Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Social Media Social Capital Offline Soci PDF
Social Media Social Capital Offline Soci PDF
To cite this article: Homero Gil de Zúñiga, Matthew Barnidge & Andrés Scherman (2016): Social
Media Social Capital, Offline Social Capital, and Citizenship: Exploring Asymmetrical Social
Capital Effects, Political Communication, DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2016.1227000
Download by: [Vienna University Library], [Matthew Barnidge] Date: 18 January 2017, At: 03:41
Political Communication, 00:1–25, 2016
© 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1058-4609 print / 1091-7675 online
DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2016.1227000
In pursuit of a healthier and participatory democracy, scholars have long established the
positive effects of social capital, values derived from resources embedded in social ties with
others which characterize the structure of opportunity and action in communities. Today,
social media afford members of digital communities the ability to relate in new ways. In these
contexts, the question that arises is whether new forms of social capital associated with the
use of social media are a mere extension of traditional social capital or if they are in fact a
different construct with a unique and distinct palette of attributes and effects. This study
introduces social media social capital as a new conceptual and empirical construct to
complement face-to-face social capital. Based on a two-wave panel data set collected in
the United States, this study tests whether social capital in social media and offline settings are
indeed two distinct empirical constructs. Then, the article examines how these two modes of
social capital may relate to different types of citizenship online and offline. Results show that
social media social capital is empirically distinct from face-to-face social capital. In addition,
the two constructs exhibit different patterns of effects over online and offline political
participatory behaviors. Results are discussed in light of theoretical developments in the
area of social capital and pro-democratic political engagement.
The emergence of social media platforms has reinvigorated scholarly interest in social capital
(Skoric & Zhu, 2015; Valenzuela, Park, & Kee, 2009; Williams, 2006; Zhong, 2014). These
media afford members of digital communities the ability to relate in new ways, in which the
co-presence of others is not necessary to develop social capital (Gil de Zúñiga, Jung, &
Valenzuela, 2012). In this context, the question that arises is whether new forms of social
capital associated with the use of social media are a mere extension of traditional social capital
or if they are in fact a different construct with a unique and distinct palette of attributes and
Homero Gil de Zúñiga is the Medienwandel Professor, and Director of the Media Innovation Lab
(MiLab) at the Department of Communication, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Vienna, and a
Research Fellow at the Facultad de Comunicacíon y Letras, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile. Matthew
Barnidge is post-doctoral researcher in the Media Innovation Lab (MiLab) at the Department of
Communication, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Vienna. Andrés Scherman is Professor at
the Facultad de Comunicacíon y Letras, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile.
Address correspondence to Homero Gil de Zúñiga, Medienwandel Professor, Department of
Communication, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Vienna, Währinger Straße 29, Vienna 1090,
Austria. E-mail: [email protected]
1
2 Homero Gil de Zúñiga et al.
effects (see, e.g., Molyneux, Vasudevan, & Gil de Zúñiga, 2015; Williams, 2006). That is, in
addition to face-to-face means of generating social capital, it is possible that social media users
now develop distinctive ways to remain close to other users, fostering community values in
novel-yet-genuine ways. Because of the close relationship between social capital and political
engagement (Bourdieu, 1985; Brehm & Rahn, 1997; Coleman, 1988; Lake & Huckfeldt,
1998; Lin, 2001), questions also arise about whether differences in the ways social capital is
produced translate into different patterns of political action.
Based on a two-wave panel data set collected in the United States, this study tests
whether social capital in social media and offline settings form two distinct empirical
constructs. Then, the study clarifies the symbiotic, although asymmetrical, relationship
between the two social capital constructs. Finally, the article examines how these two
modes of social capital may relate to political engagement online and offline.
Literature Review
settings. First, social media alter the structure of social communication through the
articulation of latent or weak-tie relationships (Gil de Zúñiga & Valenzuela, 2011). This
articulation function means that social media provide users with new and different kinds of
social information about relationships (e.g., Kwon, Stefanone, & Barnett, 2014; Walther,
Van der Heide, Kim, Westerman, & Tong, 2008), from which new and different kinds of
value can be derived (e.g., Ellison et al., 2011). Second, social media promote engagement
with a broader range of media content related to politics and public affairs (Bakshy et al.,
2015; Barbera, 2014; Barnidge, 2015; Kim, 2011; Kim, Hsu, & Gil de Zúñiga, 2013), and
they afford new ways to engage with semi-public conversations occurring in egocentric
social networks (Rojas, 2015; Yamamoto, Kushin, & Dalisay, 2013; Zhang, Johnson,
Seltzer, & Bichard, 2010). These behaviors represent different avenues for users to
recognize and develop value in social relationships. Finally, social media provide new
ways for users to convert latent social value into social or political action (Bode et al.,
2014; Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2012). Taken together, these three points suggest that social
capital on social media differs from social capital in offline settings in terms of the latent
distribution of social value and resources, the process of recognition and development of
these very characteristics, as well as the conversion of these values and resources into
more tangible individual or collective benefit. Therefore, it is hypothesized that this
conceptual distinction will manifest empirically.
H1: Offline social capital and social media social capital will form two different factors.
Some scholars have asserted that social connection on social media tends to move
from the offline realm to the online environment (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). That is, social
media translate social connections formed offline to online platforms. However, theoreti-
cally, the causal relationship between social connectedness in the two environments could
run the other way—from online to offline. Research shows that social media tend to
expand social networks (Hampton, Sessions, & Her, 2011; Tahkteyev, Gruzd, & Wellman,
2012), and that relationship maintenance on social media typically strengthens offline
social connection (Ramirez, Sumner, & Spinda, 2015; Toma & Choi, 2016). Given these
multiple possibilities regarding the directionality of the causal relationship between social
capital offline and on social media, we pose a research question (RQ) asking which
construct more strongly predicts the other over time.
RQ1: Does offline social capital lead to social media social capital more strongly over time
than the other way around?
term commitment (Norris, 2002). Even still, these new forms of participation, albeit
distinct from offline political activities, appear to coincide with other forms that require
more individual involvement (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2010), meaning there is now a wider
range of behaviors that draw people into politics, more broadly (Bakker & de Vreese,
2011).
H2: Offline social capital will be positively related to (a) offline political participation and
(b) voting.
Online and offline political activities tend to be closely interrelated (Bakker & de
Vreese, 2011), in part because people draw on their online social contacts for offline action
(Bennett & Segerberg, 2012; Rojas & Puig-i-Abril, 2009). Increasingly, people use social
media to mobilize their networks for on-the-ground political action, with recent examples
of this online-to-offline phenomenon including the Arab Spring (Eltantawy & Weist, 2011;
Howard & Parks, 2012; Lim, 2012, 2013) and the Occupy movements (Bennett &
Segerberg, 2012; Bennett, Segerberg, & Walker, 2014; Gleason, 2013; Theocharis,
Lowe, Van Deth, & Garcia-Albacete, 2015). Therefore, it is hypothesized that the
resources embedded in social connections formed on social media will also be associated
with offline political participation.
H3: Social media social capital will be positively related to (a) offline political participa-
tion and (b) voting.
et al., 2013). Theoretically, social media exposes users to more mobilizing political
information and it affords the possibility of engaging in a range of online participatory
behaviors (Valenzuela, 2013). As a result, the social connections formed through social
media are particularly effective at drawing social media users into online participation.
H4: Social media social capital will be positively related to online political participation.
While there is little prior evidence of a relationship between offline social capital
and online political participation (see Gil de Zúñiga and colleagues [2012] for an
example of a null finding), there are theoretical reasons to expect that a relationship
exists. The Internet and social media have arguably facilitated the rise of new kinds of
political organizations that rely more heavily on diffused social networks of affiliation
and support than do traditional political organizations (Bimber et al., 2009; Gil de
Zúñiga, Copeland, & Bimber, 2014). Therefore, while social networks have always
been important for the mobilizing capacity of political organizations, today there are
more opportunities for these organizations to tap into offline social networks using
online tools (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012; Gibson & Cantijoch, 2013; Lim, 2013;
Theocharis, 2013). By extension, this implies that resources derived from offline social
networks increasingly provide opportunities for people to engage with politics online—
for example, signing online petitions or making online donations at the recommenda-
tion of offline social ties.
H5: Offline social capital will be positively related to online political participation.
Methods
Sample
This study relies on a two-wave panel survey collected by a research team at a major
research university in the United States. The survey was designed to be representa-
tive of the U.S. population over the age of 18. Respondents were selected from a
previously existing online panel of more than 200,000 citizens, curated by an
international polling company, AC Nielsen. Nielsen panels establish quotas to
match U.S. Census statistics for age and gender pursuing national representation
and generalizability. Using the online Qualtrics software, the first survey wave was
collected between December 2013 and January 2014. The second wave was collected
in February and March 2014. The first wave was initially distributed to 5,000
respondents. A total of 2,060 participants completed the survey, and 247 cases
ended up being discarded due to high levels of incomplete data or missing informa-
tion, for a final count of 1,813 cases. The final response rate according to the
American Association of Public Opinion Research’s response rate calculator (RR3)
was 34.6% (American Association of Public Opinion Research, 2011, p. 45). The
second wave retained 1,024 valid cases (57%), which falls within similar parameters
of valid data seeking to respect representation integrity (see Watson & Wooden,
2006, for a discussion of retention rates for Web panels). In general, the survey
respondents were slightly older, more educated, and included fewer Hispanics than
the U.S. population at large. Still, the overall sample demographics are comparable to
other surveys employing random collection methods (Pew Research Center, n.d.) and
6 Homero Gil de Zúñiga et al.
are also comparable to the national population as whole (see full demographic
breakdowns for this data set in Saldaña, McGregor, & Gil de Zúñiga, 2015;
Weeks, Ardèvol-Abreu, & Gil de Zúñiga, 2015).
Measures
Offline Political Participation. In both waves of the survey, five questionnaire items
measured on 10-point (1 = never, 10 = all the time) scales asked respondents how often,
in the past 12 months, they engaged in various offline political activities, including getting
involved in political groups or campaigns, participating with social movement groups,
donating money to a campaign or cause, attending a protest, or attending a political rally
(Wave 1: Cronbach’s α = .82, M = 3.47, SD = 1.57; Wave 2: Cronbach’s α = .83, M = 3.49,
SD = 1.64). A change score (Wave 2—Wave 1) was also computed for use in the change-
score models (M = –.01, SD = 1.25).
Voting. In both waves of the survey, two questionnaire items, measured on 10-point scales
(1 = never, 10 = all the time) asked respondents how often they vote in (a) local or
statewide elections and (b) federal or presidential elections (Wave 1: Spearman-Brown
coefficient = .94, M = 8.11, SD = 2.97; Wave 2: Spearman-Brown coefficient = .93,
M = 8.16, SD = 2.92).
Online Political Participation. Also in both waves of the survey, six questionnaire items
measured on identical scales as offline participation asked respondents how often, in the past
12 months, they engaged in various online political activities, including signing or sharing an
online petition, participating in an online question-and-answer session with a politician or
public official, creating an online petition, and signing up online to volunteer to help with a
political cause, using a mobile phone to donate money to a campaign or political cause via text
message or app, and starting a political or cause-related group on a social media site (Wave 1:
Cronbach’s α = .81, M = 1.83, SD = 1.38; Wave 2: Cronbach’s α = .84, M = 1.83, SD = 1.42). A
change-score variable was also computed (M = .00, SD = 1.00).
Offline Social Capital. The two social capital variables (offline and social media) focus on
the social connectedness aspect of social capital (Williams, 2006; Zhang & Chia, 2006)
using previously validated measurement scales. The variable for social capital in offline
settings was created using six survey items measured on 10-point scales (1 = strongly
disagree, 10 = strongly agree) asking respondents about people in their communities (see
Table 1 for question wording).These items were asked in both survey waves (Wave 1:
Cronbach’s α = .92, M = 1.95, SD = 1.76; Wave 2: Cronbach’s α = .94, M = 1.93,
SD = 1.85). At Wave 1, the offline social capital variable is correlated with frequency of
social media use (measured on a 10-point scale asking respondents, “On a typical day, how
much do you use social media”) at r = .13, p < .001.
Social Media Social Capital. Meanwhile, the variable for social capital in social media
settings was created with four survey items for each survey wave measured on similar
scales and asking respondents about their social media communities (see Table 1 for
question wording; Wave 1: Cronbach’s α = .97, M = 2.10, SD = 1.94; Wave 2:
Cronbach’s α = .97, M = 2.10, SD = 1.97). These items were adapted from previous
measures focusing on social capital in other online or networked media (Molyneux
Asymmetrical Social Capital 7
Table 1
Factor analysis of offline social capital and social media social capital
Social
Offline Social MediaSocial
Questionnaire Item CapitalW1 CapitalW1
I think people in my community feel connected to .909 .129
each other.
In my community, people help each other when there .894 .054
is a problem.
People in my community watch out for each other. .887 .058
In my community, we talk to each other about .852 .157
community problems.
I think people in my community share values. .819 .100
People in my community feel like family to me. .805 .164
I frequently use social media to encourage .124 .961
conversations about solving community problems.
I frequently use social media to find people to solve .132 .924
problems in my community.
I frequently use social media to foster community .091 .912
values.
I frequently use social media to connect community .039 .913
members to each other.
Eigenvalues 5.71 3.39
Variance explained (%) 47.57 35.99
Cumulative variance explained (%) 81.57
Cronbach’s α .95 .97
Notes. Bolded values indicate items loading on the same factor. W1 = Wave 1.
et al., 2015; Williams, 2006). At Wave 1, the social media social capital item is
correlated with frequency of social media use at r = .44, p < .001.
Social Media Interaction. The use of social media for social interaction is an important driver
of persuasion and action on social media (Diehl, Weeks, & Gil de Zúñiga, 2015). It is therefore
important to include it as a control variable because it could explain both social capital and
participation. Three Wave 1 survey items were used to create the social media interaction
variable. Measured on 10-point scales (1 = never, 10 = all the time), these items asked
respondents how frequently they use social media to stay in touch with friends and family,
meet new people who share interests, and contact people they wouldn’t meet otherwise
(Cronbach’s α = .78, M = 3.56, SD = 2.33).
Discussion Frequency. Likewise, political discussion contributes to social capital (Lake &
Huckfeldt, 1998) and affects political participation (McClurg, 2006; Mutz, 2006), and
therefore it is necessary to control for two dimensions of the political talk concept:
discussion frequency and discussion network size. The discussion frequency variable
was created from nine Wave 1 items measured on 10-point scales (1 = never, 10 = all
8 Homero Gil de Zúñiga et al.
the time) that asked respondents how often they talk politics online or offline with their
spouse/partner, family members, friends, acquaintances, strangers, neighbors they know
well, neighbors they do not know well, coworkers they know well, and coworkers they do
not know well. These items were averaged to create the final variable (Cronbach’s α = .87;
M = 3.27, SD = 1.74).
Discussion Network Size. As with discussion frequency, the size of respondents’ discus-
sion networks accounts for its influence on both social capital and political participation
(Lake & Huckfeldt, 1998). Two Wave 1 items asked respondents how many people they
talk about politics with in face-to-face and online settings. These items were added
together (M = 4.36, SD = 16.88). This variable was highly skewed (skewness = 10.85),
so a natural logarithmic transformation was performed (M = .33, SD = .37,
skewness = 1.3).
News Use. News use also affects social capital and political participation (McLeod et al.,
1996; Shah, Kwak, et al., 2001; Shah, McLeod, et al., 2001). The news use variable was
created by taking the average of 21 Wave 1 survey items measured on 10-point scales
(1 = never, 10 = all the time). These items asked respondents about their habitual use of
various news media, including local, network, and cable television news and/or fake news,
newspapers, radio, online-only news and/or hyperlocal news sites, online news aggrega-
tors, mobile news apps, and social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
These items form a reliable scale (Cronbach’s α = .82, M = 2.92, SD = 1.16).
Media Trust. Media trust has been shown to amplify the effects of news use on political
participation (Kaufhold, Valenzuela, & Gil de Zúñiga, 2010). The media trust variable
took the average of four Wave 1 items measured on 10-point Likert-type scale (1 = not at
all, 10 = a great deal) asking respondents how much they trust news from mainstream
media, alternative news media, social media news, and news from online aggregators.
These items also formed a reliable scale (Cronbach’s α = .72, M = 4.28, SD = 1.72).
Political Interest. Several political orientations were controlled because they are related to
political participation. First, political interest is a relatively consistent predictor of political
participation (Kenski & Stroud, 2006; Verba et al., 1995), and was therefore controlled. It
was measured with two Wave 1 items using 10-point scales (1 = not at all, 10 = a great
deal) asking respondents how interested they are in politics and public affairs and how
closely they pay attention to information about politics and public affairs. A split-half test
shows these items form a reliable measure (Spearman-Brown ρ = .96, M = 6.67,
SD = 2.70).
Results
The first hypothesis sought to determine to what extent offline social capital and social
media social capital are empirically distinct. The study contended that, although they are
related constructs, social media in the social media sphere is a different construct that
embodies theoretical differences with respect to the offline sphere. Results from principal
axes factoring with varimax rotation support this expectation. Offline social capital
(Cronbach’s α = .95; eigenvalue = 5.71) included six items evaluating the degree to
which people feel connected to one another in the community, the perception of the
community helping, talking to and watching out for one another, as well as a sense of
shared values and feeling like family. Drawing from the same items but uniquely related to
social capital in the social media realm, results also suggest a different, valid, and reliable
factor (Cronbach’s α = .97; eigenvalue = 3.39). The two constructs combined to explain a
total of 81.57% of the variance (see Table 1 for complete results). These results support
H1.
In addition, RQ1 asks whether offline social capital leads to social media capital more
strongly than the other way around. Relying on further causal inference analysis drawing
on cross-lagged correlation tests (Locascio, 1982), results indicate that social media social
capital in Wave 1 predicts offline social capital in Wave 2 (rcross-lagged = .17) more strongly
than the relationship that goes from offline social capital (Wave 1) to the proliferation of
social media social capital (Wave 2; rcross-lagged = .06). That is, developing social capital in
social media today will more strongly predict the development of offline social capital in
the future than the other way around. This finding lends support to the notion of a
virtuous, although asymmetrically related, circle of social capital (see Table 2).
H2 through H5 all pertain to the different ways in which social capital and political
participatory behaviors may be related. Given that the study relied on two-wave panel
data, different analyses were pursued to better address these hypotheses and research
questions. First, the study tested the effects in a cross-sectional regression model showing
the static relationships between social capital and online/offline political participation.
Then, first-differences regression models are estimated, which isolate the impact of social
media social capital and offline social capital on online and offline participation at the
individual level drawing on intrapersonal score changes over time (see Allison, 2009).
Next, the study performed an autoregressive model, which represents a much more
constrained approach, as research shows that prior behavior is the strongest predictor of
10 Homero Gil de Zúñiga et al.
Table 2
Cross-lagged Pearson’s correlation of offline social capital and social media social capital
future behavior (Aarts, Verplanken, & Van Knippenberg, 1998). In this case, the model
controlled for prior political participatory behavior in Wave 1 when predicting future
participation in Wave 2. Relationships with voting were estimated separately using
cross-sectional models in Wave 1 and Wave 2, as well as with a lagged panel model.
Finally, Huber-White robust standard errors were estimated for all models.
The cross-sectional models explain 47.3% of the variance for online political partici-
pation and 42.6% for offline participation (see Table 3).Both offline social capital
(β = .056, p < .05) and social media social capital (β = .337, p < .001) are related to
online political participation, but only social media social capital is related to offline
political participation (β = .327, p < .001). These models were re-estimated using
Huber-White robust standard errors, and results are substantively similar. For both out-
comes, offline social capital (for online participation: B = .033, SEHW = .015, p < .05; for
offline participation: B = .070, SEHW = .021, p < .001) and social media social capital (for
online participation: B = .239, SEHW = .032, p < .001; for offline participation: B = .301,
SEHW = .043, p < .001) are significantly and positively related.
The first-differences model explained 24.9% of the variance for online political
participation and 18.2% of offline political participation (see Table 4). Offline social
capital is positively related to online participation (β = .113, B = .064, SEHW = .016,
p < .001), but not offline political participation. Meanwhile, social media social capital
positively predicts online participation (β = .188, B = .185, SEHW = .034, p < .001) and
offline participation (β = .212, B = .173, SEHW = .042, p < .001). As can be expected,
prior levels of political participation were the strongest predictors of the outcome variables
in the autoregressive framework (online, β = .494, p < .001; offline, β = .652, p < .001). In
addition, offline participation also positively predicted online participation (β = .159,
p < .001). Among social capital variables, only social media social capital positively
predicted online participation (β = .117, B = .086, SEHW = .033, p < .001) and offline
participation (β = .097, B = .094, SEHW = .041, p < .001), whereas offline social capital
didn’t exhibit any relationships with participation (online, β = –.028, B = –.021,
SEHW = .014, n.s.; offline, β = .003, B = –.005, SEHW = .019, n.s.). The autoregressive
Table 3
Cross-sectional (W1) regression models testing offline social capital and social media social capital on political participation
Offline Social Capital .106*** .061 (.016)*** (.021)*** .057 .041 (.021) (.025)
Social Media Social .193*** .128 (.021)*** (.034)*** .209*** .173 (.027)*** (.042)***
Capital
ΔR2 .043 .039
Total R2 .247 .182
Notes. Sample size = 1,017. W1 = Wave 1. W2 = Wave 2. Cell entries are final-entry ordinary least squares (OLS) standardized beta coefficients (β),
unstandardized beta coefficients (B), standard errors (SE), and robust standard errors (Huber-White SE).
** p < .01. *** p < .001.
Table 5
Autoregressive models testing offline social capital and social media social capital on political participation
models explained 55.1% of variance for online participation and 58.5% for offline
participation (see Table 5).
Results for voting are presented separately in Table 6. All three models in the table
explain relatively low levels of variance (Wave 1: .6%, Wave 2: 1.2%, lagged: .5%).
Offline social capital is positively related to voting in all three models (Wave 1: β = .071,
B = .091, SEHW = .039, p = .05; Wave 2: β = .072, B = .089, SEHW = .039, p = .05;
Lagged: β = .080, B = .101, SEHW = .038, p = .01). Meanwhile, social media social capital
is negatively related in the cross-sectional models (Wave 1: β = –.078, B = –.120,
SEHW = .054, p < .05; Wave 2: β = –.146, B = –.218, SEHW = .059, p < .05), but
unrelated in the lagged model.
Taken together, results partially support H2. Offline social capital is not significantly
related to voting, but, surprisingly, it is unrelated to offline political participation.
However, offline social capital is positively related to online participation, in support of
H5. As for social media social capital, results support the idea that it is related to both
offline (H3a) and online participation (H4), but not to voting (H3b).
Discussion
The emergence of social media has arguably changed the nature of social capital and the
ways in which it is generated from social relationships (Williams, 2006). As the nature of
social connectedness evolves, questions arise about whether social media social capital is
empirically distinct from social capital generated in offline venues, and whether it has
different patterns of effects on political participation.
The results of this study provide evidence that social media social capital is empiri-
cally distinct from offline social capital. Using principal axes factory analyses, the study
shows that survey items tapping social capital formed on social media form a distinct
empirical construct than items tapping offline social capital. Thus, while offline social
capital, as previously theorized in the literature (Bourdieu, 1985; Lin, 2008), continues to
be a robust benchmark on how strongly people connect in their communities, share values,
and watch out for one another, the results of this study suggest that the platforms people
use to connect with one another affect the nature of the value derived from those relation-
ships (Molyneux et al., 2015; Williams, 2006).
The study also tested the relationship between offline social capital and social media
social capital as a virtuous circle over time. Although both constructs are, as can be
expected, interrelated, social media social capital tends to predict offline social capital
more strongly than the other way around. In other words, the way people make connec-
tions, foster their community values, and seek to talk about their community problems on
social media predicts whether these citizens will continue to do so in their offline
communities over time. Yet, sharing values, helping one another, or watching out for
one another in one’s offline communities does not as strongly predict that they will
continue to do so in the social media context. Offline social capital and social media
social capital represent a symbiotic, yet asymmetrical, virtuous circle.
This finding—that social media social capital predicts offline social capital over time
more strongly than the reverse—may also help to clarify why social media social capital
influences people’s participatory behaviors online and offline more so than offline social
capital. It may be due to (a) the direct influence social media social capital has over both
online and offline political participation and (b) the impact social media social capital has
on offline social capital over time. Future research should delve deeper into this mediating
mechanism.
Asymmetrical Social Capital 19
Diverse and extensive tests based on panel data (i.e., first-differences and autoregres-
sive models) also clarify the relationship between these distinct dimensions of social
capital and people’s participatory political behaviors. Consistent with previous literature,
offline social capital is a robust predictor of voting (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2012, 2014;
Giugni et al., 2014; Gustafsson, 2012; Skoric & Zhu, 2015; Zhang & Chia, 2006).
However, offline social capital does not predict other forms of political participation
over time once previous levels of participation are accounted for in the models. Social
media social capital,on the other hand, predicts both offline and online political participa-
tion over time even while controlling for prior levels of participation. Thus, interestingly,
social media social capital is not only related to online political participation but also to
political participation that occurs outsidethe digital sphere. This means that community
relationships generated through social media are not only predictors of online political
participation, as previous research has shown (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2012; Valenzuela,
2013; Yamamoto et al., 2013), but also are predictors of traditional political participation.
This result lends support to the theoretical assumption that social networks curated and
maintained in social media permeate to the offline world and facilitate face-to-face
political coordination that fuels offline political action (Bakker & de Vreese, 2011;
Bennett & Segerberg, 2012; Bennett, Segerberg, & Walker, 2014; Eltantawy & Weist,
2011; Gleason, 2013; Howard & Parks, 2012; Lim, 2012, 2013; Theocharis et al., 2015).
However, results show that this phenomenon may not extend to the voting booth. In fact,
some tests show a negative relationship between social media social capital and voting,
while others show no relationship. Therefore, while social media social capital may
promote other forms of offline participation such as protesting, it may actually discourage
voting in major elections.
One reason that social media social capital is related to political participation in
multiple communicative realms is that social media reduce barriers to participation—
such as time and economic resources (Verba et al., 1995)—by enabling a series of
interconnected behaviors such as developing political ties with other members of the
community, donating money to a cause, or signing a petition addressed to the authorities.
Another feature that may foster this relationship between social media social capital and
participation has to do with the interactive character of these digital platforms. As has been
studied in the relationship between news and audiences (Holton, Coddington, Lewis, &
Gil de Zúñiga, 2015), online relationships facilitated or maintained by social media enable
higher levels of personal and social reciprocity. In turn, reciprocity would allow for a
smoother exchange of information, common values, and resources among users, contri-
buting to the creation of an environment that fosters actions related to political
participation.
These results are limited in several important ways. First, although the panel data used
in this study establish causal order with regards to the relationship between social media
social capital and political participation, it cannot control for every potential confounding
variable. Further analysis of similar panel data sets is warranted to reinforce these findings.
Second, while the measurement strategy for the two social capital constructs is based on
prior literature (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2012; Molyneux et al., 2015; Williams, 2006; Zhang
& Chia, 2006; Zhong, 2014;), future research would ideally include the items validated in
this study and combine those with a more diverse array of questions that reflect the
specific affordances of offline and online environments. Third, this study has focused on
the adult population of the United States, but it is possible that different subsets of the
population could exhibit different patterns of social capital and/or political participation.
More specifically, results are likely colored by the institutional structure of the American
20 Homero Gil de Zúñiga et al.
Acknowledgments
The first author is grateful to the Excellence Chair Program at Universidad Carlos III,
Spain, where he participated in 2016. His visit and participation in the program was
invaluable.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website at http://dx.
doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2016.1227000.
References
Aarts, H., Verplanken, B., & Van Knippenberg, A. (1998). Predicting behavior from actions in the
past: Repeated decision making or a matter of habit? Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 28,
1355–1374. doi:10.1111/jasp.1998.28.issue-15
Allison, P. D. (2009). Fixed effects regression models (vol. 160). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications.
American Association of Public Opinion Research. (2016). Standard definitions: Final dispositions
of case codes and outcome rates for surveys. Retrieved from http://www.aapor.org/
AAPOR_Main/media/publications/Standard-Definitions20169theditionfinal.pdf
Bachmann, I., Correa, T., & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2012). Profiling online content creators: Advancing the
paths to democracy. International Journal of E-Politics, 3(4), 1–19. doi:10.4018/jep.2012100101
Bakker, T. P., & de Vreese, C. H. (2011). Good news for the future? Young people, Internet use, and
political participation. Communication Research, 38(4), 451–470. doi:10.1177/0093650210381738
Bakshy, E., Messing, S., & Adamic, L. (2015). Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion
on Facebook. Science, 348, 1130–1132. doi:10.1126/-science.aaa1160
Barbera, P. (2014). How social media reduces mass political polarization: Evidence from Germany,
Spain, and the United States. Working Paper. Retrieved from http://pablobarbera.com/static/
barbera-polarization-social-media.pdf
Barnidge, M. (2015). The role of news in promoting political disagreement on social media.
Computers in Human Behavior, 52, 211–218. doi:10.1016/-j.chb.2015.06.011
Asymmetrical Social Capital 21
Barthel, M., Shearer, E., Gottfried, J., & Mitchell, A. (2015). The evolving role of news on Twitter
and Facebook. Report of the Pew Research Center, Journalism & Media. Retrieved from http://
www.journalism.org/2015/07/14/the-evolving-role-of-news-on-twitter-and-facebook/
Bennett, W. L. (1998). The uncivic culture: Communication, identity, and the rise of lifestyle politics.
PS: Political Science & Politics, 31(4), 741–761. doi:10.1017/S1049096500053270
Bennett, W. L., & Segerberg, A. (2012). The logic of connective action: Digital media and the
personalization of contentious politics. Information, Communication & Society, 15(5), 739–768.
doi:10.1080/1369118X.2012.670661
Bennett, W. L., Segerberg, A., & Walker, S. (2014). Organization in the crowd: Peer production in
large-scale networked protests. Information, Communication & Society, 17(2), 232–260.
doi:10.1080/1369118X.2013.870379
Bimber, B., Stohl, C., & Flanagin, A. J. (2009). Technological change and the shifting nature of
political organization. In A. Chadwick &P. N. Howard (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of
Internet politics (pp. 72–85).New York, NY: Routledge.
Bode, L. (2012). Facebooking it to the polls: A study in online social networking and political
behavior. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 9(4), 352–369. doi:10.1080/
19331681.2012.709045
Bode, L., Vraga, E. K., Borah, P., & Shah, D. V. (2014). A new space for political behavior: Political
social networking and its democratic consequences. Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communication, 19(3), 414–429. doi:10.1111/jcc4.12048
Bourdieu, P. (1985). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and
research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258).New York, NY: Greenwood.
Boyd, D. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship.
Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 13(1), 210–230. doi:10.1111/
j.1083-6101.2007.00393.x
Brehm, J., & Rahn, W. (1997). Individual-level evidence for the causes and consequences of social
capital. American Journal of Political Science, 41(3), 999–1023. doi:10.2307/2111684
Burt, R. S. (2005). Brokerage and closure: An introduction to social capital. Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press.
Campus, D., Pasquino, G., & Vaccari, C. (2008). Social networks, political discussion, and voting in
Italy: A study of the 2006 election. Political Communication, 25(4), 423–444. doi:10.1080/
10584600802427039
Chadha, M., Avila, A., & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2012). Listening in: Building a profile of podcast users
and analyzing their political participation. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 9(4),
388–401. doi:10.1080/19331681.2012.717481
Coleman, J. S. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of
Sociology, 94, S95–S120. doi:10.1086/228943
Coleman, J. S. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Diehl, T., Weeks, B. E., & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2015). Political persuasion on social media: Tracing
direct and indirect effects of news use and social interaction. New Media & Society. Advance
online publication. doi:10.1177/1461444815616224
Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends”: Social capital
and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communication, 12(4), 1143–1168. doi:10.1111/-j.10836101.2007.00367.x
Ellison, N. B., Steinfeld, C., & Lampe, C. (2011). Connection strategies: Social capital implications
of Facebook-enabled communication practices. New Media & Society, 13(6), 873–892.
doi:10.1177/1461444810385389
Eltantawy, H., & Weist, J. B. (2011). The Arab Spring | Social media in the Egyptian Revolution:
Reconsidering resource mobilization theory. International Journal of Communication, 5, 1207–
1224. Retrieved from ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/-1242/597
Fischer, C. S. (1982). To dwell among friends: Personal networks in town and city. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
22 Homero Gil de Zúñiga et al.
Gibson, R., & Cantijoch, M. (2013). Conceptualizing and measuring participation in the age of the
Internet: Is online political engagement really different to offline? The Journal of Politics, 75(3),
701–716. doi:10.1017/S0022381613000431
Gil de Zúñiga, H., Copeland, L., & Bimber, B. (2014). Political consumerism: Civic engagement and
the social media connection. New Media & Society, 16(3), 488–506. doi:10.1177/
1461444813487960
Gil de Zúñiga, H., Jung, N., & Valenzuela, S. (2012). Social media use for news and individuals’
social capital, civic engagement and political participation. Journal of Computer- Mediated
Communication, 17(3), 319–336. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2012.01574.x
Gil de Zúñiga, H., Molyneux, L., & Zheng, P. (2014). Social media, political expression and political
participation: Panel analysis of lagged and concurrent relationships. Journal of Communication,
64(4), 612–634. doi:10.1111/-jcom.12103
Gil de Zúñiga, H., & Valenzuela, S. (2011). The mediating path to a stronger citizenship: Online and
offline networks, weak ties, and civic engagement. Communication Research, 38(3), 397–421.
doi:10.1177/0093650210384984
Gil de Zúñiga, H., Veenstra, A., Vraga, E., & Shah, D. V. (2010). Digital democracy: Reimagining
pathways to political participation. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 7(1), 36–51.
doi:10.1080/19331680903316742
Giugni, M., Michel, N., & Gianni, M. (2014). Associational involvement, social capital and the political
participation of ethno-religious minorities: The case of Muslims in Switzerland. Journal of Ethnic
and Migration Studies, 40(10), 1593–1613. doi:10.1080/1369183X.2013.864948
Gleason, B. (2013). #Occupy Wall Street: Exploring informal learning about a social movement on
Twitter. American Behavioral Scientist, 57(7), 966–982. doi:10.1177/0002764213479372
Gustafsson, N. (2012). The subtle nature of Facebook politics: Swedish social network site users and
political participation. New Media & Society, 14(7), 1111–1127. doi:10.1177/1461444812439551
Hampton, K. N., Lee, C.-J., & Her, E. J. (2011). How new media affords network diversity: Direct
and mediated access to social capital through participation in local social settings. New Media &
Society, 13(7), 1031–1049. doi:10.1177/1461444810390342
Hampton, K. N., Sessions, L. F., & Her, E. J. (2011). Core networks, social isolation, and new
media: How Internet and mobile phone use is related to network size and diversity. Information,
Communication & Society, 14(1), 130–155. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2010.513417
Holton, A. E., Coddington, M., Lewis, S. C., & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2015). Reciprocity and the news:
The role of personal and social media reciprocity in news creation and consumption.
International Journal of Communication, 9, 2526–2547. Retrieved from http://ijoc.org/index.
php/ijoc/article/view/3598/1437
Howard, P. N., & Parks, M. R. (2012). Social media and political change: Capacity, constraint, and
consequence. Journal of Communication, 62(2), 359–362. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01626.x
Kaufhold, K., Valenzuela, S., & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2010). Citizen journalism and democracy: How
user-generated news use relates to political knowledge and participation. Journalism & Mass
Communication Quarterly, 87(3–4), 515–529. doi:10.1177/107769901008700305
Kenski, K., & Stroud, N. J. (2006). Connections between Internet use and political efficacy, knowl-
edge, and participation. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 50(2), 173–192.
doi:10.1207/s15506878jobem5002_1
Kim, Y. (2011). The contribution of social network sites to exposure to political difference: The
relationships among SNSs, online political messaging, and exposure to cross-cutting perspec-
tives. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(2), 971–977. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.12.001
Kim, Y., Hsu, S.-H., & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2013). Influence of social media use on discussion
network heterogeneity and civic engagement: The moderating role of personality traits. Journal
of Communication, 63(3), 498–516. doi:10.1111/-jcom.12034
Kwon, K. H., Stefanone, M. A., & Barnett, G. A. (2014). Social network influence on online
behavioral choices: Exploring group formation on social network sites. American Behavioral
Scientist, 58(10), 1345–1360. doi:10.1177/-0002764214527092
Asymmetrical Social Capital 23
Lake, R. L. D., & Huckfeldt, R. (1998). Social capital, social networks, and political participation.
Political Psychology, 19(3), 567–584. doi:10.1111/pops.1998.19.issue-3
Lim, M. (2012). Clicks, cabs, and coffee houses: Social media and oppositional movements in
Egypt, 2004–2011. Journal of Communication, 62(2), 231–248. doi:10.1111/j.1460-
2466.2012.01628.x
Lim, M. (2013). Framing Bouazizi: “White lies”, hybrid network, and collective/connective action in
the 2010–11 Tunisian uprising. Journalism, 14(7), 921–941. doi:10.1177/1464884913478359
Lin, N. (2001). Social capital: A theory of social structure and action. New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press.
Lin, N. (2008). A network theory of social capital. In D. Castiglione, J. W. Van Deth, & G. Wolleb
(Eds.), The handbook of social capital (pp. 50–69). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Locascio, J. J. (1982). The cross-lagged correlation technique: Reconsideration in terms of explora-
tory utility, assumption specification and robustness. Educational and Psychological
Measurement, 42(4), 1023–1036. doi:10.1177/-001316448204200409
McClurg, S. (2006). The electoral relevance of political talk: Examining disagreement and expertise
effects in social networks on political participation. American Journal of Political Science, 50
(3), 737–754. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00213.x
McLeod, J. M., Daily, K., Guo, Z., Eveland, W. P., Bayer, J., Yang, S., & Wang, H. (1996).
Community integration, local media use, and democratic processes. Communication
Research, 23(2), 179–209. doi:10.1177/009365096023002002
Molyneux, L., Vasudevan, K., & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2015). Gaming social capital: Exploring civic
value in multiplayer video games. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 20(4), 381–
399. doi:10.1111/jcc4.12123
Mutz, D. C. (2006). Hearing the other side: Deliberative versus participatory democracy. New York,
NY: Cambridge University Press.
Niemi, R. G., Craig, S. C., & Mattei, F. (1991). Measuring internal political efficacy in the 1988 National
Election Study. The American Political Science Review, 85(4), 1407–1413. doi:10.2307/1963953
Norris, P. (2002). Democratic phoenix: Reinventing political activism. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Pew Research Center. (n.d.). Collecting survey data. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/
methodology/u-s-survey-research/collecting-survey-data/
Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York,
NY: Simon & Schuster.
Rainie, L., & Wellmann, B. (2012). Networked: The new social operating system. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Ramirez, A., Sumner, E. M., & Spinda, J. (2015). The relational reconnection function of social
network sites. New Media & Society. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/
1461444815614199
Rojas, H. (2015). Egocentric publics and perceptions of the worlds around us. In H. Gil de Zúñiga
(Ed.), New technologies and civic engagement: New agendas in communication: New agendas
in communication (pp. 93–102). New York, NY: Routledge.
Rojas, H., & Barnidge, M. (2013). Social capital. In P. Moy (Ed.), Communication. Oxford Online
Bibliographies. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-
9780199756841/obo-9780199756841-0115.xml doi:10.1093/obo/9780199756841-0115
Rojas, H., & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2010). Comunicacion y participacion politica en Colombia
[Communication and political participation in Colombia]. In H. Rojas, I. B. Perez, & H. Gil
de Zuñiga (Eds.), Comunicacion y comunidad (pp. 13–64). Bogota, Colombia: Universidad
Externado de Colombia.
Rojas, H., & Puig‐i‐Abril, E. (2009). Mobilizers mobilized: Information, expression, mobilization
and participation in the digital age. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 14(4), 902–
927. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01475.x
Rojas, H., Shah, D. V., & Friedland, L. (2011). A communicative approach to social capital. Journal
of Communication, 61(4), 689–712. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2011.01571.x
24 Homero Gil de Zúñiga et al.
Saldaña, M., McGregor, S., & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2015). Social media as a public space for politics:
Cross-national comparison of news consumption and participatory behaviors in the United
States and the United Kingdom. International Journal of Communication, 9, 3304–3326.
doi:1932-8036/20150005
Shah, D., & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2008). Social capital. In P. J. Lavrakas (Ed.), Encyclopedia of survey
research methods (pp. 824–825). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Shah, D. V., Kwak, N., & Holbert, L. R. (2001). “Connecting” and “disconnecting” with civic life:
Patterns of Internet use and the production of social capital. Political Communication, 18(2),
141–162. doi:10.1080/-105846001750322952
Shah, D. V., McLeod, J. M., & Yoon, S.-H. (2001). Communication, context, and community: An
exploration of print, broadcast, and Internet influences. Communication Research, 28(4), 464–
506. doi:10.1177/009365001028004005
Skoric, M. M., & Zhu, Q. (2015). Social media and offline political participation: Uncovering the
paths from digital to physical. International Journal of Public Opinion Research. Advance
online publication. doi:10.1093/ijpor/edv027
Steinfeld, C., Ellison, N. C., & Lampe, C. (2008). Social capital, self-esteem, and use of online social
network ties: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29(6),
343–445. doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2008.07.002
Tahkteyev, Y., Gruzd, A., & Wellman, B. (2012). Geography of Twitter networks. Social Networks,
34(1), 73–81. doi:10.1016/j.socnet.2011.05.006
Theocharis, Y. (2013). The wealth of (occupation) networks? Communication patterns and informa-
tion distribution in a Twitter protest network. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 10
(1), 35–56. doi:10.1080/19331681.2012.701106
Theocharis, Y., Lowe, W., Van Deth, J. W., & Garcia-Albacete, G. (2015). Using Twitter to mobilize
protest action: Online mobilization patterns and action repertoires in the Occupy Wall Street,
Indignados, and Aganaktismenoi movements. Information, Communication & Society, 18(2),
202–220. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2014.948035
Toma, C. L., & Choi, M. (2016). Mobile media matters: Media use and relationship satisfaction
among geographically close dating couples. In Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on
Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (pp. 394–404). New York, NY:
ACM. doi:10.1145/2818048.2835204
Valenzuela, S. (2013). Unpacking the use of social media for protest behavior: The roles of
information, opinion expression, and activism. American Behavioral Scientist, 57(7), 920–
942. doi:10.1177/0002764213479375
Valenzuela, S., Park, N., & Kee, K. F. (2009). Is there social capital in a social network site?
Facebook use and college students’ life satisfaction, trust, and participation. Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication, 14(4), 875–901. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01474.x
Verba, S., Schlozman, K. L., & Brady, H. E. (1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in
American politics. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Walther, J. B., & Van Der Heide, B., Kim, S.-Y., Westerman, D., & Tong, S. T. (2008). The role of
friends’ appearance and behavior on evaluations of individuals on Facebook: Are we known by
the company we keep? Human Communication Research, 34(1), 28–49. doi:10.1111/j.1468-
2958.2007.00312.x
Watson, N., & Wooden, M. (2006, December). Modelling longitudinal survey response: The
experience of the HILDA survey. Paper presented at the ACSPRI Social Science
Methodology Conference, Sydney, Australia.
Weeks, B. E., Ardèvol-Abreu, A., & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2015). Online influence? Social media use,
opinion leadership, and political persuasion. International Journal of Public Opinion Research.
Advance online publication. doi:10.1093/ijpor/edv050
Williams, D. (2006). Virtual cultivation: Online worlds, offline perceptions. Journal of
Communication, 56(1), 69–87. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00004.x
Yamamoto, M., Kushin, M. J., & Dalisay, F. (2013). Social media and mobiles as political
mobilization forces for young adults: Examining the moderating role of online political
Asymmetrical Social Capital 25
expression in political participation. New Media & Society, 17(6), 880–898. doi:10.1177/
1461444813518390
Zhang, W., & Chia, S. C. (2006). The effects of mass media use and social capital on civic and
political participation. Communication Studies, 57(3), 277–297. doi:10.1080/
105109-70600666974
Zhang, W., Johnson, T. J., Seltzer, T., & Bichard, S. L. (2010). The revolution will be networked:
The influence of social networking sites on political attitudes and behavior. Social Science
Computer Review, 28(1), 75–92. doi:10.1177/0894439309335162
Zhong, Z. J. (2014). Civic engagement among educated Chinese youth: The role of SNS (Social
Networking Services), bonding and bridging social capital. Computers & Education, 75, 263–
273. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2014.03.005