Social networking sites such as Facebook offer the potential to organise around a cause. But a study presented an the Online Journalism Symposium offers some valuable insights in what people actually do on Facebook.
Lessons from Facebook: The Effect of Social Network Sites on College Students’ Social Capital (PDF), by Sebastian Valenzuela, Namsu Park, and Kerk F. Kee, graduate students at UT Austin, found that social media were good for connecting people and sharing information.
They found that Facebook was great for collective action but less useful as a forum for discussion and deliberation.
A survey of more than 2,600 college students in Texas showed that more than 80% were regular users of Facebook, but taking part in groups was not part of what they did on the site. The research found that people would join a group but only a handful ever engaged in the discussions.
Rather, Facebook offered a way of organising online and connecting for students.
Presenting the study, Sebastian Valenzuela said the research should help counter some of the negative media coverage of social networks.
He concluded that Facebook users were more connected, happy and engaged than they get credit for in the mainstream.
But, he added, online networks are not a panacea for democracy due to low activity in groups.
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