Social capital and online networks

Researchers Sarah Cummings, Richard Heeks and Marleen Huysman at Manchester University have produced a paper examining "whether the concept of social capital can be applied to facilitate our understanding of online networks in development"

Marleen Huysman offers a revised model for thinking about three possible dimensions of social capital:
1. The structural opportunity to share - which is related to 'who' and 'how' research questions, including network ties, configuration and organisation;
2. The cognitive ability to share - which is related to 'what' research questions, including the production of the shared language, codes and stories; and
3. The relation-based motivation to share - related to 'why' and 'when' research questions, which includes elements of human relationships: trust, norms, reciprocity, etc.
I had difficulty following through the analysis applying this to online networks....but flag it up for those like Will Davies better versed in social capital and social software.
Could the framework questions be:
1 Do we have the opportunity to share?
2 Do we have the capability?
3 Do we have the inclination?
... which could then be cross-related to issue of access, network control, skills, motivation, trust. Too simple, I'm sure. Mush quell a rising grumble about inaccessible academic research.

I picked the item up by way of iConnect which "tracks the use of ICT and knowledge for sustainable development in the global south" and "provides a knowledge sharing platform for partners in the Building Digital Opportunities programme." Their newsletter has many other useful links.

Upate: in my over-hasty online scan of the paper I missed the final appendix expanding the framework charting dimensions of social capital against research questions, community characteristics, main criteria and relevant sub-criteria. It looks promising, but (in my humble opinion) needs more explanation to make it useful to non-academics. But then maybe we aren't the audience...

Comments

[Sarah Cummings]

Hi David
As one of the authors, I'm very interested to read your comments on the paper and think you have a good point. This is very much work in progress and we would be most interested in any comments on how to improve it. I agree with you that it might look a long way from practice but the framework aims to concentrate attention on the importance of social relationships within networks and to contribute to a more evidence-based approach to networks. Applying it in practice would be the next stage, I think, although we don't have any concrete plans at the moment.
It has, however, already had one more practical spin off because it has formed the basis for a short 'smart tool' for evaluation of networks which doesn't mention social capital at all. It is called a 'smart tool' because it is part of a collaborative initiative to produce 'smart tools' for evaluation of information, not becuase I think it's so 'smart' myself. If you're interested, you can see more about the smart tools (there are now about 25) on the LEAP IMPACT workspace at http://www.bellanet.org/leap/impact
If you would be willing to act as a reviewer for this particular smart tool, your opinion would be appreciated.