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Social Indicators Research

Erschienen in:

29.03.2016

The Internet, Social Capital, and Civic Engagement in Asia

verfasst von: Min-hua Huang, Taehee Whang, Lei Xuchuan

Erschienen in: Social Indicators Research | Ausgabe 2/2017

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Abstract

In this paper, we seek to explain (1) how the rise of Internet communication is related to the level of social capital and (2) the role of internet and social capital in shaping civic engagement in Asia. We use cross-national public opinion data of thirteen Asian countries from 2010 to 2012 to investigate these questions. Our results show that social capital is still measured best by traditional membership in social organizations. While the Internet increases social contacts, we could not find evidence that social capital is directly increased by the Internet. We also find that social capital developed through voluntary participation in social organizations most effectively promotes civic engagement activities, except for non-electoral actions that involve joining a demonstration or using violence. Internet usage turns out to be the most effective means of civic engagement for these cases.

Vorheriger Artikel Theory and Measurement in Social Capital Research

Nächster Artikel The Essentials of Social Cohesion: A Literature Review

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In this paper, most of the discussion on social capital is drawn from the literature in sociology and political science. The authors intend to evaluate how the concept and measure of social capital are affected by the progress of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The main target of investigation concerns what impact the change of social capital might have on civic engagement.

What is the relationship between mobilization and civic engagement? Civic engagement by definition is a collective action that involves with public interest in nature. Because it is a collective action, it depends on how a group of people is intentionally organized to join the action. Thus, civic engagement is inevitably related to the concept of mobilization. However, mobilization is not a synonym for civic engagement since mobilization can occur for other purposes that have nothing to do with public interest.

The discussion of social capital in political science literature tends to presume its public or collective character and contrast it with private or self-interested aspiration. In one of the earliest works, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society, political scientist Edward Banfield (1958) proposed that the lack of “public spiritedness” (p. 20) and interpersonal trust beyond the immediate family explained why southern Italy was relatively backward in development compared to the northern part of the country. The nuclear argument converges exactly with that of a later classic work of social capital in political science (Putnam 1993), which demonstrates how social capital can explain the level of civic engagement in democratic societies.

The ABS 3 dataset is available from the ABS official website at http://www.asianbarometer.org/newenglish/surveys/DataRelease.htm. ABS is one of the most cited cross-national public opinion projects in 13 East Asian and Southeast Asian countries. The survey provides a number of variables that can be used to study the ways in which citizens in Asian countries perceive and behave with respect to the change of social capital and its subsequent impact on civic engagement in different political contexts across Asia.

This is a conventional measure of membership in civic groups. Most of the social and political surveys, such as the World Value Surveys, adopt this indicator to measure the level of social networking. Putnam (2001) also argued that social capital was declining based on the downtrend of membership in civic groups in the United States.

We refer to civic engagement in terms of political involvement, which is a popular definition in political science. Some of the theories were developed from the modernization paradigm, and others might be associated with the normative democratic theory. See Almond and Verba (1963), Dalton (1988), and Elster (1998).

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Titel: The Internet, Social Capital, and Civic Engagement in Asia
verfasst von: Min-hua Huang
Taehee Whang
Lei Xuchuan
Publikationsdatum: 29.03.2016
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in: Social Indicators Research / Ausgabe 2/2017
Print ISSN: 0303-8300
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-0921
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1319-0

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