1. The Internet and Politics Agenda for Today reminder: prepare for lab class What is “social capital”? Social capital and political participation CMC and social capital

2. The Internet and Politics What is social capital?  connections among individuals  networks of social connectedness  generalized reciprocity  trust  bridging vs bonding  schmoozers vs machers

3. The Internet and Politics Effects of social capital  economic performance  political participation  civic pride  crime  health  happiness

4. The Internet and Politics Erosion of social capital  T.V.  generational effects  time and money pressures, two-career families  suburbanization, commuting, sprawl

5. The Internet and Politics Future of social capital  “civic inventiveness”  interaction with neighbours  public space  cultural activity  government leadership

6. The Internet and Politics Social capital and participation  broader context  causal:  relationship to other forms of participation  effect:  larger than democratic legitimacy

7. The Internet and Politics CMC & social capital  concerns about CMC’s social impact  hopes expressed for CMC  conditions that shape impact of CMC  different assessments of CMC’s impact  research issues  my own assessment of CMC & social capital

8. The Internet and Politics CMC’s social impact  CMC displacing real life  online interaction poorer than real life  lack of true plublic space  new dangers  CMC compounds existing problems  reinforces existing divisions  class, gender

9. The Internet and Politics Hopes for CMC  online community as remedy for erosion of social capital  postmodern identity experimentation  online approximation of real life  interplay between on- and off-line

10. The Internet and Politics Conditions shaping CMC  social context of CMC  specific technologies used  users of CMC

11. The Internet and Politics Assessments of CMC  Net cynics: CMC erodes community  Net optimists: focus on hopes  Net equivocators: both good and bad  Net agnostics: future still unclear

12. The Internet and Politics Research issues  current Net demographics  looking where the light is  assessing postmodernism

13. The Internet and Politics Conclusions  information exchange as basis for engagement  embedding CMC I.R.L.  applying real life lessons  CMC vs TV  technological solutions

14. The Internet and Politics Discussion