SUPPORTING

COMMUNITY AND
BUILDING
SOCIAL CAPITAL
Jenny Preece, Guest Editor

he terrorist attacks on the World Trade encourages collaboration and

cooperation between members of

T Center and the Pentagon last September

shocked us all. Many reached for the
telephone to contact loved ones and
watched TV or listened to the radio for news in
the days directly following the attacks. Others,
groups for their mutual benefit.
Consequently, life in communities
with a rich supply of social capital
is easier than in communities with
low social capital.
however, sought support and exchanged infor- How might the Internet, and
mation via online communities. In fact, some 30 particularly online communities,
contribute to enriching social cap-
million Americans—about one-third of all U.S. ital throughout the world in the
Internet users—turned to email, mailing lists, aftermath of September 11th?
instant messaging, chat rooms, and threaded dis- How might we, as technology pro-
cussion systems [1]. They wrote detailed eyewit- fessionals, contribute to this goal?
ness descriptions and tender words of comfort. As Amy Bruckman points out in
her article in this section: “Culture
They engaged in soul-searching debate about and technology coevolve [and]
why these events occurred, what response was computer professionals catalyze
appropriate, and what should be done to avert this process.” The challenge we
future atrocities. face is to make sure that technol-
ogy serves human needs. Our goal
The empathy and shared reflec- The glue that holds communi- is therefore to examine how widely
tion that brought people together in ties and other social networks available communications tech-
physical communities and via tech- together is called “social capital.” A nologies can be more effectively
nology across barriers of time, dis- key ingredient for developing used to support communities and
tance, and often culture, was social capital is trust. Social capital foster social capital development.
revitalizing in the horror of these is the social equivalent of financial Computing infrastructure already
events. Communication and a spirit capital. Like financial capital, supports thousands of online com-
of collaboration can help strengthen social capital is a resource that munities that unite people across
any community online and offline. helps sustain community. Robert barriers. Some bring people
Furthermore, it can touch every Putnam, author of the acclaimed together only online, other com-
aspect of business, education, health book Bowling Alone: The Collapse munities also meet physically.
care, entertainment, and family life and Revival of American Commu- How might the Internet better
in good times as well as bad. nity [4], asserts that social capital support all these communities and

COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM April 2002/Vol. 45, No. 4 37

encourage others in a way that increases social capital nonverbal cues (that is, body language) that help to
locally, nationally, and internationally? How can we make these systems more effective. For example,
ensure that everyone can participate in such commu- clever users are inventing linguistic shortcuts, such as
nities, regardless of their income, education, race, cul- the now-familiar smiley faces and abbreviations like
ture, or gender? To do this, we need to develop IMHO for “in my humble opinion.” Ingenious
low-cost hardware, software, and a computing infra- designers, like the contributors to this special section,
structure that is universally usable [6]. are also raising the quality of users’ experiences by cre-
Early U.S. Internet users came from a narrow seg- ating visual representations and tools to support social
ment of the population. More recent surveys show interaction (see [3]). However, software alone is not
the number of U.S. women online has increased to enough. Skillful community managers, leaders, and
equal the number of men. There is, however, still a moderators are needed to encourage collaboration
gap between rich and poor, educated and less edu- and promote the cooperation and trust needed for a
cated, with which we must concern ourselves [7]. In successful community.
many other countries access to the Internet is much
more restricted; there are billions of people who will rust develops when there is a history of favorable
never experience it.
Achieving the goal of universally usable online
communities and community networks poses two
T past interactions that lead participants to expect
positive future interactions. Being able to iden-
tify who is present and examine their past behavior is
challenges. The first is we must focus on developing therefore helpful. The articles by Tom Erickson et al.,

THE GLUE THAT HOLDS communities and other social

networks together is called “social capital.” A KEY
INGREDIENT FOR DEVELOPING SOCIAL CAPITAL IS TRUST. Social
capital is the social equivalent of financial capital.

technologies accessible to a wide range of users on a Judith Donath, and Marc Smith suggest a variety of
variety of devices. The second is to ensure the soft- creative representations. Their goal is to allow partic-
ware also supports sociability, that is, effective social ipants to more easily gauge such things as, who is pre-
interaction online [2]. sent, what they are doing, how long they have been
Interaction via existing technologies, such as email, there, who the leaders are, and how others judge the
chat rooms, and instant messaging, entices millions of value of their contributions.
people online. It provides a good starting point for Erickson, Christine Halverson, Wendy Kellogg,
extending community development. These applica- Mark Laff, and Tracee Wolf strive to subtly provide
tions offer users novel ways of communicating that just enough cues so that participants can judge the
differ from those offered by established technologies social milieu of their Babble chat world—a concept
such as telephones, and more recent technologies they call “social translucence.” The idea is that the
such as 3D immersive environments. For those who visualization should be helpful but not intrusive.
want to reflect, compose, and review correspondence Donath uses “semantic visualizations” to portray
at their own convenience, asynchronous text environ- social phenomena in three different communities (for
ments can be exceptionally powerful. In contrast, example, who is present and how long have they been
instant messaging, telephone texting, and chats sup- active). As she points out, care is needed when design-
port brief, rapid exchanges that enable people to keep ing visualizations because representations appropriate
track of each other and synchronize their behavior. for one context may be inappropriate for others. A
Better integration of these technologies and the addi- flower representation may be aesthetically pleasing for
tion of facilities to support consensus building, vot- an emotional support community, but inappropriate
ing, and information retrieval will further enrich for a business community. Smith describes tools for
them as we are starting to see in Web environments, navigating social spaces in Usenet and bulletin boards
PCs, and handheld devices. by tracking threads and authors. His aim is to develop
Novel forms of communication are emerging for “social accounting metrics” to assess the success of
expressing emotions and conveying the equivalent of communities. For example, in technical support com-

38 April 2002/Vol. 45, No. 4 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM

munities, a metric would show how rapidly questions universal usability. Mobile devices with small screens
posed by participants were answered. and tiny keys are already extending the range of com-
The articles by Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff, munication options for some citizens. Tighter inte-
Amy Bruckman, and Dorine Andrews focus on the gration of asynchronous and synchronous
role of community leaders and participants in technologies is occurring and new styles of interaction
encouraging collaboration and trust. Drawing on are emerging, such as “texting” in cell phones. These
over two decades of research, Hiltz and Turoff ask: technologies are dissolving the boundaries between
What makes asynchronous learning networks effec- online and offline communities as people move seam-
tive? These pioneers recommend promoting instruc- lessly across virtual and physical worlds.
tor-student interaction by establishing “swift trust,” Progress in designing and deploying communica-
developing collaborative learning activities, and gen- tions technology may enable survivors of other trau-
erating active participation with appropriate soft- matic events to cooperate and comfort each other. A
ware. Swift trust involves participants—in this case greater hope is that effective communication could
students supported by faculty—putting aside their increase the social capital needed to build more
feelings of uncertainty and suspicion and agreeing to responsive communities that help to prevent or
collaborate. This positive experience plants the seed reduce future terrorism. At a moment in history
for long-term trust. when institutions are taking measures (for example,
Learning communities in which students or chil- increasing surveillance and interviewing foreign
dren collaborate with peers, seniors, or other adults nationals) that evoke fear and distrust, we may also
supported by technology can be engaging, productive want to build social capital, that is, trust and willing-
learning environments, as Bruckman demonstrates. ness to collaborate. Community involvement raises
These environments can provide emotional support awareness of threats, encourages protective vigilance,
as well as a forum for sharing ideas and fostering cre- and generates caring responses. Online communities
ativity while learning. Although learning is the focus are becoming an increasingly important way for turn-
of these environments, the philosophy of co-opera- ing to one another for collaboration, support, infor-
tion and sharing is relevant to other kinds of commu- mation, and debate.
nities, such as health communities [5]. At last online communities are coming of age. The
Communities in which developing trust and satis- next step is to build more universally accessible,
fying privacy are particularly difficult challenges may usable software to support communication and fos-
benefit from the development method for Web-based ter social capital. The authors in this special section
communities suggested by Andrews. This method are leading the way. c
draws on her experience as a professional facilitator for
face-to-face meetings to suggest ways of bridging References
between trust development offline and online. 1. Pew Internet and American Life Project. Oct. 31, 2001. Online com-
munities: Networks that nurture long-distance relationships and local
ties. (www.pewinternet.org)
ow much do online communities cost to 2. Preece, J. Online Communities: Designing Usability, Supporting Sociabil-
ity. John Wiley, Chichester, U.K., 2000.

H develop and support and what are their benefits?

These questions are asked frequently; particu-
larly by managers who must decide how best to use
3. Preece, J., Rogers, Y., Sharp, H. Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Com-
puter Interaction. John Wiley, New York, 2002.
4. Putnam, R.D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Com-
munity. Simon & Schuster, New York, 2000.
their budgets. The article by David Millen, David 5. Rice, R.E. and Katz, J.E., Eds. The Internet and Health Communication:
Fontaine, and Michael Muller suggests an approach Experiences and Expectations. Sage Publications; Thousand Oaks, CA,
2000.
for assessing the benefits and costs of communities of 6. Shneiderman, B. Universal usability. Commun. ACM 43, 5 (May 2000),
practice. In order to understand what makes a com- 84–91.
munity successful and justify development funds we 7. U.S. Department of Commerce. Falling through the Net: Toward digi-
tal inclusion; www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/fttn00/contents00.html
need methods of evaluation, measures of success, and
guidance about how to improve the online experience.
Developing online community requires a deep Jenny Preece ([email protected]) is a professor and Chair of
the Information Systems Department at University of Maryland,
understanding of social interaction and the mediating Baltimore County, MD.
effects of technology. There are many issues to con-
sider as the authors in this special section demon- Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or class-
room use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for
strate. Solutions are needed that go beyond profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on
mimicking face-to-face interaction. Successful solu- the first page. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to
lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee.
tions will creatively harness widely available technol-
ogy to make it more powerful while ensuring © 2002 ACM 0002-0782/02/0400 $5.00

COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM April 2002/Vol. 45, No. 4 39