Measuring Social Capital in the Domain of Community Wireless Networks

The literature shows that Community Wireless Networks (CWNs) have a broad range of social and economic benefits. One particular account of studies shows that CWSNs create social capital. However, these studies lack empirical evidence and have conceptual and methodological limitations. We use the social network analysis approach to measure social capital created in the domain of CWNs, focusing on its network dimension. We used a survey to collect data about participants of 26 CWNs and treated them as social capital. We modeled this intangible asset as a bipartite graph composed of two sets of nodes: a set of groups of participants and a set of CWNs. The edges between these two sets represent the size of these groups. The model is constructively used to measure and analyze the social capital created in the domain of CWNs. Some modeling, conceptual and analytical details are provided to guide future endeavors.