Critical Examination of Social Washing, Brand Transparency, and Fan Loyalty in Digital Ticketing JKT48

Abstract

Digital ticketing failures in high-demand fandom environments signal more than technical inefficiency; they expose perceived organizational intent and trigger ethical judgment among users. This study investigates how social washing emerges within digital ticketing systems and reshapes perceptions of transparency, trust, and fan loyalty in the JKT48 ecosystem. It challenges the dominant assumption that ethical perception is primarily shaped by communication-based signaling, arguing instead that it is constructed through direct user experience. A multi-method approach was employed, integrating a Systematic Literature Review (PRISMA), SPAR-4-SLR framework, bibliometric mapping using VOSviewer, and netnography based on 350 user-generated comments from X (Twitter). The findings demonstrate that system instability is reinterpreted as a signal of organizational priorities, transforming transparency into a performance-based construct. Trust erosion emerges as a cumulative and path-dependent mechanism that reshapes fan loyalty into a conditional and unstable form. This study introduces the Digital Trust Disruption Cycle, a recursive framework explaining how repeated negative experiences reinforce skepticism and precondition future perceptions. The findings advance theory by repositioning social washing as an experience-based phenomenon and redefining transparency as system performance. Managerially, organizations must treat system reliability and real-time responsiveness as strategic imperatives to prevent trust collapse and long-term disengagement.