Perceived bridging and bonding social capital on Twitter: Differentiating between followers and followees

Article history: Keywords: Twitter Bonding online social capital Bridging online social capital Followers Followees a b s t r a c t The present study investigates the influence of Twitter use and the number of followers and followees on perceived bridging and bonding online social capital. Data from a convenience sample of Twitter users (N = 264) indicate that bonding social capital is associated with the number of followers whereas bridging social capital is influenced by the number of followees. Thus, the directed friendship model on Twitter affects different forms of social capital differently. In addition, the study found a negative curvilinear effect of the number of followees on bridging and the number of followers on bonding online social capital. This indicates that the number of followees/followers has positive effects on online bridging/bonding social capital, but only to a certain point. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results in light of theoretical considerations and of implications for future research on the effects of Twitter on social capital. The Internet provides a vast array of services and applications, including news sites, trading services, entertainment offerings, and innumerable forums and chat rooms. Among the most popular web-based services are social network sites, such as Facebook, Tumblr, and Friendster, which are becoming increasingly important in our everyday communications and social interactions (Cheung, Chiu, & Lee, 2011). The social implications of these communication technologies are indisputable, as they have the potential for users to not only maintain pre-existing relationships, but also to establish new networks with people they have never met before. These new networks can either be consisting of weak or strong ties and accordingly lead to so-called bridging or bonding social capital online The concept of social capital is well suited to the study of the social implications of social network sites Most research has focused on how social network maintains pre-existing offline connections, as well as its impact on other offline outcomes such as civic participation The present study focuses on the formation of online social capital (i.e. social capital developed as a result of meeting people online) through use of Twitter. More specifically, we are interested in two forms of online social capital: (1) perceived online bridging social capital and (2) perceived online bonding social capital (cf. Whereas the former facilitates the dissemination of information and solidarity within rather weak ties and is likely to lead to social …