Conceptualizing and measuring privacy boundary turbulence in technological contexts: Constructing a measurement scale

Abstract

Digital platforms have provided convenience, but they increase information misuse risks, which can cause privacy boundary turbulence, a key concept of Communication Privacy Management theory. Contrary to previous measurements of turbulence that mostly focus on actual privacy violation experiences, I propose a new measurement scale incorporating the perceived privacy violations. To construct the scale, I first used in-depth interviews (N = 33) to identify four dimensions of privacy turbulence through coding: sense of surveillance, sense of betrayal, sense of harm, and sense of helplessness. Drawing on interview data, I developed items for each dimension and tested the items to refine the scale. In Study Two (N = 283), exploratory factor analysis was used to test potential models. Study Three (N = 687) cross-validated the final factor structure using a separate sample. Study Four (N = 293) tested the discriminant and predictive validity of the measure by comparing it to the Privacy Management Measure scale.