Social Media and Social Capital: The Role of National Open University of Nigeria

Abstract

Within the last half decade Social Networking Sites (SNSs) like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, Second Life, NigeriaDotCom, and host of others are widely used among students nowadays. Social Capital (SC) reflects those intangible resources embedded within interpersonal relationships or social institutions. In a mixed method approach, this study investigated and reported on the SNSs usage and its relevance on social capital as well as the role plays by the National Open University Nigerian (NOUN) system in catalyzing the latter. The qualitative and quantitative method employed interviews and questionnaires on 50 and 300 subjects respectively. The subjects from Open University centres in the Nigeria’s six (6) geo-political zones were selected. This is by snowball for the focus group interview and purposive randomization for the questionnaire. The results indicated the extent of SNS usage and its influence on social capital among the students of the Open University Education System in Nigeria. It also reported of significant influence of the Open University System on the use of Social Networking Sites among the NOUN students which as well leads to social capital.

Key words: Social Capital, Social Networking Sites, Qualitative, Nigeria, NOUN