measurement error[END_REF][START_REF] Gefen | Structural equation modeling techniques and regression: Guidelines for research practice[END_REF]. The results indicate that the discriminate validity was achieved, as shown in Table 2.

5.3

Structural model

The model explains 81% of variance for the repurchase intention. H1 since we wanted to have stronger evidence of the existence of the five ethical dimensions, Following the method utilized by [START_REF] Doll | A confirmatory factor analysis of the enduser computing satisfaction instrument[END_REF][START_REF] Dabholkar | A measure of service quality for retail stores: Scale development and validation[END_REF], we performed CFA analyses using WarpPls 4.0 comparing several possible factor structures (see Table 3). We compared the fit of the six-factor model to that of a series of alternative models with fewer factors: fivefactor model (privacy + security, non-deception, reliability, CSR, and repurchase intention) and four-factor model (privacy + security + reliability, non-deception, CSR, and repurchase intention) and three-factor (privacy + security + reliability, nondeception + CSR, and repurchase intention) and a two-factor model (privacy + security + reliability + non-deception + CSR, and repurchase intention). As shown in Table 3, the five factors model, one second-order factor fits the data much better than the other factor models. For example, the AARS difference between the proposed fivefactor model and the others models is highly significant (AARS=0.758, p<0.001). The overall fit measures suggest that the model is a plausible representation of the structures underlying the empirical data. The APC= (0.168, p<0.001), ARS= (0. 773, p<0.001), AARS= (0. 758, p<0.001), AVIF= (2.653), and GOF= (0.742). As long as the Average path coefficient (APC), the Average R squared (ARS), and the Average adjusted R-squared (AARS) are significant under 5% level, and the average variance inflation factor (VIF) is lower than 5. As well as the geometric mean of the average communality (GOF) suggests a large effect size, the overall fit indices indicate a good fit of the model [START_REF] Kline | Principles and practice of structural equation modeling[END_REF]; [START_REF] Kock | Using WarpPLS in e-collaboration studies: Descriptive statistics, settings, and key analysis results[END_REF]. These findings suggest that ORE can be modelled as a second-order construct. This provides strong support for the five dimensions as aspects of ORE as a second-order construct, thus confirming Hypothesis 1. Further evidence for acceptance of the second-order factor structure is found in the variance explained by the structural equations. ORE as a second-order construct explains 81% of customer satisfaction, as opposed to 72% in the alternative. APC= (0.168, p<0.001), ARS= (0. 773, p<0.001), AARS= (0. 758, p<0.001), AVIF= (2.653), and GOF= (0.742).

H2 examines the effects of privacy on repurchase intention. Privacy is significantly related to repurchase intention (B = .58, p < .01).

H3 examines the effects of security on repurchase intention. Security is significantly related to repurchase intention (B = .47, p < .01).

H4 examines the effects of reliability on repurchase intention. Reliability is significantly related to repurchase intention (B = .76, p < .01).

H5 examines the effects of non-deception on repurchase intention. Non-deception is significantly related to repurchase intention (B = .13, p < .05).

H6 examines the effects of CSR on repurchase intention. CSR is significantly related to repurchase intention (B = .32, p < .01).

Privacy

Nondeception

Reliability

Security CSR

Repurchase intention

The software calculates five fit indices which are meaningful in the context of variance-based SEM [START_REF] Kline | Principles and practice of structural equation modeling[END_REF][START_REF] Kock | Using WarpPLS in e-collaboration studies: Descriptive statistics, settings, and key analysis results[END_REF]: average path coefficient (APC), average R 2 (ARS), Average adjusted R-squared (AARS), average variance inflation factor (VIF), and geometric mean of the average communality (GOF). Their values are the following: APC= (0.168, p<0.001), ARS= (0. 773, p<0.001), AARS= (0. 758, p<0.001), AVIF= (2.653), and GOF= (0.742).

Discussion

The aim of this study was to examine the impact of online retailing ethics on repurchase intention with the extending research model adapted from [START_REF] Roman | The Ethics of Online Retailing: A Scale development and Validation from the Consumers' Perspective[END_REF]. Data were collected in Egypt. The findings of the hypotheses testing of this study were as follows.

First, we confirmed that ORE is a multidimensional construct composed of five dimensions: security, privacy, fulfilment/reliability, non-deception, and CSR.

Second, the findings of this study show the direct effect of the five dimensions (security, privacy, fulfilment/reliability, non-deception, and CSR) on consumer repurchase intention. This result confirms the findings of previous studies that online retailing ethics significantly impacts the customer repurchase intention e.g. [START_REF] Roman | The Ethics of Online Retailing: A Scale development and Validation from the Consumers' Perspective[END_REF][START_REF] Roman | The Perceptions of Consumers Regarding Online Retailers' Ethics and Their Relationship with Consumers' General Internet Expertise and Word of Mouth: A preliminary Analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Kurt | Ethics as a customer perceived value driver in the context of online retailing[END_REF].

A key aspect of this multidimensional conceptualization is that privacy is important. Privacy is a great concern in modern society [START_REF] Ellis | The evaluation of it ethical scenarios using a multidimensional scale[END_REF]. The American Marketing Association (AMA) Code of Ethics for Marketing on the Internet states that ''information collected from customers should be confidential and used only for expressed purposes.'' This statement recommends that e-commerce companies comply with ethical principles and protect a consumer's privacy. The results of the current study also indicate that ORE involves privacy.

Security, the second dimension, is an important issue in contemporary online transactions [START_REF] Peha | Paycash: a secure efficient Internet payment system[END_REF]. Prior literature argued that technological protection and security statements are significant factors that can improve consumer-perceived security [START_REF] Hwang | A new mobile payment scheme for roaming services[END_REF][START_REF] Kim | An empirical study of customers'perceptions of security and trust in e-payment systems[END_REF][START_REF] Lim | Inter-consortia battles in mobile payments standardisation[END_REF]. Our study suggests that consumers desire e-commerce companies to have technological protection and security statements. Thus, ORE includes security.

Fulfilment/reliability, suggests that ORE is also related to the service quality delivered by websites on which consumers shop online. Consistent with previous research [START_REF] Parasuraman | E-S-QUAL A Multiple-Item Scale For Assessing Electronic Service Quality[END_REF][START_REF] Wolfinbarger | eTailQ:Dimensionalizing, Measuring and Predicting etail Quality[END_REF], our results show that online consumers want to receive the right quality and right quantity of items that they ordered within the time frame promised by the online retailers, and they expect to be billed accurately by them.

The existence of the fourth dimension, non-deception, indicates that consumers' concerns arising in traditional markets due to deceptive or manipulative advertising and sales practices are somewhat exacerbated in Internet commerce by the relatively unfamiliar and impersonal nature of the Web, where the lack of opportunities for face-to-face interactions reduces people's ability to detect deception [START_REF] Ben-Ner | Trust in the New Economy[END_REF]. For instance, in traditional retail settings, the detection of deception relies, amongst other things, on recognizing subtle changes in a person's non-verbal behaviours, such as eye contact and body movements [START_REF] Depaulo | Nonverbal Behavior and Self-presentation[END_REF].

Finally, CSR, Several studies have investigated how consumers perceive the social responsibility of retailers [START_REF] Lichtenstein | The effect of corporate social responsibility on customer donations to corporate supported non-profits[END_REF][START_REF] Maignan | Corporate social responsibility and marketing: an integrative framework[END_REF]. An international survey has been conducted on 211 scholars with expertise in business ethics. Each respondent was asked to identify the three most important issues that business ethics academia will face in the coming decade. The results suggest that the most important issues facing business ethics academia in the future will be the corporate social responsibility [START_REF] Holland | The Worldwide Academic Field of Business Ethics:Scholars' Perceptions of the Most Important Issues[END_REF].

Fulfilment was the strongest predictor of repurchase intention. This adds further empirical evidence to previous results [START_REF] Wolfinbarger | eTailQ:Dimensionalizing, Measuring and Predicting etail Quality[END_REF][START_REF] Roman | The Ethics of Online Retailing: A Scale development and Validation from the Consumers' Perspective[END_REF]. When shopping online, consumers are vulnerable. They worry that they will not receive the products or services exactly as they purchased. Consequently, consumer concerns about fulfilment are still a critical issue for online retailers [START_REF] Collier | Measuring service quality in e-retailing[END_REF]. Furthermore, privacy, followed by security, CSR and non-deception, had a strong influence on repurchase ignition Overall; these results are in line with several articles and reports e.g., [START_REF] Stead | Ethical Issues in Electronic Commerce[END_REF][START_REF] Truste | TN's/Truste Holiday[END_REF].

Theoretical contribution

This study contributes to the literature in the following ways. First, the study provides empirical support for a comprehensive model of ORE composed of five multidimensional constructs that include security, privacy, fulfilment/reliability non-deception, and CSR. Several scales developed to measure online service quality tend to collapse privacy and security concepts into one dimension [START_REF] Parasuraman | E-S-QUAL A Multiple-Item Scale For Assessing Electronic Service Quality[END_REF][START_REF] Wolfinbarger | eTailQ:Dimensionalizing, Measuring and Predicting etail Quality[END_REF]. Prior research in the traditional marketplace addressing consumers' ethical perceptions has considered a limited number of dimensions. For example, in [START_REF] Wolfinbarge | eTailQ: Dimensionalizing, Measuring and Predicting etail Quality[END_REF] study, the security/privacy dimension refers to: ''security of credit card payments and privacy of shared information''.

Second key contribution of the present study stems from the analysis of the effects of ORE on consumer repurchases intention. Overall, this is particularly relevant if we take into account the psychological distance theory. Several theories of interpersonal communication suggest physical proximity in communication fosters stronger bonds between the parties than communication that occurs remotely e.g., [START_REF] Roman | The Perceptions of Consumers Regarding Online Retailers' Ethics and Their Relationship with Consumers' General Internet Expertise and Word of Mouth: A preliminary Analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Roman | The Ethics of Online Retailing: A Scale development and Validation from the Consumers' Perspective[END_REF]. The current study shows that ORE factors become a key means of fostering consumers' repurchase intention in a context where communications occur remotely.

Implications for practice and future research directions

Research suggests that ethics can play a critical role in the formation and maintenance of long-term relationships with customers [START_REF] Roman | Relationship Outcomes of Perceived Ethical Sales Behavior: The Customer's perspective[END_REF]. In order to successfully operate a commercial website from an ethical perspective, online retailers need to understand how consumers' ethical perceptions are formed. The present study compiled a list of 23 items (grouped into five factors) that online retailers can use to assess such perceptions. These items would provide several hints to online retailers in terms of how to shape their customers' satisfaction and repurchase intentions.

We encourage future studies to use random sampling of general consumers. The ethics literature identifies some factors which influence ethical judgments of consumers (e.g., sex, age, and education). Such research could identify how each variable, individually and cooperatively, impacts consumer ethical evaluations of online retailing. We did not collect data from non-Internet shoppers because the focus of this study was online consumers referring to their latest purchase online. It may be an interesting extension, however, to test this conceptual model for other populations like non online consumers.

Conclusion

Some researchers believe that a systematic empirical study of e-commerce ethical issues must be conducted from the consumers' perspective [START_REF] Roman | The Ethics of Online Retailing: A Scale development and Validation from the Consumers' Perspective[END_REF]. This study represents an initial step into examining of e-retailing ethics from the consumers' perspective and the understanding of its effects on consumer repurchases intention. The results offer important implications for e-retailers and are likely to stimulate further research in the area of e-ethics from the consumers' perspective.

*

  Significant at the 0.01 level. ** Significant at the 0.05 level.

Fig. 1

 1 Fig.1PLS results of research model of main test (n = 310).

Table 1

 1 Sample profile

	Variable		Categories	Frequency	Percent
	Gender		Male	155	55.0%
			Female	125	45.0%
	Age		<20	-	-
			20<30	180	64.0%
			30>40	80	28.5%
			<40	20	7.5%
	Monthly income	£1,000 or below	125	44.5%
			£1,001-2,000	90	32.0%
			£2,001-3,000	50	18.0%
			£3,001 or above.	15	5.5%
	Education		Bachelor degree	10	3.5%
			Diploma	20	7.0%
			Master or doctor-	250	89.5%
			ate.
			Other	-	-
	Frequency	of	<3 times	212	76.0%
	online shopping	4-6 times	31	11.0%
	within a year		7-9 times	26	9.0%
			>10 times	11	4.0%
	Experience		< 2	180	64.0%
			2<5	70	25.0%
			>5	30	11.0%

Table 2

 2 Results of composite reliability and convergent/discriminant validity testing.

	Construct Reliability AVE	Correlations and square roots of AVEs.
				PV	SC REL	DEC CSR REP
	PV	0.891	0.672 (0.826)
	SC	0.904	0.701 0.815	(0.837)
	REL	0.896	0.682 0.777	0.800	(0.822)
	DEC	0.912	0.676 0.748	0.774 0.665 (0.820)
	CSR	0.917	0.651 0.770	0.779	0.728 0.803 (0.807)
	REP	0.874	0.662 0.803 0.793 0.763 0.797 0.712 (0.816)
	Note: PV: privacy, SC: security, REL: reliability, DCE: non-deception, CSR: Cor-
	porate social responsibility and REP: repurchase intention.

Table 3

 3 Summary results of models fit indices

	Models	APC	ARS	AARS	AVIF	GOF
	five factors,	0.168	0.773	0.758	2.653	0.742
	one second-order factor
	five factors	0.187	0.713	0.708	2.851	0.702
	four factors	0.217	0.706	0.702	2.949	0.689
	three factors	0.261	0.707	0.704	3.191	0.687
	two factors	0.321	0.694	0.691	3.364	0.674


Halvdan Haugsbakken
email: halvdan.haugsbakken@svt.ntnu.no

Connecting Social Capital by Social Media

Keywords: social capital, social media, youth, resources, Norway

de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Introduction

Norwegians spend significant time on different social media platforms, like blogs, content communities, and Social Network Sites (SNSs). Norwegians are digitally literate, considering that only 5 million reside in the country. The Norwegian online press has estimated that 2.8 million Norwegians are connected to Facebook [START_REF] Sveinbjørnsson | Så mange nordmenn er på Facebook[END_REF]. National surveys suggest that approximately 410.000 check their Twitter account each week [START_REF] Fossbakken | Rekord for Twitter i Norge[END_REF], while 641.000 have created a user profile on Linkedin [START_REF] Synlighet | Linkedin -fakta og statistikk over brukere i Norge og verden[END_REF]. 300.000 are claimed having tried Google+ [START_REF] Myrstad | Har over 300.000 nordmenn prøvd Google+? 2012[END_REF]. Many are users of tablets too, approximately 700.000 [START_REF] Fossbakken | En millon brukere av tablets[END_REF]. Although these are estimations made by the online news press, we can assume that Norwegians are connected to multiple web services, forming is a systematic user pattern. The estimations also suggest that Norwegians have access to a large pool of resources.

The interesting research question remaining addressing, however, is to what extent such numbers are believable. Such assessments can fall short. They give little insights on particular uses of SNSs and how they are organised. Empirical research on Norwegians' use of SNSs, for example, suggests this [START_REF] Brandtzg | Bridging and bonding in social network sites Investigating family-based capital[END_REF][START_REF] Brandtzaeg | Towards a unified Media-User Typology (MUT): A meta-analysis and review of the research literature on media-user typologies[END_REF][START_REF] Brandtzaeg | Social networking sites: Their users and social implications -A longitudinal study[END_REF][START_REF] Brandtzaeg | Too many facebook "Friends"? Content sharing and sociability versus the need for privacy in social network sites[END_REF]. The research community still lacks empirical knowledge, on what Jenkins calls the "participative culture" [START_REF] Jenkins | Confronting the challenges of a participatory culture: Media education for the 21th century[END_REF] of SNSs and social capital. Researchers are even now investigating users' connecting strategies, motivation for use, user characteristics and user topologies, privacy matters, online social identity management, and organisations' use [START_REF] Caers | Facebook: A literature review[END_REF]. Such topics dominate due to that quantitative research lead the way in forming current research [START_REF] Brandtzaeg | Social implications of the Internet and social networking sites: a user typology approach[END_REF]. There are other issues too. Current studies often address use of one social network site, not several and how they are combined. They are also U.S. context-based and focus on few demographic variables, chiefly, American university students [START_REF] Caers | Facebook: A literature review[END_REF][START_REF] Brandtzaeg | Social implications of the Internet and social networking sites: a user typology approach[END_REF].

Consequently, researchers still have little accurate research knowledge on how social actors make use and extract capital form the vast resources found in social media platforms, moreover, how they transform and utilize them as part of social practices belonging to larger socio-cultural contexts. Furthermore, we need to know more on what role the combination of off-line and on-line ties play in the complex coordination of social life.

This paper considers that matter. The paper examines three distinct social practices, which are neatly embedded and transpire from social actors' use of social media software. The paper examines how a cohort of Norwegian high school students use Facebook as a tool to (1) coordinate formal schoolwork, (2) as a mean to organise drivers for weekend partying, and (3) how YouTube tutorials can work as a learning resource to play music instruments and online gaming. Substantiating this argument, a look at the article's content pertains. The paper establishes an explorative user perspective on how a data sample of Norwegian high school students use different types of social media applications, understood as a form of social capital. First, relevant research on social network and social capital are accounted for. Second, choice of methods and data sample is outlined. Third, the study's results and findings are analysed, before the last part provides a preliminary conclusion.

Theoretical inspiration and research horizon

The advent of Web 2.0 [START_REF] O'reilly | What Is Web 2.0? Design patterns and business models for the next generation[END_REF] services has involved the introduction of technical definitions. Boyd and Ellison define SNS as a "web-based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other user with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system" [START_REF] Boyd | Social network sites: Definition, history and scholarship[END_REF]. This definition involves that Facebook is a SNS, while "old" pages, like blogs are not [START_REF] Aalen | En kort bok om sosiale medier[END_REF]. Kaplan & Haenlein have defined social media as a "group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content" [START_REF] Kaplan | Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media[END_REF]. They suggest that social media consists of six types; (1) collaborative projects, e.g. Wikipedia, (2) blog, (3) content communities, e.g. YouTube (4) SNS, e.g. Facebook, (5) virtual game worlds, e.g. World of Warcraft, [START_REF] Brandtzg | Bridging and bonding in social network sites Investigating family-based capital[END_REF] and virtual social worlds, e.g. Second Life [START_REF] Kaplan | Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media[END_REF].

These technical definitions touch upon sociological concepts of the social networks, ties, and social capital, but do not accentuate the social side of technologies. The advent of SNSs has reintroduced new research interest in social network analysis and social capital. Sociological work has been associated with Bourdieu [START_REF] Bourdieu | The forms of social capital, in Handbook of Theory And Action for the Sociology of Education[END_REF],Coleman [START_REF] Coleman | Social capital in the creation of human capital[END_REF], Burt [START_REF] Burt | Structural holes : the social structure of competition / Ronald S. Burt[END_REF][START_REF] Burt | Brokerage and closure : an introduction to social capital / Ronald S. Burt[END_REF], and Lin [START_REF] Lin | Social resources and instrumental action, in Social structure and network analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Lin | Building a network theory of social capital, in Social Capital: Theory and Research[END_REF]. Sociological research has argued that social capital is a resource found in social ties. These potential resources are assumed to be integrated in the social structures of social networks. Such resources can be emotional support and diffusion of ideas. Sociologists claim that social capital can possess the capacity of fostering cooperation between individuals or groups. It shares similar capacities to other forms of capital we normally associate that can provide economic growth, like financial capital. This means that social capital can be mobilised, in order to carry out social practices in social situations. This means that the value of ties and resources embedded in social media platforms can be employed by humans to carry out social practices. The question of a task's coordination would influence the success of how well a social practice is executed.

Early sociological work criticized the limited understanding of the social dynamics of ties in social networks. Granovetter's [START_REF] Granovetter | The Strenght of Weak Ties[END_REF] "the strength of weak ties", claimed that the qualities in close ties between social actors were undertheorised. Granovetter suggested that remote ties played a more significant role in who social actors choose to connecting with. Connecting strategies become a central part of social capital, having consequences for how communities are formed and perceived too. Putnam [START_REF] Putnam | Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community[END_REF] has suggested two forms of social capital, bonding and bridging. Bonding refers to resources coming from close relationships, while bridging are benefits which might come from casual or remote ties. Lin [START_REF] Lin | Social resources and instrumental action, in Social structure and network analysis[END_REF] argued for the theory of "instrumental action", suggesting that actors who invest in weak ties are likely to be benefiters. These approaches, however, theoretically assumes a resources are scarce and mutual recognition of action or tie. They also assume a type of game-theory approach, where social actors rationally compete and calculate their actions in social situations characterised by lack of resources.

In the digital age, it is all reversed. Information, resources, and ties, are abundant. This implies that consumption of digital devices and data sharing can have positive impact on social capital. The reoccurring analytical conundrum with current research, is that we have little knowledge on how the actual SNS use, practices, and patterns [START_REF] Ellison | Connection strategies: Social capital implications of Facebook-enabled communication practices[END_REF] transpire and are applied to coordinate tasks in social situations. Researchers are still bound to question the legitimacy of connections [START_REF] Ahn | Teenagers and social network sites: Do off-line inequalities predict their online social networks? First Monday[END_REF][START_REF] Stefanone | Lackaff The value of online friends: Networked resources via social network sites[END_REF]. Caers et.al argue that "our understanding is still quite fragmented and may lack nuances that characterize different settings, countries, and demographic variables" [START_REF] Caers | Facebook: A literature review[END_REF]. I argue that current research is too often concerned with understanding social capital to a limited number of SNSs. We need to expand our understanding beyond SNS and include "social media" more broadly, implying more detailed analysis on how different Web 2.0 applications connect with each other. Moreover, how social actors' interaction with usergenerated content, can be seen as resources and a mean for cooperation and coordination. for example, tend to be gendered. It is not uncommon to find classes in construction classes to only consist of males. The data sample is a reflection of its social setting. 12 interviews were carried out, 10 in groups, consisting of pairs to four students. Two interviews were completed individually, meaning a face-to-face conversation between researcher and student. The interviews lasted from 20 minutes to one hour. All interviews were semi-structured, but followed a guide with predefined questions. The interviews explored the students' user experiences. Concrete themes were investigated. After interviewing, the interviews were transcribed and patterns were attempted established. To complete this analytical goal, the sociological data analysis technique constant comparative method [START_REF] Strauss | Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques[END_REF][START_REF] Strauss | Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory[END_REF] was used. The students' answers were coded and grouped into specific themes.

Data analysis

The data analysis is intended at showing the study's findings. The following data analysis is divided into two parts. The first part considers recent tendencies among youth's use of social media applications. The second part will analyse three distinct web mediated social practices. The latter examines how students use Facebook as a tool to (1) coordinate formal schoolwork, (2) as a mean to organise drivers for weekend partying, and (3) how YouTube tutorials can work as a learning resource to play music instruments and to learn gaming.

Part I: The changing web landscape of social media

On a general level, the data shows that the students used social media for online socialisation activities and informal learning. They were "thick consumers" of social media. They used social media applications every day, either for passive or active purposes. They had all access to cell or smart phones or portable computers, either at their school or at home. Consumption of mediated computer practises played a crucial role in what it means to be teenager. Digitally "ubiquitous" is a suitable description.

Online engagement was commonplace. The projected norm was that a teenager could be accessible 24/7, although one finds variations. This is often presented along a scale of being "always in there", which applied especially to Facebook, to just knowing "what is going on". The dualism between the "on-line" vs. off-line is blurred, but the students had a situational awareness on when it applied. It was often projected that they had an on-going cognitive scripted conversation with someone all the time. The majority of the informants communicated that they did not have a zealous relationship to social media. In other words, the data does not debunk previous research knowledge on youth mediated culture on this level. The students were digitally informed citizens. They had considerable user experience. All had some previous user experience, prior to interviewing. This included five to six years of consumption of digital devices. Sometimes it was longer than that. They became consumers of desktops or portable computers and cells the age 13 or 14. The first introduction to the online world came often as the result of available resource facilitated by a close tie. A family laptop or desktop, for example, would serve as access to the virtual world. Others would gain more systematic access to the Internet by part-time working. Private wealth was a factor that decided if they had easy access to consumption of social media, than for example that this was enabled by prior schooling. Several informants, for example, had years of user experience before becoming Facebook users. The first introduction started with the Norwegian online community, Nettby,1 before they registered as Facebook users in 2007/08, and later became part of the Twitter community in 2012.

The students were predominantly portrayed a consumers than prosumers user profile. They conveyed themselves as "passive web 1.0" users than active "Web 2.0" users. They had a "read-only" than "read-and-write" approach and lurked publically more than being active content-producers. The students were conscious that an ambiguous audience could potentially exploit them. Content creation was associated with risk, although many did not mind that their names could be googled or were searchable on other search engines. Privacy was a major concern and online interacting was characterised by strong conformity and self-censorship. This is reflected in how the engaged online, which was restricted to private digital rooms. They engaged online in exclusive rooms where trust in ties is exercised. Many still used e-mail and SMS as a way of communicating, in addition to reading online newspapers on a daily bases. The voice-over-IP service Skype was also popular. Use of chatting software was one of the main ways of communicating with ties, which often happened on Facebook. Some referred to Facebook's integrated chat software as the new "SMS". Few students were content creators. Only four of 26 students had regularly published web contents. Three girls had created blogs and blogged regularly. One male student had published a YouTube video. Even the students who published online content, exercised rigours ideas on what they could publish online.

The students navigated between four types of social media applications, where Facebook played a centring, connecting, and organising role on top of the other web 2.0 applications. Students divided their online time between; (1) SNSs, (2) video-sharing communities, (3) online gaming and (4) blogs. This division follows strong gendered ideas and values. They are almost sectorial, where blogging and gaming represented a digital "off-limit space" to the opposite sex. SNSs and video-sharing represented a more "gender-neutral" space.

Blogging was popular among the female students, but controversial among the males. Some male students expressed their prompt annoyance. The males claimed that they did not read blogs, as it was a "girl thing". "Blogs is for girls", as one informant expressed it. If they read one, they only admitted watching pictures. The gendered youth divide was related to the particular Norwegian mediated practice of "rosalboggere", or "pinkbloggers", translated into English. Unclear on its cultural nature, it can be understood as a form of an individualised young adult consumer culture lifestyle, dedicated to the experimentation on feminine practices and online social identities. Youth blog about their everyday life, emotions, love-life, social issues, and endorse commercial products, acting as role model for young adults. This online category has risen to be a form of symbolic representation of a successful teen, although being heavily criticized for monetising and uncritical personal branding. Pinkbloggers are also controversial public figures or celebrities. Some have their own TV-show, like Sophie Elise Isachsen, where she essentially talks about her everyday life. 2 The pink blogging practice is connected to the site blogg.no, which many of the female informants read on a daily bases. Female students approached blogging predominantly from a consumer approach.

Online gaming was a youth male domain. Some female students had gamed, but briefly. Males explained that they had gamed for years, portraying it as an important leisure practice. Gaming could last for hours. It was a weekend hobby. Friends congregated and played Call of Duty or Counter Strike. Some males were reluctant to speak about the numbers of hours they spent in front of a PC or video game machine. Many male students stated they had started cutting down on gaming. It was portrayed as "dull"; and, if, a male student still spent hours on gaming, he was somehow considered as "non-adult".

YouTube was a favourite one among both sexes, portrayed as a "neutral" space. YouTube was used for different purposes; downloading music, just watching small video clips, and studying YouTube tutorials. These were the most common user practices. Many students used YouTube tutorials to learn how to play music instruments or how to play an online video game.

Facebook was the most popular social media application. All informants had a user profile. It was common having among 300 online friends, while some had 1.000 connections. Many had been users since 2008. The students reported contradictory habits. On the one hand side, they were connected everyday as "online-lookers", but on the other hand, stated a type of attitude of not being the one who contributed to online interaction and sharing, forming a "user paradox self-control". They exercised conformity, reflecting a high degree of editorial control and self-critical online stagemanaging of their online self. This appeared being the outcome of an established online socialisation experience. Many years of use reflected a reoccurring pattern. When they first started using Facebook, they engaged deeply, but later took a shallow position. This appeared creating normative strategies for online engagement, rendered in critical beliefs for ideal use. This was reflected in distinct unwritten ideas for interacting on Facebook, forming as discourse for "proper Facebook use and etiquette". I will give examples.

First, the students now classified Facebook as culturally "dull". They were disappointed with Facebook, because "nothing happen there". Few students admitted posting or contributing to a public online dialogue. Second, user stories also showed another reoccurring pattern. Many said that they first wrote status updates, but stopped with it. Later they liked, but also stopped doing that, to just watch pictures. Third, this user pattern did not involve full stop in communicating. They communicated in closed web spaces, to Facebook's chat channels, where they interacted with strong connections. Fourth, we also find informants who stated that they had stop adding ties to their online Facebook network. Facebook networking was not a fashion anymore. It was rare, and they had somehow finished "networked", meeting a social "saturation point". It was more uncommon to come across students who recently had become Facebook users. When getting a friend request, they would often treat it with scepticism and run a "background check", to find out who it was and how they were relat-ed, implying a strong degree of social selection. Fifth, there were reported cases that students questioned the value of having large online social networks. Some had for example started down-scaling or "unfriended" their ties. One female student told that she had "de-networked" her Facebook network from 1.000 to 300 connections. Sixth, an odd attitude conveyed in the interviews was a sort of "teenage anxiety" mind-set, which acted as a justification for not sharing. When observing younger teenager than themselves, acting as "newcomers", they would seldom interact with them or network with them. Instead, this would acts as a justification to leave Facebook, and head toward Twitter, which were their new online playground.

Part II: Three social web mediated practices connecting social capital

Based on review data, one can observe a user pattern showing influence of social networks and social capital. Students experience less positive value of networking. Large networks make little sense possessing, as they realise that they interact in with a limited number of ties. One identifies a "devaluating" in the quality of ties. Large access to online resources could have negative influence on social capital. Online socialisation can be argued of not providing access to particular interesting resources. On the other hand, when examining particular use of social media practices, one can potentially identify how social actors draw upon ties or resources in their social networks, which can suggest positive influence and use social capital. In order for this to work, requires that social actors execute social actions and coordinate task. The below sections will analyse three practices.

Practice 1: Trading and sharing formal school work

The first particular use of social media connects to how students use Facebook as a coordination site to organise schoolwork. Seven students, five female and two males, were members of school related Facebook groups reported, all attending general or academics studies, a study program preparing students for university studies. These were self-organised and moderated by the students themselves. Data suggests that there were two to five closed groups, while three were class-based. Students emphasized that they were useful and used them continuously. The Facebook groups acted either as a type of "class bulletin board" or "discussion forums", where the latter use was often related to assignments. They often shared information on practicalities. We find variations in what types of digital items were shared; information on what they have in homework for next class, which pages they are supposed to read for a particular lesson, for example. Cram sheets were popular items too, acting as a valuable and requested online resource. Sharing, however, was seldom based on a motivation to participate in a reflective process with the aim of turning data to knowledge on a distinct topic or subject. The Facebook groups are bulletin boards, a sort of a "student answering service", where communication is done individually with the expectation of an answer. There is a low threshold for sharing and anybody can post anything without having the risk of being bullied, for example. The groups acted as a supplement to the regular reminders students do face-to-face. The students' sharing reminds much of the old "work plan", a sheet, which teachers in the lower levels of the educa-tion system handed out to students at the beginning of each week. This student explains: I-21: "And, then we have the class, we have an own Facebook group. Who was most active in that group? Was it you? I-16: No, it was not a big group. All contributed. We were five students, but the fifth did not do much. We were contributing all together. And we used Google Docs.

Practice 2: Organising drivers by faceworking

The second practice connects to how social media is integrated part of a much debated issue in the Norwegian public sphere, illegal taxicab operation. Taking an official taxi under regular fairs is expensive, a factor which has led to that young adults look for inexpensive and unregulated alternatives to get home after partying on weekends. Facebook groups and Facebook ties have risen to work as a type of "unofficial" unregulated "call centre", where vital contact information on potential drivers and fairs is shared. It is a small-scale dubious re-invention of ties in social networks, where ties have a highly regarded value, possessing potential "positive" influence on social capital. Two male students explain: I-2: Among my buddies, it is a lot about football. I-1:

A lot of football, a lot of drinking, potential parties, drivers. Very much drivers. Many updates say you can call that and that number, if you need to driver at the end of the night. R:

Are they paid to be drivers? I-1:

Most of them charge you. This may be 200 kroner, for example, to drive someone here and there. When I get my driver licence, I'll be sure to write that I can drive an evening, for example, if I do not drink myself, though. I'm going to write that I can drive. I might perhaps charge about 50 kroners per person. I will drive them wherever they need to go. R:

Who do you drive? I-1:

Friends on Facebook, for example. I post my number, and anyone can call me. I-2:

All my friends see that it is posted there. If they are in a place and cannot get home, they just call you and ask if you can drive them home. I-1:

For example, and if there is anyone who know it, among those I know on Facebook, who know that I can drive, and they go to a party and I meet other many people there, who I don't know, they can disseminate to them that I drive. This might give many trips. R:

It is a sub business that has emerged? I-1:

Yes. It has started to compete with the general taxi business, I think. Taking a taxi is the last resort, if you can't find a driver. I-2:

You call through your Facebook contact list before calling for a taxi.

I-1: I would rather walk home than taking a taxi. I-2:

If I'm at a party somewhere, and can't reach a driver, I just walk home. I'm not calling for a taxi! Practice 3: YouTubing to play music instrument and gaming

The third practice connects to use of "YouTube tutorials". Although YouTube has been around since 2005, the services has developed a variety of internal subgenres, which comes forwards as particular media texts. One of these are "YouTube tutorials", which constitute its own media texts. Sharing and consumption of YouTube tutorials reflects an emerging "peer-to-peer-share" social network informal learning setting. YouTube is full of tutorials. They are short videos intended for informal learning. One common theme is that someone takes on the role as a narrator, and poses as an instructor, giving a step-by-step instruction on how to do something. A tutor, with some degree of self-accumulated experience, break down the work process into separate modules or sections. The tutorials explain for example use of a software interface, how to play a song. The tutorials cover a range of topics, where an individual intends to model and disseminate knowledge or skill to anonymous learners.

Nine students explained that they used YouTube content to informal learning, which in most cases related to their hobbies. The study found that students used YouTube content to learn more about three social practices, to play a music instrument, to game, and photographing. Yes. I'm pretty sure of that.

Conclusion

The advent of Web 2.0 applications has involved a renewed interest in sociological research on social capital and social network. Research has mainly been interested in analysing the diffusion of ideas, values, and qualities in ties. One often established and reproduced research knowledge, is the much cited idea that "diffusion of ideas do not work" [START_REF] Wu | Who says what to whom on twitter[END_REF]. This implies that there little degree of social capital to be harvested from social media. This finding is repeated in quantitative analysis, which often miss understanding the widespread production and distribution of social practices embedded in social media. With few analytical grips, one can easily show that that there is an active, multiple production, distribution, and consumption of specific communication-based relational activities. The conundrum is that we often lack the creativity to unlock them, as they are somehow "invisible". I have only demonstrated that within a small data sample, youth engage and produce social practice in overlapping social and digital networks. Future research on social media and social capital should focus the complex social dynamics of social networks, especially the role of how task and assignments are coordinated and organised. Researchers should explore the potential production, distribution, and consumption of online resources to enhance our understanding on the relation between social capital and social media. Analysing the meaning of isolated ties will seldom suffice.

Table 1 .

 1 The data sample employed in study, showing background of informants.The study's research design is based on a social scientific research methodology. The study applied an explorative approach. 26 students were interviewed by use of qualitative in-depth interviews, 17 boys and 9 girls. There were no gender criteria for choice of informants. Informants were recruited from two classes at a high school in Trondheim, Norway. Vocational study programs in the Norwegian education system,

	Interview no.	Form of	interview	Informant no.	Gender	Age	Approx.	Facebook Friends	Member school	FB-group	Active bloggers	Use YouTube Tutori-	als	Study program	Subject	Level in school	Date
	1.	Group	1.	M	17	900	-		-	Y		Voc.	Eng.	2 nd	Jan. 2012
				2.	M	17	600	-		-	Y
	2.	Group	3.	M	17	350	-		-	-		Voc.	Eng.	2 nd	Jan. 2012
				4.	M	17	50	-		-	-
	3.	Group	5.	M	17	-		-		-	-		Voc.	Eng.	2 nd	Feb 2012
				6.	M	17	800	-		-	Y
	4.	Group	7. 8.	M M	17 17	--		--		--	--		Voc.	Eng.	2 nd	Feb. 2012
	5.	Group	9. 10.	M M	17 17	400 -	--		--	--		Voc.	Eng.	2 nd	March 2012
	6.		Ind.	11.	M	17	300	-		-	Y		Voc.	Eng.	2 nd	March 2012
				12.	M	16	600	-		-	Y
	7.	Group	13.	M	16	700	-		-	-		Gen.	Spa.	1st	Feb. 2012
				14.	M	16	-		-		-	-
	8.	Group	15. 16.	F F	16 16	1.000 300	Y Y		Y Y	Y Y		Gen.	Spa.	1st	March 2012
				17	F	16	700	-		-	-
	9.	Group	18. 19.	F F	16 16	400 800	--		--	--		Gen.	Spa.	1st	March 2012
				20.	F	16	1.000	-		-	-
	10.	Group	21 22.	M M	16 16	700 -	Y -		--	--		Gen.	Spa.	1st	March 2012
	11.		Ind.	23.	M	16	200	Y		-	-		Gen.	Spa.	1st	March 28. 2012
				24.	F	16	200	Y		-	Y
	12.	Group	25.	F	16	200	Y		-	Y		Gen.	Spa.	1st	March 2012
				26.	F	16	300	Y		Y	-

  When we have tests, for example, we can share cram sheets. If there is not someone who has done their homework, then we can share, so we can talk to each other, what is our homework for the next day, what is the work for the next week. In that sense, it is very convenient." Data analysis also shows innovative ways in which social media applications are combined, with the intention collaboration. Female students in academic studies established temporary Facebook group, which were part of a larger cross-disciplinary project. In the groups, they commented on links and discussed the project's purpose, thus relating social web to a goal driven learning. Facebook groups acted as discussion forums, a type of digital "notebook", while they finalised their work in Google Docs. One of the female students explains. I-15: We had a group project, "2050 Trøndelag", on how Trøndelag is going to be in the year 2050. There we had a Facebook group, where we discussed what we were writing, what we should put in our project, what was relevant to have, and things like that.

R:

  Two female students explain how they use YouTube to learn to play instruments: For piano, chords, learning stuff like that. I have always played by listening, but when I come to a point in the song, where I don't really know where I'm going, I go on YouTube. Then I see how they play, how they press the keys. So there are many "how to play video", which I have been watching. Most times when new games are out, all my mates meet to find out more about it. We often sit and look on YouTube to see new things. It happens when we have to learn that and that, and that's the way to do it. It's really that way we use YouTube. R: So you're sitting around and talking together? I-11: Yes, we are discussing. R: It seems to very useful? It teaches you a lot? I-11: I learn a lot from it. I think that I couldn't have been able to play, if it wasn't for YouTube.

	R:	Explain.
	I-16:
	R:	So you use tutorials?
	I-16:	Yes. I have used it.
	A male student explains use of YouTube to lean to game:
	I-11:
	R:	It would have been much harder?
	I-11:
	R:	Do you use YouTube to learn?
	I-15:	I tried to learn from YouTube, to play guitar, but then I did not have
		any awesome guitar either. It was purchased in Turkey. It did not work
		so well for me, but I learned some chords. It is possible to use it for
		learning. Not that I use it so much.
	R:	Do you use to learn?
	I-16:	I have used it for learning.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nettby for more background information.

Sophie Elise Isachsen's blog: http://sophieelise.blogg.no.


Iordanis Kavathatzopoulos
email: iordanis@it.uu.se

Independent agents and ethics

Keywords: agents, automation, autonomy, decision making, ethics, moral, robots, systems

The development of Information Technology, systems, robots, etc., that are capable of processing information and acting independently of their human operators, has been accelerated as well as the hopes, and the fears, of the impact of those artifacts on environment, market, society, on human life generally. Many ethical issues are raised because of these systems being today, or in the future, capable of independent decision making and acting. In the present paper it is discussed how ethical decision support pro-grams can be integrated into robots and other relatively independent decision making systems to secure that decisions are made according to the basic theories of philosophy and to the findings of psychological research.

1

Challenges of new technology

Modern technology gives us the chance to automatize many tasks previously done under careful supervision by humans. Routine procedures have been able to be automatized since some time but now can technical systems accomplish many tasks in a relatively independent way. Accomplishment of important tasks independently and automatically has many advantages for persons, organizations and society. It delivers goods and services with higher quality, lower cost and in satisfying or increasing quantities. It helps us to reach important goals and solve many of our basic or special problems: prosperity, wealth, health, for example production of food, fight diseases and other problems that have tormented humanity before.

On the other hand, efficient technologies and automation may cause unemployment. New jobs are created because of the new technologies since this a process of societal and economic restructuring. Still the transition is painful, therefore responsible, innovative and mainly ethical policies by societies, organizations and persons have to be formulated and applied to alleviate any pain and to direct development toward preferred directions. This is true on a general level. We can easily get aware of all the difficult ethical issues that may arise because of these changes. Particularly, in the area of independent agents and robots ethical concern is necessary. The development of Information Technology, systems, robots, etc., that are capable of processing information and acting independently of their human operators, has been accelerated as well as the hopes, and the fears, of the impact of those artifacts on environment, market, society, on human life generally. Many ethical issues are raised because of these systems being today, or in the future, capable of independent decision making and acting. In situations where humans have difficulties perceiving and processing information, or making decisions and implementing actions, because of the quantity, variation and complexity of information, IT systems can be of great help to achieve goals and obtain optimal solutions to problems. One example of this is financial transactions where the speed and volume of information makes it impossible for human decision makers to take the right measures, for example in the case of a crisis. Another example is dangerous and risky situations, like natural disasters or battles in war, where the use of drones and military robots may help to avoid soldier injuries and deaths. A third example comes from human social and emotional needs, for example in elderly care where robots may play an important role providing necessary care as well as to be a companion to lonely elderly people.

It is clear that such IT systems have to make decisions and act to achieve the goals for which they had been built in the first place. Will they make the right decisions and act in a proper way? Can we guarantee this by designing them in a suitable way? But if it is possible, do we really want such machines given the fact that their main advantage is their increasing independence and autonomy, and hence we do not want to constrain them too much? There are many questions around this, most of which converge on the issue of moral or ethical decision making. The definition of what we mean by ethical or moral decision making or ethical/moral agency is a very much significant precondition for the design of proper IT decision systems. Given that we have a clear definition we will be able to judge whether an IT system is, capable of making ethical decisions, and able to make these decisions independently and autonomously.

Option and ethical decision making

The distinction between moral content or moral statement or moral behavior, and ethical process or way of thinking is important in the effort to define ethical or moral decision making. In common sense, ethics and morals are dependent on the concrete decision or the action itself. Understanding a decision or an action being ethical/moral or unethical/immoral is based mainly on a judgment of its normative qualities. The focus on values and their normative aspects is the basis of the common sense definition of ethics. Despite its dominance, this way of thinking causes some difficulties. We may note that bad or good things follow not only from the decisions of people but also from natural phenomena. Usually sunny weather is considered a good thing, while rainy weather is not. Of course this is not perceived as something related to morality. But why not? What is the difference between humans and nature acting in certain ways? The answer is obvious: Option, choice.

Although common sense does realize this, people's attachment to the nor-mative aspects is so strong that it is not possible for them to accept that ethics is an issue of choice and option. If there is no choice, or ability of making a choice, then there is no issue of ethics. However this does not solve our problem of the definition of independent agents, since IT systems are actually making choices. If ethics are connected to choice then the interesting aspect is how the choice is made, or not made; whether it is made in a bad or in a good way. The focus here is on how, not on what; on the process not on the content or the answer. Indeed, regarding the effort to make the right decision, philosophy and psychology point to the significance of focusing on the process of ethical decision making rather on the normative content of the decision.

Starting from one of the most important contributions, the Socratic dialog, we see that doubt is the goal rather than the achievement of a solution to the problem investigated. Reaching a state of no knowledge, that is, throw-ing aside false ideas, opens up for the right solution. The issue here for the philosopher is not to provide a ready answer but to help the other person in the dialog to think in the right way. Ability to think in the right way is not easy and apparently has been supposed to be the privilege of the few able ones [START_REF]Plato: Theaitetos. I. Zacharopoulos[END_REF][START_REF]Plato: Apology of Socrates[END_REF][START_REF]Plato: The Republic[END_REF]. For that, certain skills are necessary, such as Aristotle's virtue of phronesis [4]. When humans are free from false illusions and have the necessary skills they can use the right method to find the right solution to their moral problems [START_REF] Kant | Grundläggning av Sedernas Metafysik[END_REF].

This philosophical position has been applied in psychological research on ethical decision making. Focusing on the process of ethical decision making psychological research has shown that people use different ways to handle moral problems. According to Piaget [START_REF] Piaget | The Moral Judgement of the Child[END_REF] and Kohlberg [START_REF] Kohlberg | The Just Community: Approach to Moral Education in Theory and Practice[END_REF], when people are confronted with moral problems they think in a way which can be described as a position on the heteronomyautonomy dimension. Heteronomous thinking is automatic, purely emotional and uncontrolled thinking or simple reflexes that are fixed dogmatically on general moral principles. Thoughts and beliefs coming to mind are never doubted. There is no effort to create a holistic picture of all relevant and conflicting values in the moral problem they are confronted with. Awareness of own personal responsibility for the way one is thinking or for the consequences of the decision are missing.

Autonomous thinking, on the other hand, focuses on the actual moral problem situation, and its main effort is to search for all relevant aspects of the problem. When one is thinking autonomously the focus is on the consideration and investigation of all stakeholders' moral feelings, duties and interests, as well as all possible alternative ways of action. In that sense autonomy is a systematic, holistic and self-critical way of handling a moral problem. Handling moral problems autonomously means that a decision maker is unconstrained by fixations, authorities, uncontrolled or automatic thoughts and reactions. It is the ability to start the thought process of considering and analyzing critically and systematically all relevant values in a moral problem situation. This may sound trivial, since everybody would agree that it is exactly what one is expected to do in confronting a moral problem. But it is not so easy to use the autonomous skill in real situations. Psychological research has shown that plenty of time and certain conditions are demanded before people can acquire and use the ethical ability of autonomy [START_REF] Sunstein | Moral Heuristics[END_REF].

Nevertheless, there are people who have learnt to use autonomy more often, usually people at higher organizational levels or people with higher responsibility. Training and special tools do also support the acquisition of the skill of autonomy. Research has shown that it is possible to promote autonomy. It is possible through training to acquire and use the skill of ethical autonomy, longitudinally and in real life [START_REF] Kavathatzopoulos | Assessing and Acquiring Ethical Leadership Competence[END_REF].

Support for ethical competence

The focus of any measures to support the skill of ethical autonomy varies depending on the degree of independence of the system. In designing and using non-independent systems the focus cannot be on the system but exclusively on designers, users, operators and owners. They will develop the system and decide in detail how it will operate, so they need to have the ability to find the ethical solutions while they are thinking, having a dialog or negotiating with each other. In semi-independent systems the focus is again on designers, operators, users and owners like in non-independent systems. In addition to the system itself they have also to design an informationgathering, treating and communicating system which will be integrated into the agent. Its task will be to inform the operators about possible ethical conflicts and let them decide the proper action. However, the information has to be presented in such a way as to block heteronomy and promote autonomy in the thinking of operators. In the case of totally independent systems the focus of support for ethical autonomy should be on all parts involved, not only humans but also the agent itself since it will also have the responsibility of independent choice as well as an own basic interest to take care of (see Table 1).

It is important to keep in mind that measures to support ethical autonomy or philosophizing have to be applied anyway. Either on humans involved in designing and operating agent systems, or in the case of fully independent agents, on agents themselves as well. Fully independent agents, if they can exist, are ethical beings; they feel the need to make choices in order to fulfill their purpose of existence. Of course philosophizing and ethical autonomy are necessary not only for the design of systems or rules for information gathering and communicating, but also during the processes of interpreting rules or negotiating with other stakeholders.

Systems and robots as ethical agents

Ethical decision support programs [START_REF] Laaksoharju | Let us be Philosophers! Computerized Support for Ethical Decision Making[END_REF][START_REF] Laaksoharju | Computerized Support for Ethical Analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Thaler | Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness[END_REF]] can be integrated into robots and other decision making systems to secure that decisions are made according to the basic theories of philosophy and to the findings of psychological research. This would be the ideal. But before we are there we can see that ethical decision making support systems based on this approach can be used in two different ways.

During the development of a non-independent decision making system, support tools can be used to identify the criteria for making decisions and for choosing a certain direction of action. This means that the support tool is used by the developers, they who make the real decisions, and who make them according to the previous named philosophical/psychological approach [START_REF] Kavathatzopoulos | Philosophizing as a usability method[END_REF]. Another possibility is to integrate a support tool into the non-independent decision system. Of course, designers can give to the system criteria and directions, but they can also add the support tool itself, to be used in the case of unanticipated future situations. The tool can then gather information, treat it, structure it and present it to the operators of the decision system in a way which follows the requirements of the above mentioned theories of autonomy. If it works like that, operators of nonindependent systems make the real decisions and they are the users of the ethical support tool. A non-independent system that can make decisions and act in accordance to the hypothesis of ethical autonomy is a system which 1) has the criteria already programmed in it identified through an autonomous way in an earlier phase by the designers, or 2) prepares the information of a problem situation according to the theory of ethical autonomy, presents it and stimulates the operators to make the decision in a way compatible with the theory of ethical autonomy. All this can work and it is possible technically.

But how could we design and run a really independent ethical decision making system? However, before we can speculate on that it is important to address some issues shortly, regarding the criteria for independence.

First is the issue of normative quality of the decisions made. Can we use this criterion for the definition of an independent ethical decision system? As we have already discussed this is not possible although it is inherently and strongly connected to common sense, and sometimes into research [START_REF] Kohlberg | The Philosophy of Moral Development: Moral Stages and the Idea of Justice[END_REF]. Normative aspects can be found in the consequences of obviously non-independent natural phenomena. Besides, there are always good arguments supporting opposite normative positions. So this cannot be a working criterion [START_REF] Wallace | Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong[END_REF].

The alternative would be the capability of choice. Connected to this is the issue of free will. We could say that really independent systems are those that are free to decide whatever they want. However, this has many difficulties. There is theoretical obscurity around the definition of free will as well as practical problems concerning its description in real life situations. Furthermore, it is obvious that many systems can make "choices." Everything from simple relays to complex IT systems is able to choose among different alternatives, often in arcane and obscure ways, reminiscent of the way humans make choices. Then the problem would be where to put the threshold for real choice making.

If the ability to make choices cannot be the criterion to determine the independence of a decision system, then the possibility to control the system by an operator becomes interesting. Wish or effort to control, external to the system, may be something that has to be involved and considered. The reason of the creation of IT systems is the designers' and the operators' wish to give them a role to play. These systems come to existence and are run as an act of will to control things, to satisfy needs. It is an execution of power by the designers and the operators. We can imagine a decision system as totally independent, but even this cannot be thought without a human wish or will behind it. It is always a will for some purpose. It can be a simple purpose, for example to rescue trapped people in collapsed buildings, or an extremely complex purpose, like to create systems able of making independent decisions! In any case the human designer or operator wants to secure the fulfillment of the main purpose and does not want to lose control, and that would certainly conflict with the will of a fully independent system.

Identifying and supporting an independent agent

So the issue could be about possession of an original purpose, a basic feeling, an emotion. Indeed recent research in neurobiology and neuropsychology shows that emotions are necessary in the decision making process [START_REF] Koenigs | Irrational Economic Decision-Making after Ventromedial Prefrontal Damage: Evidence from the Ultimatum Game[END_REF][START_REF] Damasio | Descartes misstag[END_REF]. It seems that a rational decision process requires uninterrupted connection to emotions [START_REF] Hume | Treatise of Human Nature[END_REF]. Without this bond the decision process becomes meaningless. Another effect of the "primacy" of emotions and purposes is that very often heteronomous or non-rational ways to make ethical decisions are adopted, despite the human decision maker being able to think autonomously and rationally.

Thus the criterion for a really independent decision system could be the existence of an ultimate purpose that is an emotional base guiding the decision process. Human emotions and goals have been evolved by nature seemingly without any purpose. That may happen in decision systems and robots if they are left alone, but designers, operators, and humans would probably not want to lose control. So what is left? Can we create really independent ethical decision systems?

The criterion of such a system cannot be based on normative aspects, or on the ability to make choices, or on having own control, or on ability of rational processing. It seems that it is necessary for an independent decision system to have "emotions" too. That is, a kind of ultimate purposes that can lead the decision process, and depending on the circumstances, even make the system react automatically, or alternatively, in a rational way.

Well, this is not easy to achieve. It may be impossible. However, if we accept this way of thinking we may be able to recognize a really independent or autonomous ethical agent, if we see one, although we may be not able to create one. This could work like a Turing test for robot ethics because we would know what to look for: A decision system capable of autonomous ethical thinking, i.e. philosophizing, but leaning most of the time toward more or less heteronomous ways of thinking; like humans who have emotions leading them to make decisions in that way.

If we have such systems we will need to direct our efforts toward them supporting their ethical decision making, like we do for humans. In this case it would be necessary to train and educate the fully independent agents in using ethical autonomy as well as to involve them in democratic dialog together with humans in searching for the right answers to relevant ethical problems.

Table 1 .

 1 Focus of training and support for ethical competence depending on the degree of independence of robots and on the conditions of searching for or applying an ethical solution.

	Search or imple-	Degree of independence of robot
	mentation
		Non-independent	Semi-independent	Fully independent
	Open search, person Mental skills of	Mental skills of all	Mental skills of
		humans	humans design of	all humans and
			communication	agents
			system
	Open search, group Mental skills and	Mental and group	Mental and group
		group processes	skills & design of	skills of humans
		of humans	communication	and agents; nego-
			system	tiation skills
	Give or receive	Mental skills or	Mental skills or	Mental skills or
	instructions	group processes	group processes;	group processes
		of humans	rules for communi-	for all; strategic -
			cation	democratic dialog
	Give or receive	Mental skills or	Mental skills or	Mental skills or
	answers, orders	group processes	group processes; re-	group processes
		of humans	design of communi-	for all; risk for
			cation	conflict