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Article
Understanding the Influence of Blog on the Development of Social Capital
The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems
  • Reza Vaezi, University of Houston, Texas
  • Gholamreza Torkzadeh, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
  • Jerry Cha-Jan Chang, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2011
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
Abstract

The rapid use and application of blogs in diverse areas such as education, marketing, journalism, and human resource management in recent years underlines the need for a better understanding of the impact of this new technology on social capital. Social capital reflects the norm of reciprocity and the level of trust among individuals who connect, interact, and benefit from one another. Blog is expected to influence the extent and the scope of this interaction by providing new means of networking among people. This paper examines the relationship between blog use and social capital and reports on the results of an exploratory study that examines this relationship using survey data from 326 blog users. Results suggest a significant and positive impact of blog use on social capital and its components: social connections, reciprocity, and trust. Implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed.

Keywords
  • Blogs,
  • Social capital (Sociology),
  • Technology – Social aspects,
  • Technology – Sociological aspects
Permissions
© ACM, 2011. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems, {42, 3, (2011)} http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2038056.2038059
Citation Information
Reza Vaezi, Gholamreza Torkzadeh and Jerry Cha-Jan Chang. "Understanding the Influence of Blog on the Development of Social Capital" The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems Vol. 42 Iss. 3 (2011) p. 34 - 45
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/reza_vaezi/2/