The Influence of New Communication Technologies on Undergraduate Preferences for Social Capital Formation, Maintenance, and Expenditure William R. Kennan, Vincent Hazleton, Melissa Janoske, and Melissa Short 1 This article reports on a survey measuring how university students communicate with various audiences and found that the use of technology centers on social (rather than work or task) functions. Results suggest that social capital involves a choice among various communication technologies. The preference for and attachment to cell phones, instant messaging, and e-mail and the willingness to use technology as a part of an approach to engaging in social capital formation, maintenance, and use marks college age individuals as unique. Results also suggest a collision of sorts in which individuals with very diverse approaches to social capital must find ways to come together, to adapt, and to cooperate to produce the very outcomes that many social capital theorists have lamented the loss of. The importance of new communication technologies is widely recognized by public relations professionals. However, there appears to be little consensus or even discussion concerning the underlying processes that might account for success or failure in the use of these technologies in public relations. Two emergent ideas from the scholarly literature of public relations seem useful in addressing this issue. The first of these ideas is the view of public relations as public relationships. In the present study this idea is reflected in the Social Capital Theory of Public Relations (Hazleton and Kennan, 2006; Hazleton and Kennan, 2000) which links social capital to other forms of capital returns to organizations. The second idea has been labeled the “Co-creationist Perspective of Public relations (Botan and Taylor, 2004; Botan and Hazleton, 2006). The co-creationist perspective views publics as active rather than passive participants in public relationships. So in the present study we examine how our survey respondents use new technologies from both a social capital and relationship perspective. The result is a better understanding of an important emergent public’s use of new technologies in communication. Public Relations Journal Vol. 2, No. 2, Spring 2008 © 2008 Public Relations Society of America William R. Kennan, Ph.D., is Professor of Communication in the College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences at Radford University, bkennan@radford.edu. Vincent Hazleton, Ph.D., APR, Fellow PRSA, is Professor of Communication in the College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences at Radford University, vhazleto@radford.edu. Melissa Janoske, M.Sc., is Instructor of Communication Studies at Lynchburg College, janoske.m@lynchburg.edu. Melissa Short, M.Sc., is Information Security Policy, Awareness and Training Coordinator at Longwood University, shortm@longwood.edu.