Empirical Examination of Information Privacy Concerns Instrument in the Social Media Context

Concern for information privacy (CFIP) has been widely studied across several domains using Stewart and Segars’ (2002) second-order model that includes four first-order constructs: errors, collection, unauthorized access, and secondary use. However, unlike the organizational context in which the model was developed, the social media context encourages self-disclosure of information among users and social media platform providers. Consequently, users’ concern for social media information privacy (CFSMIP) is expected to manifest differently as compared to CFIP in other contexts. In an effort to advance science in the privacy domain in Information Systems, this study therefore argues that the existing privacy model needs to be replicated in this new context to assess its validity and explanation power. Based on a sample of avid social media users, this study explores the factor structure of the four dimensions of concern for information privacy instrument posited in prior research and validated across several contexts. Exploratory factor analysis and a consequent confirmatory factor analysis revealed three first-order factors structure in the social media context. Additional analysis revealed that the three-factor second order structure of CFSMIP outperforms the four-factor second order structure from prior research.