Collaboration and the Knowledge Economy: Issues, Applications, Case Studies Paul Cunningham and Miriam Cunningham (Eds) IOS Press, 2008 Amsterdam ISBN 978–1–58603–924-0 Does ICT Use Enhance Social Capital? Some Evidence from A Survey in Twelve EU Regions Karsten GAREIS 1 , Tobias HÜSING 1 and Ranald RICHARDSON 2 1 empirica Gesellschaft für Kommunikations- und Technologieforschung mbH Oxfordstr. 2, 53111 Bonn, Germany, E-mail: karsten.gareis @ empirica.com 2 Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS), Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, United Kingdom, E-mail: ranald.richardson @ newcastle.ac.uk Abstract: ICTs radically open up new ways in which to address the basic challenges of regional development in the knowledge-based society. The transformative potential of ICTs resides, in particular, in the way they enable networking, learning and innovation, and empowerment. A horizontal theme that runs through all of these is social capital. A growing body of evidence suggests not only that strong social capital contributes to diffusion of ICTs within a region, but also that uses of ICT help (re-)produce social capital stocks. This paper uses data from a 2008 Internet user survey in 12 European regions in order to gain insight into the relationship between Internet use and social capital. The results suggest that Internet use, far from endangering social capital, is strongly associated with high levels of sociability, social participation and trust. This applies, in particular, to uses of so-called participative web applications. 1. Introduction In recent years the notion of social capital has attracted much interest in the public debate, in particular with regard to strategies for fostering development in the knowledge-based society and economy [4]. Social capital is understood as “the sum of the actual and potential resources embedded within, available through, and derived from the network of relationships possessed by an individual or social unit. Social capital thus comprises both the network and the assets that may be mobilized through that network” [12]. In general there is the assumption that social capital has positive effects not only on those who “own” it, but also for the community at large. This is due to the externalities generated by social behaviour, which often have the form of network externalities. High stocks of social capital in a region are associated with relative ease of the sharing of knowledge and expertise, with community building and social cohesion. Closer analysis, however, reveals that there is a need to make a distinction between different types of social capital if the purpose is to identify structures and developments that are conducive to economic development. The literature [7] distinguishes between: (a) bonding social capital, i.e. “strong ties” between like people (or organisations) in similar situations; (b) bridging social capital, i.e. more distant or “weak ties” of like persons (or organisations); and (c) linking social capital, i.e. “weak ties” which reach out to unlike people/organisations, such as those which are entirely outside of the community or in a different sector. It was Granovetter [9] who famously proclaimed “the strength of weak ties”, pointing towards the increasing importance of weak interlinkages for success in social and economic domains. It appears that the relative importance of weak ties has, indeed, Copyright © 2008 The Authors