Understanding Formulation of Social Capital in Online Social Network Sites (SNS)

Online communities are the gatherings of like-minded people, brought together in cyberspace by shared interests. The shared interest has hidden social capital aspects and can be of bridging or bonding type. Creating such communities is not a big challenge but sustaining member's participation is. This study examines the formation and maintenance of social capital in social network sites. In addition to assessing bonding and bridging social capital, we explore a dimension of social capital that assesses one's ability to stay connected with members of a previously inhabited community, which we call maintained social capital. Such dimension is enacted here in terms of Hypothesis.