Social Networks, Social Capital, and Social Outcomes

This video from a social networks course in the sociology program at the University of Maine at Augusta considers the implications of structures of networks for social capital and the tendency of some communities to be able to achieve the kind of communities they desire while other communities struggle. Bridging social capital and bonding social capital, two very different advantages of connection, are introduced as part of a review of Robert Putnam's 2000 work Bowling Alone. The video concludes with a consideration of evidence presented by Putnam and updated with more recent evidence to ask what outcomes are produced by different kinds of social capital and what disturbing and reassuring trends in American social capital have emerged.