Social Capital as a Communicative Paradigm

Abstract

This paper discusses the relationship between information culture and social capital, a phenomenon which has lately been brought forth as a decisive factor in human health and wellbeing. The phenomenon may be seen as an umbrella concept for all the advantages an individual can get from social support. It has been studied especially by researchers in social and health sciences, whereas information and communication sciences have paid considerably less attention to it, although it has implicitly been a generally accepted fact that the single individual is formed by his or her social environment. The power of the social environment and communication on the members in a collective particularly stresses the social malleability of the individual. The importance of information culture in this process is brought up for discussion in this paper.