Communities and technologies: an approach to foster social capital?

  • Authors:

  • Mark Ackerman;Marlene Huysman;John M. Carroll;Barry Wellman;Giorgio DeMichelis;Volker Wulf

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI;Free University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA;University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada;University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy;University of Siegen and Frauenhofer FIT, Siegen, Germany

  • Venue:
  • CSCW '04 Proceedings of the 2004 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work
  • Year:
  • 2004

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Abstract

Communities are social entities whose actors share common needs, interests, or practices: they constitute the basic units of social experience. With regard to communities, social capital captures the structural, relational and cognitive aspects of the relationships among their members. Social capital is defined as a set of properties of a social entity (e.g. norms, level of trust, and intensive social networking) which enables joint activities and cooperation for mutual benefit. It can be understood as the glue which holds communities together. On this panel we will discuss whether and how information technology can strengthen communities by fostering social capital.