Creating a methodological framework for measuring virtual capital

I’m glad to know there are some people following up on, and developing the notion of Virtual Capital further.  I thought I might add some more thoughts since I haven’t written on it in a while.  And just a note that this post is full of sociological jargon around the pre-established concepts of social, cultural and identity capital… if you are unfamiliar with these concepts… you probably won’t get very far.

My working definition of Virtual Capital:

A concept which tries to capture the collective social, cultural, and identity capital resources that an indivdual draws on and exchanges in their navigation of and participation in the Social Web (or Web 2.0 if you like).  The value of an individual’s virtual capital acculmulation is entirely subjective and based on the individual’s goals of Internet use in this interactive way.  It can, however, be objectified into a reasearch framework for quantified social analysis through the interrogation of its conversion into the physical world by means of economics. 

If we are, indeed, living in a Knowledge or Information Society, and our economy has shifted, or is in the process of shifting towards an information economy, where information becomes the driving object of production and consumption in Western Society… it stands to reason that in this objective economic sense, those who are most adept at the creation and exchange of information will be rewarded economically.

How Virtual Capital is converted into economic capital is perhaps the best way to theoretically approach and measure its potential value… it’s definitely how you would get funding for it anyway…   

Virtual capital can be accumulated by means of interaction and/or technical skills.  It requires knowledge of ettiquette and language (both English and Code), articulation and clarity of thought and intention through text-based platforms (which can all be thought of as forms of cultural capital); and the ability to make authentic trust connections through networking skills in both the social and economic realms of the platform (which can be thought of as forms of social capital). 

Presentation of the self online is also a very important aspect of Virtual Capital.  And with this comes issues of representation through graphics, signatures, amount of authenticity of the self, or in some cases, amount of gradiosity of an individual’s virtual identity…   These are the aspects of Virtual Capital which draw on one’s identity capital and one’s ability to translate that into the Social Web.  Using Cote’s framework of Identity Capital, this form of Virtual Capital can be either through “default” or “developmental” processes.  However, I guess that it is only those who possess the developmental types of identity capital that will be able to convert virtual capital into economic capital. 

So in terms of methodological approaches to the study of Virtual Capital, I propose that it is best studied through methods of Participatory Action Research (PAR), and I thank both Leslie Brown and Harold Jarche for suggesting this to me.  First of all you have to be able to qualitatively know the Social Web to be able to accurately measure its impact on the physical world quantitatively.  Because the culture of the Social Web is based on technology and interaction, you need both elements to be to understand it.   And secondly, it will do you no good to think that you can be an objective observer to study it.  You aren’t in the Social Web because you log onto Facebook or Twitter… you are in the Social Web when you are interacting in it. 

So, there are a few more thoughts on the topic… I have more specific examples and actual conceptualized research projects floating around in my noggin’ that I would be happy to develop for anyone who would like to give me funding for it   

Theoretical Debates #1: The Educational Investment in Technology

As with most topics which focus around the uncharted territory of the future, there are a range of opinions and theories about the current state of the political, economic and cultural systems, what it all means, and where it’s going to take us. These opinions and theories are often framed around dualistic and opposing social values; the political debate of liberal vs. conservative, the economic debate of capitalism vs. socialism, the cultural debate of mass-production vs. customization.  Deeply embedded within all of these dualisms lies technology, the ultimate symbol of how clever we humans really are.  And as more and more of our social processes become digitally mediated, the impact of information and communication technology on the larger society, and education specifically, comes to the forefront of all the debates.

At the crux of this debate lies the rhetoric of what has been called the “Information Society” or the “Knowledge Economy” or the “New Economy”, which has been used to rationalize the astounding investments in the technological capacities of Canadian public schools.  While there is no dollar figure currently attached to ICT investment in Canadian public schools, the figure is undoubtedly high.  Canada is ranked among the highest in the world when it comes to computer and Internet access, with an estimated 1 million computers in schools nationwide, and approximately 90% of these connected to the Internet (Statistics Canada 2004). The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) shows that Canada is above average, in relation to the 31 OECD countries considered, in student to computer ratio, percentage of school computers connected to the Internet, and computer availability at home (Council of Ministers of Education, 2003).  Some critics question these high levels of investment, given that it seems to be coming at the expense of basic literacy and arts programs.  Whether the two are directly related is unclear.

In The Digital Economy, Tapscott speaks of this new economy and the transformative potential of computer technology within that economy.  He calls this new economy a knowledge economy, and states, “In the new economy, more and more of the economy’s added value will be created by brain rather than brawn” (p7).  Education then is viewed as an important element to the training of “knowledge workers of tomorrow.”  Tapscott indicates that the digital economy will require a “rethinking of education” and highlights 6 key themes of teaching and learning in a technologically driven society.  They are as follows:

1. Work and learning are becoming the same thing
2. Learning is becoming a lifelong challenge
3. Learning is shifting away from the formal schools and universities
4. Progress is slow in the reinvention of the educational institution
5. Organizational learning is required in learning organizations
6. New media can transform education

Within these six themes, a discourse emerges which indicates that the line between the citizen and the worker, the individual and the institution, education and the economy will be dissolved as technology is integrated into our daily lives.  Learning becomes a lifelong process where the individual must shift and bend towards the will of the economy’s workforce.  Further, the individual will likely have very little institutional support in doing so, because as hard as the institution is trying to adapt, it is falling short in the effective implementation of technology in the classroom.  Because of this, training will most likely take place in “learning organizations”, which mainly exist in the private sector and as collaborative processes among employees towards common economic goals.  Along with private sector transformation, technology will also transform education, through the delivery of distance courses and the vast databases of knowledge that can be stored and distributed through the use of CD-ROMs.  In particular, Tapscott believes that the new media will “be truly spectacular for students in rural or isolated communities” (p.206).

Critic Neil Postman presents a more cautionary view of the integration of technology into the learning process.  He opens Technopoly, his cautionary diatribe of the computerization of society, with the story of King Thamus, from Plato’s Phaedrus.  One day, Thamus entertains Theuth, the god of invention, who introduces the concept of writing to him.  Theuth claimed that writing was a gift to the Egyptians which would improve both their wisdom and memory.  Upon being present with this gift, King Thamus replied: “Those who acquire it [writing] will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful; they will rely on writing to bring things to their remembrance by external signs instead of their own internal resources.  What you have discovered is a receipt for recollection, not for memory.  And as for wisdom, your pupils will have the reputation for it without the reality: they will receive a quantity of information without proper instruction, and in consequence be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant.  And because they are filled with the conceit of wisdom they will be a burden to society” (Plato in Postman, 1993: p4).   While Postman identifies his own voice as a dissenting one, he does concede that the assumption of any new technology as being a burden, and only a burden, is a mistake.  However, “it is inescapable that every culture must negotiate with technology, whether it does so intelligently or not” (p5).

Postman argues quite contrary to Tapscott’s ideals of the transformative potential of computers on learning stating that computer technology is actually an impediment for critical thinking skills and other educational outcomes.  He believes that the rhetoric of the Technopoly (the totalitarian technocracy) is “immodest” and that it “encourages insensitivity to what skills might be lost in the acquisition of new ones” (p.120).  Postman’s view of the effects of computers in the classroom is similar to Tapscott’s, in that he agrees that computers promote “private learning and individual problem-solving” (p.17).  However, his interpretation of the outcome of this is hardly something to be heralded, prophesizing instead, the movement towards a Huxleyian society where egocentrism is virtuous and alternatives are invisible (p.48).

In the book “Silicone Snake Oil,” Clifford Stoll is less abstract in his criticisms of classroom technology and the new forms of learning and understanding, stating that the educational investment in computers is coming at the expense of the more fundamental elements of learning and education.  In keeping with the story of King Thamus, Stoll states, “Computer networks return answers – often the right ones – but they emphasize product over process” (p.125).  Further, computers do nothing to address the real crises which are occurring in schools such as overcrowded classrooms, teacher incompetence, and low budgets for salaries, books and paper.  They are, in fact “expensive, quickly become obsolete, and drain scarce capital budgets” (p. 127).

At this point in time, however, arguing against the installation of computer technology in the classroom may be futile.  Educational investments in technology and curriculum reinvention towards technological skills have been well underway for the past decade.  The digital economy is in full swing, and both the critics and the proponents of the “digital revolution” understand how necessary it is for students to gain access to and develop facility with computers and the internet to assist in their entrance into the workforce, or to continue with their education.  Thus it is clear as to which side of this debate has reigned supreme. 

However, what is also clear is that the majority of students coming out of high school do not have basic literacy skills, and anyone who has had to mark a first-year university student’s paper could provide us with anecdotal evidence to support this statement.  Grammar and spelling is atrocious, thought patterns and ideas shift all over the pages with no sense of coherance or beginning-to-end flow on the topic at hand.  Further, while the students are proficient with MSN and YouTube and Facebook, they are still unable to logically navigate simple software, many still find computers overwhelming if they are not being used in the context of their own social lives.

So the big question remains… has all this investment paid off?  But before we can answer that we have to ask ourselves, what is the pay-off supposed to be?  Something that maybe should have been clear before we started dumping millions of dollars into the investment in the first place.    

Dear Mr. Prime Minister… an email from an educated voice in the depths of poverty

Dear Mr. Prime Minister (or the assistant to Mr. Prime Minister who filters through the emails)
 
I am writing you today out of frustration and despair regarding the government’s complete and utter blindness to the reality of day-to-day life for the citizens it is supposed to be serving.  
 
Let me tell you a little story.
 
It is the story of a 30 year old woman who once believed in the rhetoric of the meritocracy… That if she worked hard and tried her best, things would turn out okay… and that if she worked hard and tried her best, Canada’s highly-acclaimed social safety net would assist her in trying to achieve her goals so that she would no longer have to be a burden to the state. 
 
Upon discovering that she would have to support not one, but two autistic children, she decided to go back to school and get her education in an effort to make life better for herself and her family.  She studied hard and managed to become an exceptional thinker, yet unexceptional student due to the conditions of her domestic life.  She obtained a student position on a SSHRC-funded research grant in her fourth year as an undergraduate and things began to look up.  She enjoyed and excelled at her job, so much so that she decided to extend her student status… for, you see, federally-funded SSHRC grants would only employ her if she was a student, despite her now 2 and a half years of experience and career success.  Unable to secure funding for a Master’s program and unable to access more student loans to continue her studies (as she had accrued over $50,000 in loans to get a degree which would prove to be worthless unless she invested more money and time into her “credentials”), she found herself with Ph.D. level skills in the social sciences, and facing a life of underemployment.
 
In late 2007 things began to get even worse.  The stresses of poverty and trying to support and care for two autistic children while working and studying began to have damaging effects on her marriage and her mental health.  She separated from her husband in the hopes that they would be able to work out their respective issues later down the road.  However, psychological stability comes at a cost.  Unable to secure reliable after school care for her children, due to 1) the cost and 2) the lack of space for the care of disabled school-aged children in local programs, she had to take a reduction in hours at her place of employment, and become the sole care-giver of her sons, while working at her office in the morning, and from home in the evenings after the children went to bed.
 
In December 2007, the high cost of winter was beginning to take it’s toll.  Unable to secure billable oil delivery due to the fact that she was a “credit risk” as her student loan went into repayment and she was still trying to pay off the debt her family had accrued from living 8 years in absolute Canadian poverty, she could only afford $150 worth of oil every payday.  As the cost of home heating oil rose and rose in December and into January 2008, she found that $150 would heat her rented home for 10 days, which she was able to stretch out to 13 days if she kept the room temperature just below 15 degrees.  
 
Xmas was a bad one.  After enjoying two years off the Salvation Army Xmas List, she sadly had to call and put her name on the list again so that her boys could at least have a few presents under the tree.  Her parents tried to help out all they could, but being on a fixed income themselves, the majority of support they could provide was emotional.  Friends and extended family donated food and money to try and get her through the holidays, but there is only so much that informal support systems can provide.  Further, all the government payments that she was used to receiving at the end of every month had come two weeks early.  Her rent cheque bounced and she had to confine her diet to one meal of macaroni and processed cheese a day so that her kids could eat properly and her home could be heated.
 
Then, right after Xmas, a big announcement from the federal government!  Tax breaks and a reduction in the GST!  Her taxes were reassessed, and she received $107 for her 2006 household income of $27,468.  However, in that reassessment, it was discovered that she had been overpayed or her Universal Child Care Benefit, the one that was taxable and that she had apparently spent on popcorn and beer.  To her surprise, her January payment of benefits was half the amount she expected, and was half of what she was counting on to stock her empty fridge, fill her empty oil tank, and pay for her bus fare to and from work for the next two weeks.

   
 
She fought back tears as the CCTB customer service representative explained to her why her payment was half of what she expected. 
“You’ll be getting a reassessment notice in the mail,” the representative said.
 
As she was hanging up the phone, her tears of desperation turned into tears of anger.
 
“What a stupid and unfair way to take repayment,” she thought, “In January, the month after the most expensive month of the year for Canadian families, they decide that taking $400 in one lump payment is a way to handle an overpayment for a family living below the poverty line.”
 
If you haven’t guessed by now, that woman is me, Charlene Croft, a 30-year-old-overeducated-underemployed-mother-of-two-autistic-children-that-she-can’t-secure-childcare-for-and-is-wondering-what-kind-of-supper-she-can-make-with-condiments-and-rice…
 
The thing is Mr. Harper, where I once believed in the promises that this system of meritocracy and self-governance and corporate-capitalism would lead to the good life if you played the game according to the rules… I am now beginning to feel duped by the rhetoric of social mobility and the pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps mentality that this government believes is for the benefit of the Canadian citizenry, especially for those growing number of Canadians living in poverty and struggling day-to-day just to get by.  
 
I don’t think that you, or anyone of your party members, or any parliament members from ANY of the parties for that matter, truly understand what it is like to live under these conditions.  You think that if you throw money at problems, they will go away, or at least subdue the masses discontent so that they can go out and buy popcorn and beer.  The Canadian government has grown ineffective and stagnant… because all around it, society is changing… culture is changing… the NEEDS of the citizenry are changing… and yet, here it sits, in the same version it has for decades and decades, actually perpetuating and, to a certain extent, causing the growing number of social problems like violence and crime, weakened family values and sense of community, and even psychological distress as we are all told that we must fend for ourselves in the society that has been created around us by power-hungry elitists who have been educated by out-dated and irrelevant paradigms for this day and age.
 
I feel the need to say this all now, not only because of my own specific troubles and personal discontent, but because I see, and indeed feel, the discontent around me.  Any keen social scientist would be able to tell you that the masses are grumbling… that the poverty-stricken in Western society are unstable and unhealthy, and that we are all uncertain of what the future holds… a sentiment that I think even you can appreciate.  An effective government today needs to be strong, and certain, and needs to reinvent itself around society… not try to reinvent society around it.
 
So take this email as you will.  I’ve copied it to not only you, but all the leaders of all the parties in Anglo-Canada as well as my own MP, Peter Stoffer, and will also be posting it on my blog.  I don’t have a lot of money, I don’t have a lot of power, but I always have my words and my voice which I will continue to use to encourage change and the questioning of the way things are, just because it’s the way things have been done.  I won’t hold my breath for a response, but I do feel better that I got this off my chest.
 
Sincerely,
 
Charlene Croft
Halifax, Nova Scotia
charlene.m.croft@gmail.com
http://charlenecroft.wordpress.com
   
–
“What an absurd amount of energy I have been wasting all my life trying to figure out how things “really are,” when all the time they weren’t” – Hugh Prather