User:James Phantom/sandbox

Social capital refers to a form of immaterial capital co-existing alongside other forms of capital such as cultural capital and economic capital. Social capital is generally used to describe the value that social relationships create within a network. This form of capital thus includes all kinds of effects and benefits related to the development and the evolution of a structure made of social connections.

Origins

The term has long been discussed in the past by different writers and especially by Pierre Bourdieu in his influential article “The Forms of Capital” in 1986. For the French sociologist, understanding the world and its functioning is not possible if the notion of capital is only perceived through economic theory. Bourdieu therefore distinguished three main forms of capital: the economic capital (money, property rights), the cultural capital (educational experience) and the social capital. In his article, Bourdieu defines the concept of social capital as: "The aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition" (p. 51).

Moreover, Bourdieu claims that economic capital is at the root of all forms of capital. Social capital is therefore described as susceptible to be converted into economic capital through its effects.

Social capital on social media

The emergence of the internet and new technologies have brought a new dimension to social capital which can be observed through an individual’s use of social network sites. In "Is There Social Capital in a Social Network Site?: Facebook Use and College Students’ Life Satisfaction, Trust, and Participation" , Valenzuela, Park & Kee (2009), describe the use of internet as having both positive and negative effects on social capital. Valenzuela et al., emphasize the difference between the use of internet for entertainment (games, video watching, etc.) and the use of internet in order to create online connections between individuals.

Valenzuela et al. therefore highlight that virtual communities are generally seen among various scholars as having a positive effect on the production of social capital for an individual. On social media, individuals are described as able to maintain both strong and weak ties producing bonding or bridging form of social capital. Weak ties are described as creating bridging social capital “because they connect people from different life situations” (p. 880). In Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, Sherry Turkle (2011) also discusses such ties and defines them as "the informal networks that underpin online acquaintanceship" (p. 285). According to Valenzuela et al. such a form of social capital differs from bonding social capital since bonding social capital provides to individuals advantages such as “the emotional support that occurs based on the interdependence and commonalities of strong-tie networks” (p. 880). Nevertheless, in the field of computer science, the internet and social network sites have been described as having a favorable impact on the formation of both bridging and bonding social capital.

Illustration

When applied to the domain of social media, online media strategists such as Dragan Varagic often use the term social media capital to describe the value that “can be earned and spent, as the benefit of organization’s engagement in social media environment”.
Social media capital does nevertheless not limit itself to organizations but can also be applied to individuals as Business Insider demonstrated in the article "What it’s like to be a professional Instagrammer"

An example of social capital on social media can therefore be found within a modern social platform such as Instagram. Through an important involvement on a social media such as Instagram, some people succeeded in collecting numerous subscribers who follow them daily. Weak ties are thus created and produce bridging social capital between people who do not know each other but who may share the same interest (e.g. in travel, photography, food) . Gaining thousands of online followers can be seen as a way to expand one’s social capital through a social media platform. The high number of subscribers symbolically represents an important network and thus a potentially important social capital. Those well-known Instagram profiles often use their network in order to advertise and promote commercial products to a large audience. In exchange of these services, marketing entities offer money or other advantages to those people, converting therefore their social capital into an economic one.

Literature

• Bourdieu, P. (1986) "The Forms of Capital". Retrieved online from https://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Bourdieu-Forms-of-Capital.pdf
• Turkle, S. (2011). Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic Books.,