Abstract
This paper explores the concepts of community and how computer-mediated technologies, such as Social Network Sites (SNS), influence the ways in which these communities are structured within the virtual and physical environments. As SNSs become common in our everyday life, individuals are increasingly involving themselves in a variety different social networks online that cater for a diverse and niche audience. Particularly, this paper explores how the political realms interact with SNSs to not only allow traditional and non-traditional political organisations to disseminate news and information, but to foster debate and discourse among those involved within these political communities. Further, this paper will analyse how the extent to which communities utilise SNSs to access news and information influences the social capital of individuals. This paper will then analyse studies from Zuniga, Jung, and Valenzuela (2012,) and Zuniga, Barnidge and Scherman (2017), to specifically understand how SNS enable this increased social capital, in addition to how this consequently influences the levels of civic and political engagement both online and offline. Moreover, this paper will argue that the accumulation of news and information through SNSs increases individuals social capital and political and civil participation. Further, this paper will conclude that increased online social capital is predictive towards an increase in social capital offline.
Keywords: computer-mediated technology, communities, social capital, political science
Introduction
Current studies into the concepts of community within our contemporary society focus on how the experience of community has been affected by computer-mediated technologies such as smart phones, computers and the internet (Katz et al. 2004). Many authors within this field offer many varying definitions of “community” to provide a broad context whereby they argue differing community constructs. While Arensberg (1965) identifies three constructs to community; environment, social form, and pattered behavior; Sanders (1966) argues four; a place to live, a spatial unit, a way of life, and a social system. With an abundance of differing definitions around community, Jones (1995) found that the majority of definitions relied heavily on the constructs of social involvement and interaction, rather than relying on physical space, and more on the social systems that function within a community environment. Meyrowitz’s (1985; 1989) analysis of social roles and identities within communities, focusing on media and mental constructs, allows for an argument that is more appropriate to the virtual landscape in which computer-mediated technologies provide. Meyrowitz (1985; 1989) describes how individuals gain a sense of who they are, and the community in which they identify, by imaging how others – live and mediated – view them, noting the importance of media and mediation in the development of community. Katz et al. (2004) review many of these varying definitions of “community” to provide characteristics that both physical and virtual communities allow for, noting similarities, but more importantly, differences whereby virtual communities extend the boundaries of physical communities. Through their analysis, Katz et al. (2004) provide four ideal community types; traditional communities, pseudo-communities, imaginary communities, and social networks.
Social Networks
Social network communities refers to virtual communities, where personal mediated technologies have allowed for telecommunication that transcend geographic location, facilitating specialized and personal communities based on belonging rather than physical proximity (Katz et al., 2004). Katz et al. (2004) describe this community as networked individualism, where individuals can choose their community voluntarily within a larger social construction. Moreover, personal mediated technologies, such as mobile phones, can facilitate this network individualism faster than that of physical communities. Social network sites (SNS) are increasingly becoming an important platform that aid the creation of these social networks and communities online. SNSs allow users the ability to create individual profiles based around their identity and interests, and ultimately connect and navigate with others within the SNS (Zuniga, Jung and Valensuela, 2012). Social network sites allow for what Katz et al. (2004) describes as ‘network individualism’ with others within the social network that share similar interests, beliefs, or activities. Boyd and Ellison (2008) describe how SNS can cater for a more diverse and niche audience who seek to network based around racial, sexual, religious, political, or nationality-based identities.
SNSs and Politics
Politics in particular has become an important determinant in the development of social network communities, as individuals are able to interact and collaborate with others who share similar political ideologies and affiliations. Facebook in particular has become saturated with social network groups that identify all ends of the political spectrum, whether it’s hard-left, centric, or hard-right ideologies. These social networks can be facilitated by traditional political parties in an attempt diversify their communication channels. For example, the ‘The Australian Greens’ and ‘One Nation’ both have Facebook pages in an attempt to communicate directly with their publics. Whilst these traditional political parties utilise Facebook as a means to communicate policy, news and civic information with physical communities in which they are responsible for, they lack authoritative control over the activities and discourse that function within their social network. Private citizens, no matter of political ideology, can interact with each other through these political Facebook groups, in a manner that allows for rational, inclusive and general debate. Similar to that of traditional political organisation, private citizens can form communities on Facebook around subjective political interests and activities. The Facebook page “Patriot Blue” is publicity organised community of individuals who boast far-right political interests in Australia, supporting policies that are seen as anti-immigration and anti-globalist, to name a few. Empowered by the rise of Pauline Hanson’s ‘One Nation’ political party, ‘Patriot Blue’ utilise Facebook as a space for individuals who identify as ‘patriots’ or ‘nationalist’ to share news and civic information that reap right-wing characteristics (Tran, 2017). Similarly, Facebook communities can foster around specific political and public issues rather than a particular political ideology that is interested in a number of policy issues that affect their communities. The Facebook page ‘Australian Marriage Equality’ is a community of individuals with an interest and involvement in the issue regarding the legalisation same-sex marriage in Australia. This group boasts a social network of over 303,000 users, utilising Facebook as a social tool to communicate and engage with others the issues regarding same-sex marriage. Engagement with news and information published by ‘Australian Marriage Equality’ within this public forum allows for further debate and discourse around the issue. Users who disagree or express a different opinion with the information produced by ‘Australian Marriage Equality’ can react, comment or share their personal opinion with others within the social network ‘Australian Marriage Equality’ provides, in addition to their own personal social network.
Social Capital and News
Coleman originated the term ‘social capital’ as a “common set of expectations, a set of shared values, and a sense of trust among people” (1990, p. 306). Since the term was originated, other theorists have conceptualised vary definitions of social capital, particularly within studies involving community relations with the public and political sphere. As scholars became interested in the constructs of social involvement and interaction (Jones, 1995) in facilitating communities, social capital was viewed as the value this social involvement and interaction added to individuals’ lives. As SNS’ facilitate the growth of differing on political communities, it too facilitates the structure and nature of the social capital within these communities. As SNSs become common place within our computer-mediated society, they are becoming increasingly used as a tool to gather news and information about their online and offline communities (Zunia, Jung and Valenzuela, 2012). The same ways in which individual use SNS as a tool to construct identity and maintain social relationships, it is also utilised as a tool to contribute and share news information that is public or politically orientated. News and information, as Zuniga, Jung and Valenzuela (2012) note, can be curated around individuals political interests, values and beliefs, allowing them to be shared and discussed among their social network. Zunia, Jung and Valenzuela (2012) conducted a study through data collected in the U.S. between December 15, 2008, and January 5, 2009, in order to explore how individual SNSs use for news contributed to the creation of social capital. The study found that the extent to which respondents used SNSs to gather and share political news and public information about their community was positively related to social capital (Zunia, Jung and Valenzuela, 2012). The study found that respondents who shared political and public news reinforced new and existing community ties by keeping up to date with each other with what’s going on in their community, further creating more trusting and strong relationships (Zunia, Jung and Valenzuela, 2012). As individuals increasingly utilise SNSs as a tool to gather and share news and information about their communities, increasingly individuals found to report higher levels of value within their relationships with the online network of individuals whom they’re sharing this news and information. Consequently, high levels of social capital reported also found to influence individuals willingness to civically engage; particularly influencing online and offline political participation activities.
Civic and Political Participation: Online and Offline
The research provided by Zuniga, Jung and Valenzuela (2012) allows an understanding of how SNS use for news and information gathering and sharing effects individual social capital levels. It also provides an understanding of how these social capital levels can influence individuals willingness to participate in civic and political activities within their online and offline communities. The study present by Zuniga, Jung and Valenzuela (2012) measured participation at three levels; civic engagement, offline political participation, and online political participation. While civic engagement refers to the extent to which individuals are willing to work for the community, like volunteering for a charity, political activities (online and offline), political enagement refers to the involvement and behaviour towards government action and policy making (Zuniga, Jung and Valensuela, 2012). The study found that individuals political efficacy, SNS use for news, and political discussion network attributes, had a positive impact on individuals online participation activities like sharing political news and messages (Zuniga, Jung and Valensuela, 2012). Similarly, individuals behavioural use of SNSs to gather news and information was found to be predictive of offline political participation activities such as protesting and voting (Zuniga, Jung and Valensuela, 2012). Further research from Zuniga, Barnidge and Scherman (2017) introduces the idea that social capital fostered within SNS is different to that of social capital fostered within physical communities, relating to different types of citizenship and political participation online and offline. In a study conducted in the U.S. between December 2013 and January 2014, Zuniga Barnidge and Scherman (2017) found distinct different between offline social capital and SNS social capital, concluding they respect different constructs and difference. The study found that although both constructs are different, they’re still interrelated as SNS social capital was found to be more predictive of offline social capital more strongly than the other way around (Zuniga, Barnidge and Scherman, 2012). Moreover, Zuniga Barnidge and Scherman (2012) describe social capital in online and offline communities as a ‘virtuous circle’ due to ones predictability over the other; that being, that social capital fostered through SNS predicts whether these citizens will continue to foster social capital within their communities offline through civil and political participation activities.
In the case for the Facebook communities previous mentioned in ‘SNSs and Politics’, increased participation in online and offline civic and political activities can be analysed. The Facebook community ‘Patriot Blue’ have been noted within news media to utilise SNSs as a tool to not only disseminate information and foster political discourse online, but to coordinate activities offline in objective to further their collective political agenda. Tran (2017) reported on how this far-right Australian group coordinated protests and activist activities offline through SNSs, like ambushing NSW Labour Senator Sam Dastyari, a self-proclaimed left-wing NSW Labour Politian (now ex-politician). The Patriot Blues recorded this confrontation between the two polarising political spectrums, and shared in with their Facebook community in an attempt to send a message to the community that this type of political confrontation is acceptable (Tran, 2017). Though the incident has been labelled a ‘stage-managed stunt’ due to the nature of the confrontation that lacked appropriate political discourse, and focused more around insults towards the senators race and ethnicity, this Facebook community exemplifies how SNS can enabled collective offline activities that are motivated by political ideologies and affiliations. Similarly, in the case for ‘Australian Marriage Equality’, this non-traditional political organisation utilised Facebook to not only communicate news and information around same-sex marriage issues, but they also organised and coordinated hundreds of offline protests throughout wider Australian communities. Koslowski (2017) reports in the Huffington Post that over 20,000 people showed interest in the Sydney event on Facebook, while Weeks (2017) from The Guardian reports an estimated 30,000 people rallied from Sydney town hall to Circular Quay in support of the ‘yes’ campaign towards same-sex marriage.
Limitations
The article presented by Zuniga, Jung and Valenzuela (2012) provides a study that attempts to overcome the limitations of the accuracy of representing the entire population of U.S adults. The authors identify that their study allowed for more females who were slightly more educated than the general population, which may cause discrepancies and bias within the study. Despite its limitations, the study provides an important contribution into how computer-mediated technologies enrich the social capital of different communities and accordingly, encourage civic and political engagement. Similarly, the article presented by Zuniga, Barnidge and Scherman (2017) identifies the inherent limitations of casual order when regarding the relationship between online social capital and political participation. This papers attempt to analyse particular Facebook groups that identify towards a specific political ideology or policy issue provides a broad understanding of the types of offline activities that online communities can coordinate and engage in. Though this paper explores different instances within Australia whereby SNSs have facilitated offline civic and political participation, the analysis can only assume similar findings to Zuniga, Jung and Valenzuela (2012), and Zuniga, Barnidge and Scherman (2017), whereby SNSs enabled greater amounts of social capital to foster which consequently saw an increase in individuals willingness to participate in both online and offline political activities.
Conclusion and Future Study
In summary, this paper seeks to explore the influence SNS have in enabling online and offline communities to function, grow and strengthen. As SNSs become an integral tool for individuals to navigate and understand the diverse communities in which they reside and identify, they are increasingly becoming a space for the political realm to function. In the same ways in which traditional political organisations utilise Facebook as a communication channel to disseminate news and information that suit their political agenda or affiliation (The Australian Greens), more commonly SNSs are allowing non-traditional political organisations (Patriot Blue and Australian Marriage Equality) the ability to communicate news and information about their communities particular political interests and beliefs. As Facebook users are increasingly found to be utilising the social network as a space to gather news and information around political interests, users are consequently seen to exhibit higher levels of social capital. As users foster higher levels of social capital online, they’re found to have a greater willingness to participate in civic and political activities both online and offline. In conclusion, this paper found that increased online social capital was predictive towards an increase in social capital offline, identifying a shift in the relationship between the structure and function of social capital within different community types.
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