Tweeting Alone? An Analysis of Bridging and Bonding Social Capital in Online Networks

Abstract

In this article we test Putnam's claim that online interactions are unable to foster social capital by examining the formation of bridging and bonding social capital in online networks. Using Burt's (2005) concepts of closure and brokerage as indicators, we observe networks formed through online interactions and test them against several theoretical models. We test Putnam's claim using Twitter data from three events: the Occupy movement in 2011, the IF Campaign in 2013, and the Chilean Presidential Election of the same year. Our results provide the first evidence that online networks are able to produce the structural features of social capital. In the case of bonding social capital, online ties are more effective in forming close networks than theory predicts. However, bridging social capital is observed under certain conditions, for example, in the presence of organizations and professional brokers. This latter finding provides additional evidence for the argument that social capital follows similar patterns online and offline.

Embracing digital networks: Entrepreneurs' social capital online

“…They also affect entrepreneurial behavior, sense-making (Fischer and Reuber, 2014), and social capital dynamics (Ellison et al, 2014a). SNS affordances are also beneficial in accruing both bridging and bonding social capital (Ellison et al, 2014b;Sajuria et al, 2015). Together, this evidence suggests that the SNS affordances summarized in Table 1 may have important uninvestigated effects on an entrepreneur's network broadening and deepening behaviors, resulting in social capital being accrued differently in online contexts.…”

“…Facebook and Twitter use has been correlated with an increase in bonding social capital within friendship networks (cf. Ellison et al, 2011b;Papacharissi and Mendelson, 2011;Sajuria et al, 2015). This may be because SNSs lower the demands and costs of relationship management activities and enable one-to-many communication (Ellison et al, 2014b (Ellison et al, 2014b).…”

Country-Level Investment in Cultural Opportunity Structures. A Potential Source of Health Differences Between 21 European Countries

“…2015) and will lead to more comprehensive research designs, including data on actualized participation. In future research, data available on the various ways to use the Internet and social media in the creation of social capital (e.g., Neves and Fonseca 2015;Sajuria et al 2014) might be used. Altogether, indicators available for population level research should be based on a comprehensive, and evidence-based, theoretical framework in which both the general processes linking cultural and artistic activity with health and more specific processes, involving particular forms of cultural activities and particular dimensions of health, could be analyzed (see Clift et al 2009;Clift 2012).…”

Foucault, social movements and heterotopic horizons: rupturing the order of things

“…Lifted out of specific spaces and times, cloud heterotopic practices endure before, during and after protest. Thus they function not just to mobilise people, but also to comment on things as they are actually happening, whether or not people are present, and offer the opportunity for longer term reflection (Sajuria et al 2015). Cloud heterotopias are thus assemblages not of bodies, but of communications, with images, texts and links.…”