What do we have between us? A bridge or a bond? (Social Capital)

"We need to shift away from the notion of technology managing information and toward the idea of technology as a medium of relationships."Michael Schrage, Shared Minds.

I remember doing sociology in Sixth Form. I hated it. It was like learning about the basics of life all over again. What is education? What is religion? What is Social Capital?

Coming to University and studying Networked Media, I was once asked 'what is social capital?' The definition my sociology teacher had embedded in our heads was that social capital was the connections within and between social networks. Although this was correct, I soon learnt that there was more to it than that when applied to networked media. A few definitions I found in class were:

• Networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society enabling the society to run effectively.
• Networks and common values that allow members of communities to co-operate and support eachother

When explaining soial capital it is important to establish what bridging and bonding is. Bridging networking may be described as a weak tie between individuals who do not necessarily have an emotional bond with each other. This is quite like my Facebook friends. I have 500 friends and out of them, I probably talk to 40.  (embarrassed face).  In my opinion, with the rise of social networking websites such as Facebook, Myspace and twitter it is easier to build bridges between networks and although they are loose ones, they still help to maintain social capital. New media encourages communication and connection between people all over the globe who you do not necessarily know. Some of my Facebook contacts are from various places such as China, Ghana and also Australia. (The world on one screen? Crazy huh?)

The bonding tie in social capital is often found between tight knit communities and relationships which are emotionally close such as friends or family. I feel the web and social media favours the bridging tie rather than the bonding as individuals are more likely to interact with friends or family in many other ways than the web. For example seeing eachother face to face or living with eachother. The web also helps to maintain social capital as well as strengthen social capital. It provides a more effecient way of communicating and strengthening relationships. It may also build self-esteem through the use of virtual games for example. World of warcraft is a online virtual game which some of my friends have become so engaged in its becoming annoying. Individuals are allowed to create an avatar to look how ever they want it to and participate in an online virtual world as well as meet other people online. (I myself do not play world of warcraft however I love a good game of Sims 3! )