The Social Capital On The Microblogging Platform

Ever since Evan Williams created the world’s first microblogging "Twitter" in2006, the online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts has rapidly gained worldwide popularity. They have been reshaping human society with irreversible trend throughout the world.In China, individual philosophy, behavior and habit has been transformed gradually with the returning of right to speak, the awareness of citizenship and the change of ways people access information and social communication.The political, economic and cultural fields are undergoing dramatic changes, from practical implementation to commodity exchange, and from cultural communication to social interest patterns. Microblogging, considered as a simple social networking before, has now developed into an "accelerator" that could reconstruct our society.It is the equality and interactivity of communication subjects, the inclusiveness of the contents, and the extensive radiation of communication effect that has built an information-based interpersonal platform, on which resources such as material, emotion and information could flow freely through micro social network. Group activities have been simplified and become more efficient because of the spread of those recourses. Humanism ideas, including freedom, equality, affection and communication, have been widely accepted, and have accelerated the distribution of internet resources and the online cooperation. Such resource beset in social network is called "social capital".Social capital refers to connections within and between social networks, which highlights the links between the virtual and the real world, as well as the characteristics of social capital. Comparing with the realistic social capital, the access to microblogging social capital is quite limited, and enjoys low costs. The network it relies on is weaker but much broader. However, the imbalance of the capital stock enables the gap more availability than the realistic one. If used appropriately, the capital would satisfy the individual needs for information and communication, provide platform for celebrities to fulfill their duties as role models, help group activities go smoothly, and increase efficiency of both government and enterprises. At the same time, it is possible that the two sides of the microblogging social capital would have some limits during its operation, even negative ones. This paper will explore the characteristics, positive and negative effects of social capital in microblogging by reviewing, questionnaire surveying and case studying, in order to apply the research for the stability and prosperous of our society.