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Social exchange theory george
What is the role of the community
Social exchange theory george
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Social capital is the is the social connections that allow for social interactions in which an individual has opportunities to build bonds, help others out, and affect change for the better. When the social engagement is reciprocated, it can produce benefits for the multiple individuals engaged in the activity and so further the circumstance of the society.
Robert D. Putnam, a political scientist and professor, contends in his essay titled “Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital” that there has been a decline in the social capital over the last several decades. He names that are different factors to explain this, including changes in the workforce, mobility, demographics, and technology. However, mostly it is a change in the behaviors of people.
The presence of social capital in civically engaged communities leads to better socioeconomic situations and an improved general quality of life. In his own research, he also found that in Italy the “levels of effectiveness [in regional governments] varied dramatically” and relates to the existence of civic engagement. Social capital can only produce benefits if utilized, just as monetary capital does little if not reinvested in the economy. Even if someone has many contacts in their address book the benefits of social capital can only be realized if at least some of them are engaged for socialization regularly. When people disassociate from groups they are less socially engaged. Democracy does not work as intended if a potential voter does not voice their opinion at the ballot box. He states that “voter turnout, newspaper readership, membership in choral societies and football clubs” were activities prevalent in successful areas. (Putnam 67) These each require active participa...
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...ad, we can communicate with more people and try new things to find social groups. These new bonds may be less solid, but they still have a great impact on our lives and how we do business with each other. Since we have so many connections the importance of a single connection has deflated, but not the need for connections as a whole.
I realize that the ability to socialize is an absolute necessity in this day and age, unless I elect to live isolated on some mountain away from civilization. Since I’m here, I know that we have to get along with each other. If we do not then life will be miserable. This exercise and Putnam’s essay enlightened me to the benefits of social interactions.
Works Cited
Putnam, Robert. "Bowling Alone." Xroads.virginia.edu. Journal of Democracy 6:1, Jan. 1995.
Web. 24 Apr. 2011. .
Civic engagement, overall, is on the decline according to Putnam (informal activities in particular, however, are ones that Americans, on average engage in more often). This decline applies to cities because of certain urban characteristics. The city, because of our division of labour, increases our tendency to drop out of community affairs because of busyness. Also, the city's neighbourhoods do not promote togetherness or a distinct "we" feeling because of a city's sheer population to the point that we actually come to view it as a city of strangers (too many to bother making friends with), unlike in the country where your next neighbour will likely be someone you will feel closer to because of time spent together and having no alternative option to socialize with many other people. Also, electronic entertainment (especially TV watching) gives us less incentive to socialize with our neighbours. In sum, these are just some ways his arguments apply to a city.
Americans and Britons had a stronger sense of civic duty and and civic competence, believed they could “do something’ about an unjust law, and that citizens should be active in one’s community. While Americans lagged behind Austria, the Netherlands, West Germany, and the United Kingdom in voter participation, they seemed to be much more involved in other areas such as campaigning, being active in the local community, and contacting government official. But in “Bowling Alone,” Robert Putnam states that not only has voter turnout declined, but so has citizen participation in politics and government. This is because they are more self-reliant now. People do not vote because they do not care. They believe the democratic values this nation was built upon do not exist
2. Is the decline of social capital as important as Putnam argues? Why or why not?
A characteristic of humanity is social contact, each individual needs significant social interaction. Not only must humans have interaction, but must share things in common to care and love. This h...
Putnam, Robert D. 1995. Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital. Journal of Democracy 6 (1): 65-78.
First I would like to look at Georg Simmel, who puts emphasis of the importance of interaction between people. As he mentions in
Putnam, Robert (2000) Bowling Alone. The Collapse and Revival of American Social Capital, Simon and Schuster, New York.
In Unequal Childhood - Class, Race, and Family Life, Annette Lareau tributes the French social scientist Pierre Bourdieu when using his theory of the forms of capital as a fundamental argument on her study. In this theory, Bourdieu recognizes three different types of capital; social, symbolical and cultural. Bourdieu describes social capital as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.” This means that social capital is based on resources built from personal relationships, club memberships and other social influence and connections. The second form of capital,
‘An individual’s interaction with others and the world around them can enrich or limit their
Atrophy, the gradual decline in effectiveness due to lack of use, is the word that sociologist D. Stanley Eitzen uses to describe the fate of social life in the world today. By saying this, Eitzen argues that social life is slowly disintegrating due to many different factors that lead to a lack of social interaction. Using many different statistics and examples, Eitzen makes a convincing case proving that this conclusion is correct and the atrophy of social life is a legitimate problem that the world is currently facing.
The decline in social capital in the United States can be explain with the political concepts of freedom, equality, and community. Freedom is known as liberty and can refer to a relationship that is free of oppression and coercion. Freedom also ties in with equality, which can be defined as either equality of people, foundational, or equally distribution of goods, distributional. These two topics then can be tied in with community since community is a form of social interaction that usually carries a positive connotation. With the political concepts being defined we can have a better understanding on how it social capital is declining.
Turkle provides dialogues of individuals who avoid social interactions at all cost and would rather communicate through technology, as it is just an inconvenience to have direct confrontations. These dialogues strongly support Turkle’s argument that we’re creating a greater gap between others and ourselves. The reason we are lonely is because we place less effort into building relations with others.
"We believe that more relationships provide more opportunity." (Source 2). It has gotten into the minds of avid Internet users that the more people you have retweeting you, liking your pictures, or your status, the more social you become. How many of these followers are actually their friends? The more notifications you have on social media does not equal the amount of friends you have. It does not make you social, it just makes you another active user on social media. Receiving notifications does not help you make friends. Even just having a little chat with people online does not mean you are friends. More relationships with people online do not provide any opportunity of creating any real friendships. Friendship are not created by liking someone's status or retweeting someone's picture. ". . . online Americans tend to have 644 ties on average." (Source 1). There is more focus on making connections, than making real friends. A casual conversation does not automatically create a real friendship. Online you can create a larger group of connections, but this does not make you social. The social ties that the internet offers do not create a real bond between people. Social media connections do not help you create a real relationship with another person. More social ties do not mean you are interacting with more people, it just means you have connections with a larger group. I don’t agree with the belief that
To achieve civic engagement is undertaken in many diverse ways. These are determined by several factors, amongst them the purpose of the civic engagement, the people involved in it, the funds to be involved amongst others. The...
The more social media we have, the more we think we 're connecting, yet we are really disconnecting from each other. – JR