Social networks in transnational and virtual communities

1
Social networks in transnational and virtual
communities
Nathan Vivian Fay Sudweeks School of Information
Technology Murdoch University, Perth,
Australia n.vivian_at_murdoch.edu.au sudweeks_at_murdoch
.edu.au
2
Question

• Why do some communities survive and some
  disintegrate?
• or more importantly
• How are todays communities created and
  maintained?

3
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.

4
Social 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.

5
Social Networks

• 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.

6
Social Networks

• 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.

7
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)

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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.

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Basic Connections
Relationships
Identity/ Belonging
Social Spaces
Groups/Teams
Social Structures
Key Members
Social Capital
Social Formation
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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).

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Encourages the notion of belonging, especially in
respect to a community
Basic Connections
Can enable individuals to create
Provides the initial medium and maintains
Members often have a feeling of belonging and
therefore come back
Meeting areas of common interest provide for
Relationships
Identity/ Belonging
Social Spaces
Communicate through the common medium
Form/Change
Strengthens
Assist in forming strong bonds with members of
the community
Groups/Teams
Effect of relational embeddedness
Key members often control and utilise different
forms of communication to maintain their
networks, hence social capital
Embedded community members affect
Social Structures
Key Members
A direct and sometimes transparent relationship
Embedded community members mobilise
Social Capital
Social Formation
12
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.

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Social Formation

• 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)

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Encourages the notion of belonging, especially in
respect to a community
Basic Connections
Can enable individuals to create
Provides the initial medium and maintains
Members often have a feeling of belonging and
therefore come back
Meeting areas of common interest provide for
Relationships
Identity/ Belonging
Social Spaces
Communicate through the common medium
Form/Change
Strengthens
Assist in forming strong bonds with members of
the community
Groups/Teams
Effect of relational embeddedness
Key members often control and utilise different
forms of communications to maintain their
networks, hence social capital
Embedded community members affect
Social Structures
Key Members
A direct and sometimes transparent relationship
Embedded community members mobilise
Social Capital
Social Formation
15
Social Capital

• Social capital is defined as a players 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.

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Encourages the notion of belonging, especially in
respect to a community
Basic Connections
Can enable individuals to create
Provides the initial medium and maintains
Members often have a feeling of belonging and
therefore come back
Meeting areas of common interest provide for
Relationships
Identity/ Belonging
Social Spaces
Communicate through the common medium
Form/Change
Strengthens
Assist in forming strong bonds with members of
the community
Groups/Teams
Effect of relational embeddedness
Key members often control and utilise different
forms of communication to maintain their
networks, hence social capital
Embedded community members affect
Social Structures
Key Members
A direct and sometimes transparent relationship
Embedded community members mobilise
Social Capital
Social Formation
17
Encourages the notion of belonging, especially in
respect to a community
Basic Connections
Can enable individuals to create
Provides the initial medium and maintains
Members often have a feeling of belonging and
therefore come back
Meeting areas of common interest provide for
Relationships
Identity/ Belonging
Social Spaces
Communicate through the common medium
Form/Change
Strengthens
Assist in forming strong bonds with members of
the community
Groups/Teams
Effect of relational embeddedness
Key members often control and utilise different
forms of communications to maintain their
networks, hence social capital
Embedded community members affect
Social Structures
Key Members
A direct and sometimes transparent relationship
Embedded community members mobilise
Social Capital
Social Formation
18
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.

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Virtual Communities

• 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.

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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.

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References

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References

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