Social networks in transnational and virtual communities

Question

• Why do some communities survive and some disintegrate? 

or more importantly …

• How are today’s communities created and maintained?

 

Social Networks

• Social networks can explain how communities are created and maintained.  
• Individuals create interpersonal bonds with others within their social network that are interwoven with the social institutions of their society.
• These interwoven patterns and matrices can facilitate the success or failure of societies and organisations that depend on these networks.
• Social ties are not fixed. Networks are constantly being socially constructed and altered by their members. 
• Interpersonal relations within social networks cut across traditional boundaries such as neighbourhood, workplace, kinship and class.
• Sociologist in the 1950s anticipated disconnectedness, loss of community and weakly supportive relationships due to “rapid modernisation”.  
• Yet the realisation of the Internet and modern technologies have provided for community creation well beyond expectation.
• How have social networks facilitated communities?
• A proposed framework helps to explain how social networks facilitate the creation and maintenance of communities regardless of size and communication medium.
• In particular we look at transnational communities and virtual communities. Transnational Communities
• “Migration is a process that both depends on and creates social networks” (Portes, 1995) 
• Transnational communities are characterised by perpetual back and forth border crossing movements among migrants. 
• Communities whose mobility is celebrated as being “neither here nor there” (Portes) 
• Communities whose mobility is a drama of displacement, destitution, and ultimate homelessness (Torres-Saillant)

 

 

Virtual Communities

• “The online social network provided a venue for storytelling, showcasing, projects and best practices that could be leveraged to create new knowledge resources” (Kimball & Rheingold, 2000) 
• People who are geographically separated or “on the road” need a way of maintaining contact, whether they are part of a large community or an organisational project team. 
• Virtual settlements.

 

 

Social Spaces

• Social spaces are: 
• place-centered (embedded in particular location)  
• trans-territorial (geographically disparate but intensely connected) 
• and social spaces: 
• are where individuals first meet and develop contacts 
• provide the initial medium to form and maintain basic connections which enable individuals to create relationships 
• create the identity or belongingness of the community (e.g. campus, shopping mall, town squares).

 

 

 

Social Formation

• Relationships exist between individuals or between groups which are mostly dynamic but strengthen a sense of identity and belonging in groups and teams.  
• Notion of community consciousness 
• These groups are often in different social arenas, but are identifiable in any community.  
• The key members of these groups are those who are stakeholders within their community.
• Key members use communication and social spaces to maintain their networks. 
• Community members are embedded in the community in two ways:
• how they relate personally to each other (relational embeddedness) 
• how social relationships affect social structures (structural embeddedness) 

 

 

Social Capital

• Social capital is defined as a player’s level of cooperativeness within a social network.  
• A social network is a set of players and a pattern of exchange of information and/or goods among these players. 
• Social capital is developed and maintained over time through regular communication, participation in events and membership of associations. 
• Participation alone is not capital building – reciprocation is required

 

Transnational Communities

• Not only individual people migrate, but their social networks migrate also. 
• Social networks are crucial for finding jobs, accommodation, psychological support, social and economic information. 
• Migration is a process of network building, which reinforces social relationships across space.
• Virtual community members bring offline values and interactions in their online communities. 
• Many believe that virtual communities are sociologically the same as their “brick and mortar” counterparts.

Conclusions

• Social networks do not depend on one relationship or on any particular social space in which people meet. 
• Social networks depend on the process of creating relationships, embedding oneself into the social structure – whether the structure be trans-territorial or virtually co-located – and the ability to mobilise social capital.