Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Research on the Internet’s impact on social capital has generally ignored its inherent sociability (Williams, 2006). In fact, the purpose of some of the most popular websites – such as Facebook and MySpace – is to increase one’s social network. Reporting the results of a survey of 507 undergraduates, this study finds that social networking use was positively associated with online bridging and bonding, but on the whole, these gains did not translate into offline contexts. Facebook intensity, defined as using relatively more of the social networking functions of the site, was associated with gains in offline bridging and bonding. In addition, being motivated to use social networking websites for their intended purpose – to stay connected to others – was positively associated offline social capital, but using them to bolster one’s public image was negatively associated with it. Discussion focuses on the implications of online social capital.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Intuition and theory argue that members of a social network should be more persuasive than strangers because of reputation effects. On the other hand, advocates are likely to reside in relatively homogeneous social circles where persuasion is not possible because of selection effects. This paper examines whether the reputation or selection effects predominate using voter mobilization as a test case. In two separate experiments, volunteers were asked to list friends with whom they would be comfortable talking about the importance of voting and might require encouragement to turnout. Each list was then randomly assigned to a treatment group that was exposed to voting discussions and a control group where no voting related discussion occurred. Voter turnout of the treatment and control groups was collected from official turnout records. Not only did the peer-to-peer mobilization strategy fall well short of the 7-10 percentage point boost in turnout generated by strangers, outreach from friends and neighbors failed to mobilize voters altogether. The conclusion is that selection effects outweigh reputation effects and conformity within social networks is driven by subtle cues rather than explicit advocacy.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In this paper, I examine how nationhood is reproduced in and through the students’ everyday social relations. First, I demonstrate how a nationally demarcated university system patterns the students’ social relations along national lines. The students choose their friends not because they share the same nationality, but because they are there. These institutions make nationhood a parameter – not a criterion – of their friendship choices. Second, I examine how the students’ social relations are simultaneously reproduced through the interactional practices in which they routinely engage. Through language choices, discursive practices, and embodied stances, the students communicate, constitute, and reproduce nationhood as a relevant feature of their day-to-day interactions. Institutions provide national paths along which the students’ social relations take shape, and interactional practices make nationhood a salient feature of those relations. The students come to the university to pursue diverse objectives, but they leave as Romanians and Hungarians.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: My paper examines how punk and alternative rock subcultures have created their own commercially independent media, such as independent record labels and fanzines, through a so-called "do-it-yourself ethic." The formation of independent media is a response to the growing concentration of power among corporate conglomerates in the entertainment and music industries. The do-it-yourself ethic gives people involved with punk and alternative rock music democratic access to a means of creative expression, empowering them to be cultural participants rather than just consuming spectators. In many cases, it also enables them to use music as a vehicle of protest and activism, a kind of "public sphere" that gives voice to viewpoints marginalized by mainstream media while facilitating dialogue about critical social issues. My paper gives special attention to the "riot grrrl" movement and subculture, a collective of young women who sought to revitalize feminism by using fanzines and music as media for consciousness-raising and community organizing.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Many scholars link standard (family-unfriendly) workplace policies and practices to gender inequality, but it has been difficult to determine whether corporate work-family policies actually benefit women’s careers. Using national data on the sex and race composition of the managerial workforce and the personnel policies and benefits of over 800 U.S. private sector establishments, we investigate whether corporate work-family policies increase women’s representation in management. We distinguish between policies that help caregivers, who are still disproportionately women, subscribe to the “ideal worker norm” of unconditional devotion to work and work-family policies that challenge this norm. In fixed effects models with extensive control variables, we find that work-family policies that make minimal changes to existing expectations for committed workers such as child care benefits benefit women’s careers. Those policies that involve more substantial changes to the institutionalized expectations of when, where, and how much work is done do not succeed in moving more women into management.