Social Capital on Social Media — Concepts, Measurement Techniques and Trends in Operationalization

Author(s)
Flora Poecze, Christine Strauss
Abstract

The introduction of the Web 2.0 era and the associated emergence of social media platforms opened an interdisciplinary research domain, wherein a growing number of studies are focusing on the interrelationship of social media usage and perceived individual social capital. The primary aim of the present study is to introduce the existing measurement techniques of social capital in this domain, explore trends, and offer promising directions and implications for future research. Applying the method of a scoping review, a set of 80 systematically identified scientific publications were analyzed, categorized, grouped and discussed. Focus was placed on the employed viewpoints and measurement techniques necessary to tap into the possible consistencies and/or heterogeneity in this domain in terms of operationalization. The results reveal that multiple views and measurement techniques are present in this research area, which might raise a challenge in future synthesis approaches, especially in the case of future meta-analytical contributions.

Organisation(s)
Department of Marketing and International Business
External organisation(s)
Technische Universität Wien
Journal
Information
Volume
11
Pages
1-16
No. of pages
16
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/info11110515
Publication date
11-2020
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
502050 Business informatics, 508007 Communication science
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Information Systems
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/ecbaa143-1627-42f8-992d-080671f3bef4