Building social capital with mobile communication services
by Juuso Karikoski; Kalevi Kilkki
International Journal of Electronic Finance (IJEF), Vol. 7, No. 2, 2013

Abstract: People may use different kinds of mobile communication services depending on if they are communicating with, for instance, friends, acquaintances or strangers. Thus, in this paper bonding and bridging social capital is studied in the context of two mobile communication services, short message services (SMSs) and voice calls. In Granovetter's terms, bridging social capital refers to communication with weak or absent ties, while bonding social capital refers to communication with strong ties. We find that both SMSs and voice calls are used for bonding and bridging social capital, but SMSs are used more for bonding purposes than voice calls. Furthermore, media multiplexity is more associated with bonding than bridging social capital. We also present a method for studying social capital in the context of other, newer mobile communication services, and present results of a pilot study. The implications of the results are discussed from a number of perspectives including communication research, social network analysis (SNA) and mobile operators.

Online publication date: Sun, 01-Mar-2015

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Electronic Finance (IJEF):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

    Username:        Password:         

Forgotten your password?


Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com