Social media communities' ethical sensitivity interventions: scale development and validation

Abstract

Technological development has created a virtual culture for human's existence. The influence of this virtual phenomenon on humans is inevitable and is to be examined as it has a deeper impact on culture, value, and ethics. However, the interactive media has certain pitfalls. These platforms are misused through impolite user statements and verbal attacks. These new modes of interaction create ethical dilemmas. Therefore, the paper aims to develop and validate the ethical sensitivity measurement scale with reference to social media users. This study utilised inductive and deductive approach for generating the initial measurement items. The purposive sampling technique was utilised for selection of 345 respondents. To examine the validity and reliability of the instrument, factor analysis, and internal consistency analysis were used. The scale-development process finally resulted in an eight-factor solution comprising 30 items. The scale developed can be used as a psychometric measurement to reveal the dimensionality of constructs.