Communities Going Virtual: Examining the Roles of Online and Offline Social Capital in Pandemic Perceived Community Resilience-Building

ABSTRACT

Pandemics overthrow our fundamental understanding of social capital and perceived community resilience-building. Social capital, the very source of support and resources during natural disasters to build resilience, has become a source of danger during pandemics. Applying communication ecology as a theoretical framework, this study uncovers the role of social media in connecting social capital and perceived community resilience in the COVID-19 pandemic. Two online surveys were conducted at two different times of the pandemic to examine how people’s virtual social capital and social media engagement, compared with offline social capital, is associated with perceived community resilience. Findings indicate that, at the beginning of the pandemic, both bonding and bridging social capital, online and offline, were associated with community resilience perceptions. However, months into the pandemic, bonding social capital on social media was the only social capital resource associated with community resilience perceptions. Social media engagements were found to be critical for linking social media social capital and perceived community resilience.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Notes

¹ The omitted items were reported in Table S2 in the supplement materials.

² For the comparison, alternative models including all omitted items were also constructed for both surveys (see online supplement materials for Table S5.

³ Both alternative models including omitted items in the two surveys indicate that social media bonding social capital was associated with perceived community resilience in the first survey, while in the second survey, offline bonding social capital was also directly related to community resilience perceptions (see online supplements for Table S5).

⁴ The alternative model indicates that offline bonding social capital remained an important factor contributing to community resilience perceptions in the second survey as people are still relying on relationships with family members, close friends, and neighbors. This nonetheless illustrates the importance of bonding relationships.

⁵ It should also be noted that in the alternative model, social media bonding social capital was directly associated with community resilience perceptions, indicating a strong connection between bonding social capital online and resiliency building.

⁶ Relationship between social media bonding social capital and perceived community resilience is marginally significant in the final model and significant in the alternative model.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication Faculty Enrichment Grant [NA].

Notes on contributors

Xiaochen Angela Zhang

Xiaochen Angela Zhang (Ph.D., University of Florida) is an assistant professor in public relations in the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma. Her research focuses on crisis and risk communication, digital media strategic communication and ethics.

Yoon Hi Sung

Yoon Hi Sung (Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin) is an assistant professor in the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma. Her research interests are primarily in digital/social media, media psychology, and corporate social responsibility.