Social capital and social support on the web: the case of an internet mother site
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Integrating Computerized Linguistic and Social Network Analyses to Capture Addiction Recovery Capital in an Online Community
Published on: May 31, 2019
Patricia Drentea1, Jennifer L Moren-Cross
1Department of Sociology, University of Alabama-Birmingham, 239-E Ullman Building, 1212 University Boulevard, Birmingham, AL 35294-3350, USA. pdrentea@uab.edu
Abstract:
Do virtual communities in cyberspace foster social capital and social support? Using participant observation and discourse analysis, we examine a mothering board on a parent's website and investigate whether social capital was present, and if so, how it was developed and used. We find three main types of communication emerge from our analysis: emotional support, instrumental support--both formal and informal, and community building/protection, all of which contribute to the creation and maintenance of social capital. Additionally, using sampling with replacement, we created a final data set of 180 mothers and report descriptive statistics to identify characteristics of those on the board.
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