(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
debate and discussion can be seen as a key factor in connecting people within a region,
empowering communities and building trust and mutuality. (Alston 2002, p. 102)
SOCIAL CAPITAL AND THE INFORMATION CONNECTION
The notion of social capital dates back to the early thinkers on social structure including
Marx (das Kapital 1967) Durkeim’s notion of normative psychology (1889) , Weber and
Dewey (1891), Hanifan’s idea that “the community as a whole will benefit by the cooperation
of all its parts”(1916) and de Toqueville 1840 (1945) connecting the media to democracy.
The importance of information in the acquisition of social capital has underpinned most
contemporary thought on social capital since the 1960-70s when founding theorists such as
Bourdieu, Coleman, Putnam, and a lesser known scholar Jane Jacobs, began to consider the
theoretical importance of social connections in the context of their research which ranged
from urban development to education and civic affairs.
THE CONSCIOUS ACQUISITION OF SOCIAL CAPITAL
French social philosopher Pierre Bourdieu, is credited as providing the first theoretically
refined analysis of social capital (Portes 1998, p. 3) from his earliest ethnological work in
Kabylia and Bearn (Bourdieu 2005, p. 2) to examine the way villagers traded on the basis of
good will and reciprocity. He defined social capital as:
“the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of
a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual
acquaintance and recognition’.(Bourdieu 1986, p. 248)
Bourdieu’s analysis was based on the assumption that capital underpinned the social world.
He contended capital could be presented in four guises: economic capital: labour, time and
money cultural capital ( embodied and/or objectified in the form of cultural goods such as art
work, and institutionalised such as academic qualifications) social capital; beneficial social
connections and symbolic capital ; resources available on the basis of honour, recognition,
prestige in which he highlighted the publishing industry as a major beneficiary of this form of
capital (Bourdieu 1986; Grenfell 2008). Ultimately, he argued all forms of capital could be
converted to economic capital.
Bourdieu contended those who lacked educational and economic capital could utilise their
cultural and social capital to succeed in professions such as advertising, marketing and the
media (Bourdieu 1984, p. 573). Bourdieu defined the journalistic field to highlight the hidden
constraints or invisible structures and mechanisms within the media that influenced the
actions and thoughts of the wider public (Bourdieu 1996, p. 2). His writings, and those of
more recent scholars who have attempted to further define the journalistic field (Neveu &
Benson 2005), focus largely on media power by acquisition of economic, cultural and
symbolic capital without unpacking the integral role of social capital in this process. Unlike
economic capital, Bourdieu suggested if the effort and investment ceased then the social
capital could dissolve. Bourdieu claimed it was the solidarity of a group which made the
acquisition of social capital possible and that within a social network, a delegation was often
formed to enable a single agent or a small group of agents to represent the group or speak on
its behalf with the aid of the collectively owned social capital (Bourdieu 1986, p. 249).
SOCIAL CAPITAL AS BY-PRODUCT TO INDIVIDUAL ACTIONS
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