Social Capital - Putnam view point

Social capital is a concept explored in the social sciences from the nineties becoming so important in studies that analyze the dynamics of development of society.
The term "social capital" is generally understood as a connector of relations and values ​​that an individual builds during its existence in the society. The individual, in fact, since the first years of life absorbs to itself a set of norms and values ​​that come from being part of a family and society.

Growing up, the person will begin to expand his network of knowledge and to relate with people from different backgrounds. Coming in contact with different individuals experience and knowledge, the individual will go to increase their capital that will be developed within the company.

Therefore, an individual who in the course of its existence it relates to other individuals, increase their knowledge, allowing him to pursue purposes not otherwise easily accessible.
In fact, the combination of subjects from different experiential background of values ​​and makes it possible to solve collective problems, building relationships and networks of social capital that vary from individual to individual.
For this reason, there has been a growing interest in the study of social capital, identifying, by some authors as the key to understanding the dynamics underlying the development of a society.

The short history of research on the subject and its complex nature did not lead to a universally accepted definition of what is meant with social capital.

We will, however, wait until the end of the '80s to see how the concept of social capital has gained importance in social analysis. The two approaches that arise during this period and who consider social capital in different aspects that are individualistic and the collectivist. For both of the merit of being able to give importance to the concept under consideration in terms of not only economic but also sociological.
According to the two different perspectives and, in some ways, contrasting the importance of creating and increasing the share capital is to be both critical to the development of a society. The ways in which this process of growth is active, depending on the approaches, different.

Analyzing the collectivist approach, we note that it’s considered the creation of social capital as the product of a reciprocal exchange relationships are not based primarily on the utility an individual. The person who comes in contact with others will bring his own "capital" that will have fellowship with people, receiving from them their "social background".
This will create an exchange of experiences, knowledge and information that will make possible the achievement of goals not otherwise achievable only at the individual level.

Certainly, considering the capital in a collectivist approach, we can’t leave out the work of Robert Putnam. This author had the undoubted merit of giving importance to the capital and make it known, through his work, beyond the academic circles, providing a source of inspiration for a lot of following analysis.

Putnam defines social capital as the set of those elements of social organization - such as trust, shared norms, social networks - that can improve the efficiency of society as a whole, insofar as they facilitate coordinated action of individuals "

From this definition we can understand how collective action pursued by social actors (in order to pursue for hard to reach) the author is a coordinated action between individuals who give and receive trust in building social networks.

The concepts of trust and social networks, that in Putnam’s vision appear so important, for many authors become essential features in the analysis of social capital in a society.

Companies relations and reputation – Starbucks example

Years ago, it was usual by companies giving official statements that put let known the key informations relating to the company. The reputation was built thanks the contributions of traditional media (newspapers, TV, radio etc..), Having as a starting point communications produced by human resources, internal or external, where press agent or PR manager represented the main figures. Internet has radically revolutionized this model of corporate communication. Today there isn’t any  information that can’t be checked on the web. The news can be branched from any citizen and the tools available to make known a communication have multiplied: blogs, forums, video publishing sites, social networks, just to name a few.

Companies are establishing a new profile manager, the Reputation Manager which is tasked to monitor the reputation of a brand, mainly on the web directing all the initiatives aimed at improving the information circulating on the network about the company.

The observation is made particularly complex by their variety and abundance of items of information and promotion of comments, posts and opinions. A good way for companies is surely consider their customers, loyal or potential, not as locking rings of their production processes or marketing, but as part of its activities.

It 's important to be able to create personal relationships with individual customers, who have as final goal to gather criticism, opinions and negative comments. No longer able to hinder the movement of negative news, as could be done in the past, companies are required to manage their reputation in the best way to avoid being publicly, focusing on the web, which is potentially more dangerous than the average and now widely used by the public.

Some could advices could be: Always tell the truth, that’s first rule. Far from obvious, is to put into circulation only truthful information. It’s pretty useless, even counterproductive, to try to penetrate the market as a leader of social responsibility then if you implement child labor practices or processes with high environmental impact.

The second rule of good corporate reputation is to talk with customers. If, for example, are found on the net negative feedback is important to contact whoever posted them trying to better understand the critical areas and improve them. Recognizing an error immediately, endless strategic, is certainly more useful than a belated intervention when it is permanently damaged the reputation.

The third and last advice is using search engines. Google census of all sites, blogs, forums through the use of keywords as the name of your company can easily access all the pages that signal a company. In the Internet age requires not too much to impair the company's image was built thanks to massive investments in communications. Even a false report may be enough to create a negative boomerang effect in terms of image. That's because being on the web, work with a structured and continuous monitoring can help to immediately identify phrases, images and videos that can harm the company. And try to put away immediately.

 

Starbucks example

Even a solid company could lose its reputation in just one day. Is the famous newspaper "The Sun" to blame after many reports of ex-employees: "Starbucks wastes 23 million liters per day of water, an amount that would satisfy the daily needs of Namibia, one of the driest countries on the planet, and would fill an Olympic swimming pool every 83 minutes. "

According to the tabloid, Starbucks taps in a sink used to wash cooking utensils remain open continuously even when there is nothing to wash, pursuant to a measure of hygiene to combat bacterial reproduction.

In a late statement, the corporation said that the taps of the stores "are open at low pressure and only during opening hours to remove food debris, keeping clean the cooking utensils and prevent the proliferation of germs." This wasn’t enough to change the opinion of the clients and for the following months Starbucks had an huge loss account.

Social Networking: Starbucks and IBM cases

Social Networking is nowadays the ecosystem within companies and organizations achieve their objectives, taking a strategic position, to communicate and promote products and services outside their organizational boundaries. We can notice that everyday are more and more the companies or the organizations (public and private) that rely on a number of communication tools to strengthen business relations with all those people (customers, partners, stakeholder, etc..) that constitute the reference network.

The successful use of social networks is closely related to the ability to communicate in the Web 2.0 age. A symmetrical communication rather than vertical, where the propensity to listen is a resource to be connected with the own public, from whom get information, tips and useful suggestions to improve the supply of its services.

Until recently, the big companies were marketing from top to bottom. Radio, TV, Newspapers, Internet, and advertising in-store paved the way to success. With so many people spend so much time on social networks, these companies had more “space” to cover. From Strabuck passing through IBM, all the companies have taken advantage of social media sites to tell the world their stories, and their wonderful business. Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter: all the social networks are fundamental.

Companies use every resource they can catch from everyday life. Youtube is filled with advertising, new movies, instructional videos and tutorials. On Facebook, customers can become fans of their favorite businesses. Twitter allows companies to provide customers with live updates, free gifts and special deals.

What link all these networks is their ability to allow customers to give feedback and feel  a personal connection with their favorite shops or restaurants. Companies know that seem connected in a friendly way is the key to success. Every time that the customers write on the Sturbucks Facebook page or respond to tweets from IBM, provid companie useful information. Thanks Twitter, a customer can ask questions about a purchase and receive a reply on the same page in less than a minute, and this is a very powerful thing.

Looking at how Starbucks uses Twitte, we can see that: first, Starbucks has a clear and brief profile with a link to his official website, what compulsory. On the page there is also the logo, another thing to don’t forget. And then there's the content. Customers posting all kinds of things they want, including questions like "what ingredients are in the whipped cream", "how much it cost something", or "until the stores are now open."

The comments include enthusiastic exclamations on the wonderful coffee and other products that customers can buy. Starbucks reply very quickly to all the questions and comments . Starbucks also offers exclusive deals and discounts available only on Twitter. What does it means? It means that with these tricks there are about a million excited fans who are dependent on the Twitter updates. Using Twitter, these big companies know what they're doing and they know how to take advantages.

IBM is another company that use the power of social network . Many managers have a blog and do activities in social media on topics such as “cloud computing” and create connections,  with LinkedIn and Twitter,  between people representing the company in order to stay in touch and maintain relationships with their customers. Others IBM employers use Facebook for the same objective; but there are others really important called “seekers”, (kind of voyeurs) who are on social media sites to listen the conversations and understand where there may be potential sales opportunities.

These two examples may clarify how is big, innovative, cheap and functional this world of Social network for companies strategies.

Heide on Bergen: Social Costructionism in PR

Reading Mats Heide’s article I had the opportunity to get a clear view point about the social constructionist perspective that Berger (with Luckmann) introduced in social science, connected with PR area, aims to explain the reasons of communications crisis, sustaining the idea that the main cause is an insufficient communicative relation between people and institutions, since school’s age. Act to solve a crisis means analyze all the external facts responsible of its origin and intervening on time. The basement of Heide analysis is traceable in two book of Berger: “The construction of reality” (1966) and “Invitation to sociology” (1963).

Understanding our society is surely an hard work, because all the new changes (social, economical etc..) modifies and alters the structure of human relations, institutions, media, determining everyday a different scenario, and the crisis is one of the perfect example. Heide supports the sociology as the way to understand these transformations, because it’s focused on comprehending people’s mind and if we understand the needs and the wishes of the people, we surely are able to interpret this “global society language”, multiform and quickly changeable, that represent the key of research in crisis communication.

I think it is necessary to define what exactly means “crisis”. I agree with Bergen when he says that organizational crisis is not an anomalous situation, but a particular stage in the never-ending development of an organization. A social constructionist perspective on crisis gives a more holistic understanding, and emphasizes that both crisis and "business as usual" are normal parts of an organization's life cycle. In contemporary research on crisis communication, crisis is a part of organization’s life cycle, a good opportunity for development and learning.

An other good point is about “institutions”: Berger describe them as support, regulation, help, promoter, that direct people’s behavior in a certain way. For Berger, institutions aren’t only the first ones that comes in our mind (like Government, University, Police, Tribunal, Church etc.) but also all the conventions, the beliefs and the unconsciously rule that people create and follow. The example of Paivi during one lecture was about Police figure. Not because there is an agreement created to let us be controlled and protected from Police, means that this “agreement” give them the power: people’s behavior gives them the power and the opportunity to protect us, if most of the people don’t agree it couldn’t exist this institution, even if there is an “agreement”. But also time, money, language, marriage are institutions, cause they define our life and direct our behavior ( 1 hour is composed of 60 seconds because people decided that).

I really appreciate this article of Heide, he explains in a really clear way the point of view of Berger, and he made a careful summary of Berger social perspective. Even if there wasn’t enough criticism in Berger theories, I think it helped us to understand an important aspect of communication’s sides, that’s a good step to become, in the future, expert of PR and communications strategies.

Literature:

Heide, M. On berger: A Social Constructionist Perspective on Public Relations and Crisis Communication, p. 43-61.

A society portrait by Castells and Tampere

Manuel Castells, Catalan sociologist, famous for the network society theory is considered as one of the most important expert on the problems of the contemporary information society. He’s focused on the idea that contemporary social processes are determined by the infrastructure of the net. In this way Castells creates a new sociological paradigm, founded on the primacy of the reticular structure of the interaction (instead of the content) in the communication between social actors.

We could say that Castells translates the teachings of McLuhan in terms of a reformulation of the concepts of general sociology. McLuhan in fact defend principle that "the medium is the message", it means that analyzing the content (informations or meanings) passed by medium, it cannot be isolated from the medium that conveys it.

In the social field we can notice a similar situation: the content of the interaction is dependent on the technological infrastructure (which in our globalized society is precisely the “Network”) that transmits it. From this view, Castells outlines, especially in his monumental text “The New Public Sphere: Global Civil Society, Communication Networks, and Global Governance", a wide range of scenarios, problems, analysis of trends.

I really appreciated the way how Castells analyze our society, he always try to connect people’s behavior with the theories that is supporting, never forgetting that this “Network society” is composed by human beings. For example he never said that information technologies were the responsible of social changes, he correctly supposed that these change processes couldn’t be realized without technologies. I totally agree with this point of view, people make changes, technologies just support the process.

Communication and information have always been key sources of power, domination, and
social change. This is due to the fact that the main battle that plays in society is for the minds
of people. The way of thinking of mass society determines the laws and values ​​on which societies are based. Is the Communication (socialized communication, the one that invests
in public sphere) the base of social production of meaning; conquering the minds of each person
is conducted especially in communication processes. This is even more true in the case of the network society, which is characterized by the spread of communication networks. The continuous
transformation of communication technology in the digital age extends the influence of the media at all the spheres of social life, in a network that is both global and local, generical and customized, according to all the evolving models. Consequently, power relations (relations that represent the foundation for the society) and processes that challenge the institution’s power are increasingly determined from the sphere of communication. In this Social network society, the power that every single person got is a big benefit that we should consider; let’s just think about internet and the possibility of sharing our feelings and thoughts with other people and especially the possibility of learning something from other users is something that in this age sounds normal and obvious but if we compare with the past is an important step for the development of our society.  I think that Castells gives us the right tools and the perfect cultural and political scenes to focus on this topic; uploading on my blog this comment, naturally come in my mind the fascinating and functional way of spreading my thoughts in this form; completely different than a recent past when the society could learn just from institutions, following a kind of controlled development.

After reading Castells articles, surely interesting but misunderstandable in some aspect with a not really clear vocabulary, I could clarify my ideas reading Kaja Tampere’s article, and at the same time find again the self-esteem in my English language skills!

I think it’s really important how she defines the utility of a good company’s communication in our controversial society, where of course technologies are helping the daily life to don’t lose time or to be much more accurate and clear but creating a bigger scenery of users, customers, institutions etc…  from her examples comes up that words as “trustworthiness” and “credibility” should be transmitted  on the minds of the customers to get good results in this Network Society really complicated.

At the end I really suggest to the future students to read first the article of Kaja Tampere, then Castells, it could be much more easy to get all the points of both authors.

 

Literature:

Castells, M. (2008) The New Public Sphere: Global Civil Society, Communication Networks, and Global Governance. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2008 616. pp. 78-93.

Castells, M. (2007) Communication, Power and Counter-power in the Network Society. International Journal of Communication 1 (2007), pp. 238-266.

Castells, M. (2000) The Contours of the Network Society. The Journal of Futures Studies, Strategic Thinking and Policy, 02 (02), pp. 151-157. Camford Publishing Ltd

Tampere, K. (2011) A walk in the public relations field: Theoretical discussions from a social media and network society perspective. Central European Journal of Communication 1 (2011), pp. 49-61.