Social capital in Second Life
| Date | 20 April 2010 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14684521011037007 |
| Pages | 295-316 |
| Published date | 20 April 2010 |
| Author | Isto Huvila,Kim Holmberg,Stefan Ek,Gunilla Widén‐Wulff |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Social capital in Second Life
Isto Huvila
Department of Information Studies, A
˚bo Akademi University, Turku, Finland
and Department of ALM, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, and
Kim Holmberg, Stefan Ek and Gunilla Wide
´n-Wulff
Department of Information Studies, A
˚bo Akademi University, Turku, Finland
Abstract
Purpose – Second Life is a user-created online virtual world, which is a place where people with
shared interests can meet and be together and share information. The purpose of this study is to
investigate whether Second Life communities foster and nurture social capital, whether social capital
within Second Life is related to social capital outside the virtual world, whether some characteristics
affect the likelihood of users having social capital, and whether some existing measure of social capital
can be modified and used to study social capital in Second Life.
Design/methodology/approach – The study was based on a statistical analysis of data gathered
in a web survey of a convenience sample (n¼67) of Second Life residents. The social capital measure
used was based on Bullen and Onyx.
Findings – Second Life is an environment that fosters the emergence of social capital. Residents who
consider themselves producers have higher levels of social capital than those who consider themselves
non-producers. Having social capital within Second Life is unrelated to having social capital outside
the virtual world. The consistency of the instrument proved to be excellent for measuring social capital
within Second Life and good outside the virtual world.
Research limitations/implications – The small sample size and the composition of the research
population limit the ability to generalise the findings.
Practical implications – Second Life is a potent environment for community building and
collective action. However, communities and collective action within Second Life cannot be based on
social activity outside the virtual world.
Originality/value – The present study is the first systematic investigation of social capital in
Second Life.
Keywords Social capital,Communities, Internet
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Second Life (SL) is an online virtual world. It is user-created and social, and it reflects
the users’ activities and interests. For some it is a place for learning, education and
sharing information. Others use it for escapism or for entertainment. It is a place where
people with shared interests can find each other and online virtual communities can
emerge on the basis of those shared interests. It is a place where relationsh ips between
people (and between the avatars that represent them) are possible.
These relationships and communities are also the places where social capital lies.
The present paper discusses findings from an empirical study of social capital in
Second Life. Data (n¼67) for the study was gathered using a web survey with
questions on a Likert scale. The thoughts of Bourdieu (1980) and Putnam (1993) are
used as a starting point to discuss the social capital of residents in Second Life and to
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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Social capital in
Second Life
295
Refereed article received
19 June 2009
Approved for publication
11 October 2009
Online Information Review
Vol. 34 No. 2, 2010
pp. 295-316
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/14684521011037007
compare their social capital in Second Life with their social capital outside Second Life.
This study aimed to investigate the following four issues:
(1) Whether such communities may and do emerge within Second Life.
(2) Whether the emergence of social capital converges with social capital in
communities outside Second Life, or in Real Life (RL), as the non-Second Life
environment is often referred to in Second Life contexts.
(3) Whether some characteristics of the users affect their likelihood of having social
capital.
(4) Whether some existing measure of social capital can be modified and used to
study social capital in Second Life.
The relevance of studying social capital in Second Life is manifold. Social capital has
been acknowledged as a suitable framework for studying information behaviour while
it opens up relational, structural and content dimensions related to sharing. Social
capital refers to both norms and networks as facilitating collective action and
encouraging cooperative behaviour. The positive effects of having a high level of social
capital include the availability of intellectual and knowledge resources through
networks and through the relationships between individuals and social units. All
dimensions of social capital are important for information sharing but different aspects
are highlighted depending on the context (e.g. Wide
´n-Wulff, 2007; So
¨derga
˚rd, 2007;
Hall and Wide
´n-Wulff, 2008). Social capital is the basis for collective action and it helps
us to understand what the foundation of the community is within Second Life, what the
motivations to participate in it are and what it is that people get for their participation.
Coleman (1988) emphasises the increasing significance of voluntary and spontaneous
social organisation in the present society as a substitute for the earlier formal social
structures such as families and communities. The question that has not been addressed
in earlier studies is whether such communities may and do emerge within Second Life
and how they differ from the communities outside Second Life. What is the role of
social capital in an online community and in sharing online information?
Second Life
Second Life (www.secondlife.com) is a three dimensional digital world, a user-created
social virtual environment that reflects the users’ activities and interests. The users, or
“residents”, as the people inside this virtual world are called, have created everything
that can be seen and experienced in Second Life. There are over 17 million registered
users in Second Life and at any given time of the day or night, there are over 40,000
people logged into Second Life, sometimes even over 80,000 people (Linden Lab, 2009;
Linden, 2009).
Second Life is a social virtual world because it does not have any game-like
elements of goals that players are trying to achieve (Bartle, 2004). There is no game
over in Second Life. The social interaction between the avatars and the people behind
the avatars is the purpose of Second Life, and also its greatest potential and threat. The
immersive nature of virtual worlds makes interactions between people richer than it
could ever be on the browser-based web. Through their avatars people experience the
virtual world and feel the presence of others. It is possible to transfer real life behaviour
and experiences to the avatars and form some kind of bond with them. People guide the
avatars and decide what they do, which results in avatars behaving in a very human
OIR
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