Virtual capital?

There are many types of non-economic capital that people use in their daily lives to leverage their positions in society (remember Bush’s statement about “political capital” after the 2004 election?).  In terms of trying to gain a visible online presense in the sea of disembodied words and profiles, it is these non-economic forms of capital that can get you noticed on these Internets.  

The concept of social capital  has to do with the non-material resources that you exchange while you are in relationships with other people.  These resources can include (but are not limited to) education, ideas, affiliations with groups or clubs, identity or personality… anything which has social value, but is not necessarily based on what you own (materially) but what you are.  The theory goes that social capital is transferrable, or convertible into material resources, like money from employment gained through a friend or relative, “deals” on goods, or gaining customers from a solid reputation of trustworthiness.

There are two types of social capital… bonding social capital (which occurs among and between member of ingroups, like family or religious organizations) and bridging social capital (which occurs across and between these groups).  It’s basically you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours.  But it’s placed into a framework that has implementable and planned strategy.

The concept of social captial was formulated by Pierre Bourdieu, who developed the concept of cultural capital as well.  Cultural capital has to do with the material than social capital does, but the two exist in a fairly symbiotic relationship.  Cultural capital is the things you get, usually due to your family’s socio-ecomonic status; a degree, golf club membership, brand name clothes… things that make it visibly known that you are of a particular class.  For the most part, social capital is thought to be largely dependent on the cultural capital you possess… but that doesn’t really apply today… especially with the rise of computer-mediated communication.  Because online, you can fake… or embellish… or write code to produce cultural capital out of nothing (of course, you need a certain element of human capital to be able to have the skills to be able to do it online).

Human capital is the labour conversion of social and cultural captial… it is the marketable non-material capital and has to do with the skills and knowledge a worker brings to the labour force.  All of these types of capital are usually spoken to alongside the concept of social mobility.  That is, they can all be used to transcend traditional societal barriers of class (even though many of them are easier to acquire for the upper class). 

I would argue, however, that identity capital is more important than human capital in terms of trying to establish a visible online presence.  Identity Capital  is a lesser known form of non-economic capital from critical sociologist James Cote.  The identity capital model is based on personality (who we are), interaction (how we present ourselves) and social structure (how we are socialized). 

In modern times (or late-modern or post-modern times, however you identify the current social context) identity capital has to do with the particular individualization trajectory you choose for yourself.  Cote simplifies these trajectories into “default” - having your identity passively flow along a pre-defined or designed lifestyle choice, where individualization is merely a facade based on consumer choice – and “developmental” – actively forming your identity by interacting with yourself and others and your environment towards a reflexively formed individualized lifestyle. 

So identity capital is a fantastic model to apply to the Internet.  Since personality, and interaction are mediated through a computer interface, it makes those aspect of identity management quite easy, especially if you understand your audience.  The lack of hierarchical structure on the Internet minumizes the importance of how your socialized (which ties into social, cultural, and human capital), and the power of your thoughts, and your knowledge,  and how it is presented, becomes more important than the amount of degrees you have hanging in your office, or the kind of car you drive, or the number of ”clubs” you belong to.  However, if you believe in reflexivity, as I do, these things are all bundled up with your identity management online.

Taken together and applied to the principles of Web 2.0 and online networking, I propose that this bundle of concepts can be viewed as a form of Virtual Capital.  Where your hyperlinks and email contacts and public profiles and blogs, etcetera etcetera… can be transferrable and convertible into real-world benefits, and society perks.  Internet campaigning and advertising is far more influential these days than traditional campaigning and advertising.  Plus, everyone who has access to the Internet, has access to the free tools that can allow them to do thier own individual campaigning and advertising.  Virtual capital has the potential to hierarchically organize the Internet though, by necessity those who have the most virtual capital would rise to the top of the balkinized networks.  Second life has a lot of virtual capital embedded in it, as does YouTube and MySpace.  They are networks at the top of the top of the food chain.  Also the informalized network of the Blogosphere, which you can see a visual rendering of here… Graphical Representation of the Blogosphere

You can see virtual capital in action in virtual spaces like Second Life, where it is non-material resources that are far more relevant and useable than material resources.  MySpace as well.  Where your “popularity” is gained through how you present who you believe you are.  Facebook is a little different, because of it’s heavy grounding in “reality”  where the physical forms of these non-economic types of capital are embedded in a very real context of personal history.  There are fewer ways to pull virtual capital out of the air on Facebook compared to an online context that brings together people without personal histories. 

Anyway… I’m hammering these ideas out.  Virtual Capital is one of those concepts that I have been indirectly writing and thinking about for a while now.  This is the first time I’ve defined it as a particular framework, which is excellent, because I can now start writing the book…

Thanks for scanning… that is all…