Sharing Cultural Capital on Social Media: Social Background and Young People’s Online Sharing of Cultural Consumption

• In Event: Youth Engagement With Media: Sharing, Synthesis, and Social Capital

Abstract

As amply demonstrated, social media play an important role in building and maintaining social capital. As such, social media support flows of socially embedded and novel information within their networked structures. This is especially the case for taste performances, hence potentially supporting the grass roots acquisition of cultural capital. In this study, we focus on the prerequisite of youths’ online sharing of cultural event attendance, exploring the explanatory potential of both socio-ethnic and economic background and psychological factors. This is important given the ample evidence of class attributes as distinctive in the access to and awareness of cultural consumption. The results indicate youngsters from disadvantaged background to share relatively more text messages, photos, and videos on their cultural consumption. Moreover, expected outcomes, habit, and social normative behaviour concerning sharing behaviour are identified as key explanatory factors, especially for sharing rich (audio)-visual materials. These findings imply important venues for further grasping the emancipatory potential of social media.

Authors

• Cedric Courtois, U of Leuven

• Tess Thibaut, U of Leuven

• Hadewijch Vanwynsberghe, Ghent U

• Pieter Verdegem, Ghent U

• Anissa All, Ghent University