Relations Between Social Capital and Use of ICT: A Social Network Analysis Approach

This article explores the relationship between social capital in a professional network and ICT use. It examines the context in which the main ICT networks are used and shows how they are conditioned by the social capital of an individual within their professional network. To do so, different measures from Social Network Analysis are used. An exploratory study on a group of 199 students is presented. The studied Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) media are electronic mail, telephone, Skype, and Facebook. The results show the important position of an actor in the networks of exchanges. The results also show that ICT uses have different contexts involving different degrees of confidence in the network. Email is shown to be influenced by trust centrality and centrality at work while telephone is more influenced by influence centrality. The authors conclude on the prospects for future research.