Recent empirical studies have clearly demonstrated the importance of offline social capital for disaster resilience and response. I’ve blogged about some of this analysis here and here. Social capital is typically described as those “features of social organizations, such as networks, norms, and trust, that facilitate action and cooperation for mutual benefit.” In other words, social capital increases a group’s capacity for collective action and thus self-organization, which is a key driver of disaster resilience. What if those social organizations were virtual and the networks digital? Would these online communities “generate digital social capital”? And would this digital social capital have any impact on offline social capital, collective action and resilience?
A data-driven study published recently, “Social Capital and Pro-Social Behavior Online and Offline” (PDF), presents some fascinating insights. The study, carried out by Constantin M. Bosancianu, Steve Powell and Esad Bratovi, draws on their survey of 1,912 Internet users in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia. The authors specifically consider two types of social capital: bonding social capital and bridging social capital. “
“Bridging social capital is described as inclusive, fostered in networks where membership is not restricted to a particular group defined by strict racial, class, linguistic or ethnic criteria. Regular interactions inside these networks would gradually build norms of generalized trust and reciprocity at the individual level. These relationships […] are able to offer the individual access to new information but are not very adept in providing emotional support in times of need.”
“Bonding social capital, on the other hand, is exclusive, fostered in tight-knit networks of family members and close friends. Although the degree of information redundancy in these networks is likely high (as most members occupy the same social space), they provide […] the “sociological superglue” which gets members through tough emotional stages in their lives.”
The study’s findings reveal that online and offline social capital were correlated with each other. More specifically, online bridging social capital was closely correlated with offline bridging social capital, while online binding social capital was closely correlated with offline binding social capital. Perhaps of most interest with respect to disaster resilience, the authors discovered that “offline bridging social capital can benefit from online interactions.”
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