Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
This article examines the democratic potential of online communities by investigating the influence of network heterogeneity on social tolerance in an online gaming environment. Online game communities are potential sources of bridging social capital because they tend to be relatively heterogeneous. Causal analyses are conducted using structural equation modeling with survey data collected in a three-wave panel of online game players in Japan. Results show that the heterogeneous composition of online community causally enhances social tolerance toward community members within the online gaming setting. Furthermore, results show that enhanced social tolerance toward online community members is generalized to offline settings. This causal process suggests that online communities provide access to bridging social capital by gathering heterogeneous populations around shared contexts.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Tetsuro Kobayashi (2010) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 10 related papers. Consider them for comparative context: