Information sharing and the dimensions of social capital in Second Life

Abstract

Earlier research has shown that the virtual world of Second Life is an environment that fosters the emergence of social capital. The central finding of this study is the pertinence of emotional communication and information sharing in the emergence of social capital in Second Life, and consequently, the significance of emotional intelligence as a basis for successful social and informational exchange. The emergence of social capital in Second Life is deeply affected by the dialectic of the conflicting expectations and experiences of the environment. The emergence of social capital in Second Life may be described as a process of accumulation of emotional intelligence that forms a basis for the exploitation of available structural and relational affordances of social and information exchange. The study is based on qualitative analysis of open-ended data collected using a web survey of Second Life users.