An Anthropomorphistic Approach to Measuring Civil Society Organization's Reputation: A Semantic Network Analysis

Abstract

The aim of the study is to reveal common meaning of reputation and disreputableness for civil society organizations (CSOs) by utilizing anthropomorphism. Accordingly, 212 individuals living in Izmir were asked to personify the CSOs they deemed reputable and disreputable, and provide adjectives that best described CSOs. In this study which was designed as descriptive research, semantic network analysis was employed and reputable and disreputable networks were visualized using a social network analysis software named Pajek. The relational analysis was performed using the measures of m-core, clique, articulation point, in-out degree, in-out closeness and betweenness. The first study to uncover the shared meaning of the CSO's reputation adopting the anthropomorphism approach reveals both positive and negative personality traits such as being helpful, honest, reliable and self-seeking, trickster, liar, and untrustworthy. The results of the research can contribute to the development of an appropriate measure of CSO's reputation for Turkish society.