E-participation: Social Capital and the Internet

Fabio Sabatini and Francesco Sarracino

No 186606, Economy and Society from Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM)

Abstract: Studies in the social capital literature have documented two stylised facts: first, a decline in measures of social participation has occurred in many OECD countries. Second, and more recently, the success of social networking sites (SNSs) has resulted in a steep rise in online social participation. Our study adds to this body of research by conducting the first empirical assessment of how online networking affects two economically relevant aspects of social capital, i.e. trust and sociability. We address endogeneity in online networking by exploiting technological characteristics of the pre-existing voice telecommunication infrastructures that exogenously determined the availability of broadband for high-speed Internet. We find that participation in SNSs such as Facebook and Twitter has a positive effect on face-to-face interactions. However, social trust decreases with online interactions. We argue that the rising practice of hate speech may play a crucial role in the destruction of trust.

Keywords: Labor and Human Capital; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 58
Date: 2014-10-03
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/186606/files/NDL2014-081.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: E-participation: Social Capital and the Internet (2014)
Working Paper: E-participation: social capital and the Internet (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:feemso:186606

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.186606

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