CAMPUS SNS WEBSITE AND THE SOCIAL CAPITAL POSSESSION
FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS
By
Xia Meng

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
Sociology
2011

ABSTRACT
CAMPUS SNS WEBSITE AND THE SOCIAL CAPITAL POSSESSION
FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS
By
Xia Meng
By the advent of Global Information Age, the social network service (SNS), represented
by Campus SNS websites, has become an important approach of online communication for
current college students. This article discusses the consequences of broad use of campus
social network service among college students by conducting a survey on RenRen.com,
which is an analogous website to Facebook.com and the most popular Campus SNS
website in China. The paper presented the evidence that college students seek for social
capital possession more intensively under the specified social environment which facilitate
the emergence of SNS websites that focused on college student users. Meanwhile, these
SNS websites play the role as medium for the social networks construction and social
capital possession of college students.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Social Network and Campus SNS Websites ..............................................................................1 
Method .......................................................................................................................................4 
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................5
Discussion
The Essence of Online Relationships through Campus SNS Websites .....................................8 
It alleviates one’s pressure in daily life...............................................................................8 
It is a way to keep freshmen from loneliness......................................................................8 
It is a display stage..............................................................................................................9 
It is a real platform for communications.............................................................................9 
It belongs to the notion of Weak Tie .................................................................................11 
It reflects ideas of Modern Theory of Interpersonal Communication ..............................12 
It is the reinforcement and supplement of interpersonal communication.........................14
Conclusion
The Possession of Social Capital based on Campus SNS Website..........................................15 
Possession of Physiological Social Capital.......................................................................16 
Possession of Emotional Social Capital............................................................................17
References................................................................................................................................19 

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Introduction: Social Network and Campus SNS Websites
The developing trend as an “information-society” and the popularization of related
information technology education has caused youngsters’ transition from juvenile period to
independent adulthood been significantly prolonged. Although most of the college students
have been adults by the time they enrolled in campus, while many of them still more or less
rely on parents economically and mentally. Being aware of the independent campus life
ahead, majority of them would suffer from “trepid inklings” which intensify their needs of
communicating, especially with their peers, to dispel the worry and unfamiliarity.
There have been many informal associations on campus besides official organizations
which are directed under traditional educational system such as school, department and
class. However, those unofficial associations are the resources and manifestations of the
interpersonal relationships of college students. The foundation of such associations is
resulted from the fundamental needs of affectional affiliation and interpersonal
communication. Judging from the social psychology aspect, the unofficial associations on
campus, to some extent, guarantee the satisfaction of desires to communicate with peers,
which I called the desire as “Peer Longing”.
The approaching of Information Age enables the Internet technology to be applied to
more circumstances. The social intercourse sphere of college students is also broadened by
the assistant of digital media. Perhaps Milgram’s conception of Six Degrees of Separation
can be best illustrated by people’s active and even zealous application of Internet in the
Information Age. According to the theory, if a person is one "step" away from each person
he or she knows and two "steps" away from each person who is known by one of the

1

people he or she knows, then everyone is no more than six "steps" away from each person
on Earth. Therefore, from the theoretical perspective the social intercourse sphere of each
individual can be broadened infinitely and finally formed a massive network, which is the
social network. Some scholars anticipate that the social intercourse sphere of college
students would be broadened infinitely by the popular application of social network
services such as Blog, IM and RSS, even breaking the “boundaries” of family and school.
Since the sphere may not be broadened “infinitely”, it has still been enlarged to a certain
extent due to the emergence of many SNS websites that are specially designed for college
students, which we call it the Campus SNS websites. These Campus SNS websites
potentially break down the spatial limit and broaden the students’ social intercourse range
from their own university to all the universities around country.
The SNS websites were originated from the United States in 2003. It took no more
than five months for SNS websites to be widely popular over the North America.
Meanwhile, the growth of Campus SNS websites drew remarkable attention among all the
SNS websites. The most famous Campus SNS website is Facebook.com, founded by
Michael Arrington in 2004. The dramatic success of Facebook.com provides a good model
for Chinese investors and entrepreneurs. Ever since the year of 2005, the number of
Campus SNS websites similar to Facebook.com increased significantly in China, including
Renren.com, Yiduo.com, Yiju.com, Zhanzuo.com and Lulian.com.
Most of the current Campus SNS websites normally use a limited-registration
approach which means it is only open to college students. By verifying the e-mail or
Internet Protocol address, those holding an “.edu.cn” e-mail or using the Internet service on

2

campus would be accepted as registered users. One of the most important features of
Campus SNS websites is the identity conformity of registered users. In addition, the
practicability of the various services embodies the value of these websites. Almost all the
user’s guide on the Campus SNS website encourages college students to upload their
personal photo, fill in their real names, gender, age and the institution they are current
studying in so every user could have their own record and profile page. The websites also
develop customized Blog pages, embedded forum group and convenient functions for
making new friends. Generally speaking, the Campus SNS can maximum the available
resources from the interpersonal relationships. College students can find another people
through the people they already know. Some can even manage their interpersonal network
resources through the application of Campus SNS websites. According to my observation,
more and more college students use Campus SNS websites to show themselves, meet new
friends in the “college student group” and earn the chances to broaden their social
intercourse sphere. From the sociological perspective, I believe that college students gain
social capital from the substantive social network constructed by the application of Campus
SNS websites in the digital world.

3

Method
I decide to discuss the social capital expansion of college students in online
communication by studying their behaviors and customs when using the Campus SNS
websites, so I put up these questions: What is the format of social capital acquiring when
students are using the Internet? Will the social capital gained from the Campus SNS
websites become substantive resource in the future? I chose Renren.com, which is currently
the most popular Campus SNS website in China, to be my core research object and sent
320 pieces of online questionnaire to the users by snowball sampling and received 297
pieces which are effective. The statistical reports lend support to my conclusion on the
social capital expansion of college students. I also conducted in-depth interview to achieve
better understanding of the interacting consistency through Internet. All the 14 interviewees
are college students from Nanjing University.

4

Literature Review
The social capital theory, in other words, is the study of the relationship between
human become the field of very important theory. Although we can trace the birth of Social
Capital theory back to classical sociologist’s theories, such as Durkheim’s concept of
collective consciousness, Simmel’s “Reciprocal Exchange” theory and Weber’s concept of
compulsory trust. However, commonly speaking, the forming of Social Capital theory is
based on the social network research. The direct theoretical source origins from American
scholars Mark Granovetter and Nan Lin’s researches on the relations between personal
social networks and his/her possessed social resources.
In the early 1970s, Granovetter raised a surprising opinion on social network. His
work is considered one of the most influential sociology papers ever written when
Granovetter demonstrated the strength of weak ties. In marketing or politics, the weak ties
enable reaching populations and audiences that are not accessible via strong ties. The
concepts of this work were later published in the related monograph "Getting a Job". Nan
Lin and his colleagues pointed out that people with high occupational status and people
with low occupational status constitute a social stratification system analog to pyramid
structure. The higher the status is, the fewer the people will be while the more power and
prestige they hold. For the reason that Strong Tie usually connects people possessing the
same or similar resources, it is not very important in the same social class. On the contrary,
Weak Tie usually become the connecting bond between different classes, thus its effects of
resources exchange between different social classes can not be neglected.
However, some researchers came to radically opposite conclusion when studying

5

domestic issues. The Chinese scholar Bian Yanjie and his colleagues conducted a research
based on the occupational mobility survey in Tianjin and pointed out that the Chinese
society has long emphasized the “interpersonal relationships” as the directing principle in
economic and social associations. The emphasis on “interpersonal relationships” is a social
behavior which promotes the benefit exchange between acquaintances thus it calls for trust
and compulsory exchange between people. Meanwhile, the urban job positions in China are
allocated by Chinese government which means it would be no problem to get a good job if
someone can build “interpersonal relationships” with officials who hold power. The
essentiality of Social networks is quite apparent from this perspective. However, Bian
Yanjie found out that it is the “actual influence” the more important factor than information
in Chinese social networks. Considering the fact that these “actual influences” are not
always legal, if there is no substantive Strong Tie between the job-seeker and the benefactor,
it is very likely that the benefactor would stop applying his/her “actual influence” due to
the constraints of opportunity cost in reciprocal exchange. In another word, the
employment channel in China is more likely to be established through the Strong Tie in
personal social networks. In a society constituted with different cultural background,
people have diverse preferences towards different social networks structures. The research
and investigation on Strong Tie and Weak Tie in labor employment could be considered as
the early research of Social Capital Theory, it established the theoretical basis of Social
Capital Theory.
The review of previous research tells us that we must consider the limiting and
shaping of specific culture and system background to the social network sphere when we

6

are studying on the possession of social capital. One social network structure may have
different effect under different system background. In our research on the social capital
possession of college students, we must consider the general condition of higher education.
We also need to consider the physical and psychological changes of college students as an
important factor which might influence their online communication behaviors.

7

Discussion: The Essence of Online Relationships through Campus SNS Websites
College students is open to accept the new thing of the group, have very strong social
demand, so SNS websites ,as emerging network social way, more acceptable to them .Why
are there so many college students getting fervid for online communication? There are
abundant theoretical interpretations related.
It alleviates one’s pressure in daily life
Prof. Zhou Xiaohong’s analysis using Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective is quite
representative among them: “Because of the anonymousness during online communication,
people usually play a new role which is different from a front stage and a back stage.
Consequently, people are able to talk about everything, share some secrets with someone
he/she don’t know for leisure and abreaction, alleviate one’s pressure in daily life. In
another word, it is the anonymousness of online communication that promotes its own
development. This interpretation is explanatory under some circumstances, while situations
are quite different on Campus SNS websites.
It is a way to keep freshmen from loneliness
Campus SNS websites are equipped with some small games such as friends buying
and selling and parking, happy farm .Through the common participation can strengthen the
freshmen who just enter the unfamiliar environment .With this scientific tool，
freshmen can
not only keep in touch with old friend but also meet new ones which help them relieve
from loneliness. Through the websites, the reality of relations have further training and
strengthening, and for some reason such as geographical space of the relationship between
the fracture caused nearly also can be sustained. The freshmen will feel love around and

8

more easy to adapt to college life.
It is a display stage
Each user has a personal pages on Campus SNS websites , users can write their own
blog recording to his or her own life, uploading photos of their own page, dressing up as
their favorite style and background music,

leaving the log message to different friends,

commenting on different affairs and setting their own instant mood as a personal signature.
They really became a master of space, and got a full power to show their individualities.
It is a real platform for communications
According to my survey, among 297 responders, 270 announced that the personal
information they filled in when they registered at Renren.com is absolutely true, which
percentage is more than 90. The personal information includes name, gender, date of birth,
current school, current department, grade and hometown. The personal information
basically covers all the information units to identify a college student. To interpret the data
in another way, majority of users on the Campus SNS websites accept the real-name system
although it is not compulsory on the websites. Besides, more than 80 percent of the
responders confirmed the authenticity of their profile picture as their real photographs.
These phenomena combine as a whole break the precondition of role playing theory.
What are the virtual reasons that cause the real-name attribute being applied through
online communication on Campus SNS websites? I think there are three major reasons:
Firstly, the identity conformity of registered users on Campus SNS websites secures the
“internal” circulation of user information. Due to the social psychological characteristic of
“Peer Longing”, most college students do not want their personal information to be known

9

and

disseminated

by

people

outside

the

group.

The

comparative

closed

“Analogous-Campus” environment make college students feel easier to post their authentic
information. Secondly, college students have strong self-awareness and strong desire to
show themselves among peers. Therefore, they are eager to display and disseminate their
life and experiences. Campus SNS websites provide the proper platform for the display.
Thirdly, there is trust exchange behavior in online communication between college students.
Such exchange of trust in online communication can be considered as demonstration of the
social exchange theory. The representative figure of the social exchange theory George
Homans asserted that the human behaviors are reasonable; they always make choices to
maximize value. As to the college students, when the basic demands of social
communication in the realistic world can not be satisfied, it generates the need of online
communication. Consequently, such need arouses the incentive and the incentive induces
the behaviors of online communication and fulfills the social needs. When users on
Campus SNS websites search for partners or friends, they usually put those who can satisfy
their communicating needs in prior. Any attributes of the user as gender, age, hometown,
current school or even constellation could become the screening criterion of other users
seeking for communicating partners. At this circumstance, whether if the personal
information be compete and true would serve as an important precondition for the reason
that both the selector and the person being selected completed the process of trust exchange.
The information on the profile page which look more complete and real or at least appears
complete would render more credibility to the person who is viewing the page. The
research data from the survey sufficiently supported my conclusions. There are 76 percent

10

of the responders admit that the reason they display real information is to “attract more
attention and build more online relationships” while more than 60 percent of the responders
announce that they are “not interested to communicate with the users who share a
incomplete profile page. So it can be concluded and predicted, more and more college
student users of Campus SNS website will comply the “real-name rules” in order to
increase their chances of building more online relationships.
It belongs to the notion of Weak Tie
By integrating the Theory of Social Capital and the empirical study into a whole, I
believe that the online relationships between college students belong to the notion of Weak
Tie in the Social Capital Theory essentially. The American sociologist Granovetter who
first raised the concept of Strong and Weak Tie believed that the Strong Tie and Weak Tie
made radically different influence between individuals, associations and between individual
and social system. The strong tie maintains the internal relationships within groups and
associations while the weak tie serve as the connecting bond between different groups and
associations. Granovetter measured the relationship strength from four dimensions: The
first one is the Interactive Frequency. Strong Tie exists between people, groups and
associations which have frequent interaction. In the contrary, Weak Tie exists between
people, groups and associations which have low interactive frequency. The second
dimension, as Granovetter asserted, was the emotional strength. The stronger is the
emotional strength, the stronger is the tie between people, groups and associations. While
when the emotions are not strong, the strength of the tie also weakens. The third dimension
comes down to the degree of intimacy. People who are closely intimate build Strong Tie

11

with each other while Weak Tie appears between acquaintances that are not very intimate.
Finally the fourth dimension points to reciprocal exchange. The more often people conduct
reciprocal exchanges, the stronger their tie is and vice versa. From the early researchers
studying on Weak Tie, I discovered their focus on the interpersonal communication and
interaction in the realistic society. However, I find that the discussion about Weak Tie based
on online communication and interactions to be woefully inadequate. Therefore, I would
like to interpret the interpersonal communication and interaction on Campus SNS websites
in a different way by applying the conception of Weak Tie.
It reflects ideas of Modern Theory of Interpersonal Communication
In retrospect of Modern Theory of Interpersonal Communication, normally there are
four phases in interpersonal interactions: Orientation Selecting, Further Communicating,
Relationship Establishing and Relationship Maintenance. The communication between
college students on Campus SNS websites also started from the orientation selecting phase
and move on to the other three phases sequentially. However, their online communication
may not cover the entire process. Comparing to the face-to-face communication in real
world, the probability that online communication approaching the relationship maintenance
phase is seen to be much lower. After the orientation selecting phase, most of the users can
keep the interacting frequency and degree of intimacy at a considerable high level. There
are two possible explanations for this phenomenon: Firstly, the users on the Campus SNS
website always screen for communication partners whose characteristics meet their
expectations and psychological needs. Once two of the users find each other as reliable
friends and a good partner to communicate with, it is an obvious thing that they will

12

communicate actively through the Internet. Secondly, the sense of novelty when making
new friends will make college students excited and facilitate their interactions. No matter if
someone is a rookie or a master user of the Campus SNS website they are all enthralled
with the interactions with their new partners during this “further communicating” phase.
My survey results show that 56.7 percent of the responded users “often make new friends
on the website”. However I also discovered that the frequency of online communication
greatly declines after the “further communicating” and “relationship establishing” phase. I
interviewed 14 Renren.com users and asked if they have experienced unconscious
relationship severance resulted from long time without contact. 13 of the interviewees
admitted that they have had such experience. Another fact is that 10 of the interviewees
announced they used to have the impetus to become real friends with those they really get
along well on Campus SNS websites. However, when they really come offline and meet
each other in the real world, many of them find it inappropriate or not suitable to become
friends. Hence, their relationship would maintain at a certain level after the offline meeting.
Only very few of them make real friends with people they meet on Campus SNS websites,
three of the interviewees said they have had such experience. Besides, many of the online
acquaintances do not have the chance to meet each other due to the spatial limit. From the
result of my in-depth interview, I conclude that although Campus SNS websites provide a
national communication platform for college students, the enlargement of social sphere
only tenable in online communication while there is limited gain of substantive social
relationships by using Campus SNS websites. The configuration of different functions on
the websites also contributes to the limited gain of substantive social relationships. Many

13

functions on the websites appeared to be relatively too simple and casual. The simple
interacting functions such as “I like it” or “say hello” perhaps will maintain the interacting
frequency at a higher rate while the interactions will become nothing but non-essential.
From the results of the survey, 53.2 percentages of the responders expressed the ideas that
they will reply the greetings when someone use the “say hello” function. In addition, 10
percent of the responders announced that they would ignore greetings from strangers.
It is the reinforcement and supplement of interpersonal communication
There is another important influence of Campus SNS website other than meeting new
friends which is to establish Internet communication with people you already know in the
realistic life. To establish online communication is usually considered as the reinforcement
and supplement of interpersonal communication in the realistic world. My data also
demonstrated that by establishing online communication, the intimacy index between
acquaintances in realistic world increases. As we can see, 50.5 percent of responders
believe that the communication on Renren.com can make them feel “more intimated with
people you know in real life”. At this circumstance, if two people are acquaint in real life,
then the online communication they established on Campus SNS website can not be simply
considered as Weak Tie while we should evaluate the degree of intimacy in real life before
judging their online relationship. In another word, if two people are closely interacted in
real life, their online communication could still be considered as Strong Tie. By then, even
simple interacting methods online could improve the degree of intimacy.

14

Conclusion: The Possession of Social Capital based on Campus SNS Website
The social capital as a theory and a perspective has emerged as one of the salient
concepts in social life in various forms and contexts in the last twenty years. From the
perspective of the entire social environment, social members are required to enhance their
ability of absorbing information because the approaching of Information Age. Just like how
the advent of industrial society changes our life style and criterion as a qualified social
member, the Information Age, perhaps more intensively, urge us to train ourselves the
ability to receive information more efficiently. The competition for the valuable job
information among job seekers perhaps best illustrated the importance of such ability. From
the perspective of the smaller environment for Chinese college students, the employment
situation became worse after the enrollment expansion since 1999. Besides, the low
frequency of involvement with life outside campus caused the increasing demands of
external information. To be more specific, there are major differences before and after the
enrollment into college. College students own much more freedom to determine their
lifestyle. Although most of them are still far from economic independence, they have the
power to manage their living expenses. Overall, the strong awareness of independence and
loose connections in real life make college students at a non-interference state. However
since it is still necessary to fulfill certain physical and psychological needs, college students
begin to appeal for online communication.
I believe what behind the increasing demand of information is the thirst for possession
of social capital. The social capital is the applicable social resource within the social
networks while the social networks are produced and re-produced by individuals in the

15

society. The college students in China live in the relatively closed environment during their
higher education. This makes it even harder for college students to cope with the society
outside campus when they are about to graduate or seeking for job. Consequently, more
and more college students begin to pay attention to the early establishment of their own
social relationship network at school. The Campus SNS websites, as a representative form
of online communication, significantly enlarge the living sphere and personal influence
domain. The application of social network services enables them to break through the
previous limit when building their social relationship network and provides more options.
Although the nature of Campus SNS websites determines the status of users to be unitary,
while it is more reliable to use Campus SNS websites when considering establish persistent
relationship. More importantly, for those who still use Campus SNS website after their
graduation, they can share the experience and information for other users who are still at
school. It could be expected that after a few years when many current college students enter
the labor market through job seeking, there will be greater probability of gaining
substantive social capital for the later users. The founders of the Campus SNS websites are
also seeking for a transformation, from a campus social network service to a campus-office
binary social network community (SNC). By then, campus-office SNC would play a more
remarkable effect to the social capital expansion.
Possession of Physiological Social Capital
The whole process of development of Campus SNS is to following the people who
gradually line the life more complete information transfer to online activities, in order to
lower the cost of

management , it makes virtual groups more and more contact with the

16

real social world . From the evolution of network social history, it is always following the
low cost principle, online social networking alternative reduces people’s social time and
material cost, or lower information expense. To communicate with the opposite gender is
the biological demand of human instinct. College students are going through the period of
fast physiological and mental changes while they have strong desire for communication
with the opposite gender. Although college students no longer need to feel worried about
being punished for having a love affair at school, however the interactions with the
opposite gender in real world is still restricted within narrow limits. Through the
interactions on the Internet, college students can look for partners of opposite gender and
communicate with them freely without anxiety. In Dr. Guo Wenbin’s research report on
College Students Online Interaction, the data shows that only 16 percent college students
make new friends of the same gender. The data from my survey also display this tendency.
78.7 percent of the responders acclaim that they tend to browse the profile page of someone
with the opposite gender more than the same gender. 62.9 percent of the responders say that
they have more online friends of the opposite gender. This illuminates the point that college
students gain physiological social capital such as the cognition and experience of sex, the
taste of romance and so on through the Weak Tie on the Internet.
Possession of Emotional Social Capital
College students combined as a social group, they cry for emotional affiliations after
leaving parents. Being aware of the independent campus life ahead, majority of them would
suffer from “trepid inklings” which intensify their needs of communicating, especially with
their peers, to dispel the worry and unfamiliarity. They travel around between family,

17

school and public domain, searching for all kinds of things related with ideals, norms and
lifestyles through the observations to their peers, making preparations to become
independent. On the profile page of Campus SNS Websites，what we could see are various
styles and colors. These styles and colors not only manifest individuality, but also represent
someone’s attitude towards life. The appearances of profile page, the settings and the music
distinguished different lifestyles and distinguished the identity of college students in an
invisible manner. In a word, college students find the right media where they can
incorporate themselves into the social system and consequently establish certain social
relationship. Coleman’s Rational Choice Theory points out that all human behaviors are the
results of rational thinking. Thus under the social background of Information Age and
higher education system revolution in China, the popularization of online communication is
the rational behavior of college students seeking for beneficial instrumental and emotional
social capital. The Campus SNS websites, to some extent, play as the medium of social
network establishment for college students.

18

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