Trust, Disconnection, Minimizing risk and Apathy

This paper investigates how audiences are coping with digital platforms in their everyday lives. Empirically grounded in focus groups carried out in Denmark with a total of 34 participants of different ages and educational backgrounds, we present the results of an analysis of audiences’ coping tactics in relation to tracking data, collecting data and mining data. Based on the analysis, we find four overall tactics: coping by absence, coping by trust, coping by minimizing risk and coping by apathy. We argue that these different coping tactics are employed differently depending on the context of the digital routines, the data collected (sensitive vs. non-sensitive data), and the dependence of the platform (private vs. public, national vs. international platforms and apps). These contextual factors are presented in an analytical model—a coping compass—for studying individual users’ coping tactics in their datafied everyday lives.