Mediated Trust in the Innovation Ecosystem: the Ontology of

This paper introduces a framework for further studies in the role of mediated trust in the innovation ecosystems. Combining insight from scholars like Etzkowitz, Russel and Nordfors, the concept of innovation ecosystem is described as an extended Triple Helix where media is seen as a fourth strand besides industry, state and academia. In this paper, the concept mediated trust refers to the process in which an independent institution produces a form of mass medium. As is the case with any message, the content of the mass media is coded so that it signals to what degree information and/or opinions should be considered trustworthy. When receiving the message, the audience will decode the signals. Trust is considered fundamental for mass media if these are to fulfill their normative functions in the innovation ecosystem. However, the concept of trust is not clearly defined in the literature and we lack empirically grounded studies of the role of trust in extended Triple Helix. The paper is based on cross disciplinary literature review and it is a work in progress.