Virtual communication - communicating through a medium other than verbal language.
Virtual Community
(Rheingold)
Aggregate of agents - you cannot be a community of one.
In public - anyone may join. This may be nuanced so you may need to log in or not.
Share a code - common form of semiotic system. Jargon, hash-tags, language.
Time - it takes a long time for community to be formed.
Emotional investment - "You are not a community until you have a funeral."
Rhizomic - a messy series of over-lapping connections in a non-ordered system.
Social Capital
"The processes between people which establish networks, norms and social trust and facilitate co-ordination and co-operation for mutual benefit" Eva Cox (1992).
Usually takes place in horizontal bands of reciprocity - same status.
1960s-Bowling leagues, knitting circles etc.
Social capital exists only where there is a social connection-there does not need to be a physical connection.
Good will is "nebulous entity" but fulfills the requirements of sufficient human feeling in Rheingold's conception of communities.
Do you need social capital to form a community or is social capital an output of community?
Markers of Social Capital
Castle (2002) - is SC simply a neat metaphor that posits a logically comprehended, and comprehendable, ground (social capital) for a vague process (what actually happens). In social capital systems, horizontal social and power relations allow social capital to flow freely.
Few explicit rules or controls - the community is self-controlling partially because there is high trust within the community that members will behave appropriately.
Ingrouping and Outgrouping. We have high good will for those who are within our ingroup and this reduces the greater distance from this ingroup your connection is. However, the dynamic nature of community means that it is possible - and usually desirable - for members of the outgroup to become members of the ingroup.
Obligation towards reciprocity - you pay the SC back to the person from whom you got it or forward to someone else within community. This reciprocity keeps the social capital "sloshing" around the community so there is a desire to see the community flourish.
Tendency toward gift economies - the currency of communities usually runs on thoughts like: "I'll help you so you may help me in the future" Note that this seems counter to the expected reciprocity yet the gift economy, whilst expecting reciprocity, functions on expectations only.
Physical networks can expand to the limits to the technology. But can communities do the same? No, up to 150 connections is the max network a person can sustain.This critical number is limited by our time, social empathy, and attention. Which means social capital is a scarce resource-there are limits to how much can be put in or taken out of the system. Virtual networks tend to get a smaller chunk of the pie because they are not networks one can simply be active in - their technological mediation means one needs to go to a special place to be involved in the community. Although the hand-held devices are reducing this barrier to participation.
Social Capital thinks of "friendship" in terms of ties: strong, weak (friends who have the potential to be strong), and latent. Hence: "Burden of history in your inner circle" (Ze Frank)
Strong and Weak Ties
Strong: those with whom we have high emotional reciprocity.
Differentiated along four criteria. Time: usually take a long and regular period of time. Emotional intensity. Mutual confidence (trust), and reciprocity. So, strong ties are long, intensive, trusting, and reciprocal. Strong ties tend to come with more similarity between people i.e. the stronger the tie, the higher the similarity between the nodes, the stronger the connection. It is these ties who re-inforce who you are.
Although weak ties take less input, they are still a conduit of social capital so make the scarce resource (social capital) go further. These weaker ties require more governance but the overlap of weak-tie networks can provide new conduits of social capital through a bridging tie. One is most likely to find a new job from your weak-tie network. These bridging ties can also provide variety since they introduce you to new people who can, potentially, become strong ties.
Virtual Identity and Group Communication
How we communicate changes depending on whom we communicate with and with whom we think we are adjacent to in the network. Work backwards: look at communication to understand social position. Our code relies on trust: the other will understand the strong tie and the denotation. If we can identify the person from their interactions on the network does it follow that we can shape certain types of community by fostering certain types of utterances?
Social capital is not an unproblematic concept.
Tie theory looks at the micro level - the small-scale connections between people.
Communities are dynamic and there is a feedback system between members of the community and the individuals which constitute that community.
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