Social Capital and Media

In recent years, academics, community activists, foundations, and politicians have popularized the term social capital to describe how basic features of community life such as trust in others and connections with friends provide the means for citizens to cooperate on problems requiring collective effort. Defined as the resources of information, shared norms, and social relations embedded in communities that enable people to become informed and coordinate action, social capital is created by the complex interplay of institutional relations, interpersonal networks, and individual characteristics. Thus, research on social capital concerns contextual, relational, and individual factors that are not overtly political yet have implications for the health of civil society. In particular, recent research has paid considerable attention to the role of the mass media in the production and destruction of social capital in democratic societies.

Research on social capital suggests that individuals who are connected to others and confident about the return of their social investments feel a greater sense of belonging to their communities and take a more active role in public efforts and political activities. Using this general framework, scholars such as Robert Putnam have examined the roots of the decline in Americans' community engagement and the implications for democratic functioning. Available evidence indicates that while contributions to charitable groups are at all-time highs, face-to-face encounters with other community members and involvement in political activities have dropped dramatically. At first, levels of volunteering appear to buck this trend; however, analyses within generational groups suggest that older Americans bear a disproportionate amount of the service burden. And although attendance at public events has remained high—even increased—it cannot match the sharp rise in privatized entertainment, particularly television.

Some researchers, most notably Everett Ladd, have pointed to similar survey data to question the extent of a decline in social capital; nonetheless, most evidence supports the view that there has been a substantial loss of core indicators of social capital in the United States during the second half of the twentieth century. These downward trends appear to be based on generational differences and individual changes; that is, members of generation X are not only less participatory and trusting than their baby boomer parents, they are less connected, engaged, and involved than boomers were when they were young adults. Likewise, boomers have typically been less connected and involved than members of the preceding generation. It seems, then, that between 1960 and 2000, Americans have drifted from being a nation of connectors to a nation of observers, with the youngest Americans the most detached from public life.

Scholars have looked to the media for clues regarding the production and destruction of social capital. Changes in patterns of media use over time (e.g., rising rates of television usage and declines in newspaper readership) have been identified as some of the main causes of the decline of civic culture. Research by Jack McLeod and his colleagues has found that newspapers, with their informative content and focus on news and community events, produce pro-civic consequences; newspaper readers, especially those who pay close attention to local news content, are more politically knowledgeable and participatory than nonreaders.

...