Examining the Relationship between Iranian Facebook Users Social Capital and their Real Civil Participation

Over the last decade¡ social networks became ubiquitous as the latest option the Internet provided individuals with. This study is significant because social networks have received public attention and there are many of them right now. Among all virtual social networks¡ Facebook enjoys a distinguished position¡ because it is the most widely used social network in the world. This research aims to shed lights on the relationship between social capital in Facebook and users’ civil participation in real world. Purposeful snowball sampling was used to select 674 individuals to take part in the online survey by filling in a questionnaire. The findings indicate that there is a positive significant relationship between social capital in Facebook and users’ civil participation in reality. Furthermore¡ among social capital indicators¡ there are six indicators explaining users’ civil participation¡ i.e. openness/closeness of friends’ network; network’s concentration; conditions for accessing resources; gap between existing and expected resources; observing norms and regulations; institutional/civil trust as well as interactions’ norms.