Social Capital
While there is not widespread agreement regarding a unified definition for this concept, certain themes have emerged consistently. For example, Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe (2007) call social capital an “elastic” concept, drawing upon thoughts from Bourdieu and Wacquant, Paxton, and Putnam to broadly define social capital as the resources a person accumulates through networking with others, which allow him to capitalize on information and relationships for personal use or gain. Coleman asserts that no matter how social capital is defined, it must “consist of some aspect of social structures, and…facilitate certain action of actors—whether persons or corporate actors—within the structure” (Portes, p. 46). Putnam asserts that …show more content…
Their study suggests that trust is not necessarily required for building new relationships in an online site, nor does the presence of trust and a willingness to share information always translate into new social interactions. They cite Metzger’s notion that trust is strongly related to information disclosure, and that a person will perform an internal cost/benefit analysis when deciding whether the potential benefit of sharing certain information outweighs the perceived risk of doing so. However, the researchers assert that this dynamic is absent in the realm of social networking sites, where individuals freely share a significant amount of personal data with a potentially limitless …show more content…
One of the most significant is how social media sites are used to build and maintain offline relationships and sometimes convert online relationships into offline relationships. Perhaps one of the more compelling examples of this is the evolution of online dating sites that have been transformed from novelty to norm. With the growth in this sector of social media, numerous studies have emerged focusing on the dynamic between online and offline interactions within the same relationship. Hardey (2002) explores how people construct and maintain virtual identities and relationships online with the intention of moving them offline. Because these relationships have a significant opportunity to move offline at some point in the future, there is a self-policing effect that results in greater honesty during the online phase of the relationship. You can’t claim to be something you’re not if you might actually meet the person you are lying to. (Hardey
While there is not widespread agreement regarding a unified definition for this concept, certain themes have emerged consistently. For example, Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe (2007) call social capital an “elastic” concept, drawing upon thoughts from Bourdieu and Wacquant, Paxton, and Putnam to broadly define social capital as the resources a person accumulates through networking with others, which allow him to capitalize on information and relationships for personal use or gain. Coleman asserts that no matter how social capital is defined, it must “consist of some aspect of social structures, and…facilitate certain action of actors—whether persons or corporate actors—within the structure” (Portes, p. 46). Putnam asserts that …show more content…
Their study suggests that trust is not necessarily required for building new relationships in an online site, nor does the presence of trust and a willingness to share information always translate into new social interactions. They cite Metzger’s notion that trust is strongly related to information disclosure, and that a person will perform an internal cost/benefit analysis when deciding whether the potential benefit of sharing certain information outweighs the perceived risk of doing so. However, the researchers assert that this dynamic is absent in the realm of social networking sites, where individuals freely share a significant amount of personal data with a potentially limitless …show more content…
One of the most significant is how social media sites are used to build and maintain offline relationships and sometimes convert online relationships into offline relationships. Perhaps one of the more compelling examples of this is the evolution of online dating sites that have been transformed from novelty to norm. With the growth in this sector of social media, numerous studies have emerged focusing on the dynamic between online and offline interactions within the same relationship. Hardey (2002) explores how people construct and maintain virtual identities and relationships online with the intention of moving them offline. Because these relationships have a significant opportunity to move offline at some point in the future, there is a self-policing effect that results in greater honesty during the online phase of the relationship. You can’t claim to be something you’re not if you might actually meet the person you are lying to. (Hardey