Immigration and Social Capital in the Age of Social Media

American Social Institutions and a Korean-American Women’s Online Community

Inbunden, Engelska, 2016

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Beskrivning

In this new age of social media, the role of online ethnic networks is as important as offline ethnic networks—families, friends, etc.—in helping immigrants adjust to their new country. This is something that has received very little attention in the academic field of international immigration which Oh hopes to rectify through this book. He focuses on the five American social institutions (immigration, welfare, education, housing, and finance) to explore this topic through the lens of married Korean-American women. In their online "MissyUSA" community, the largest Korean-American women's online community in North America, they share a wide range of information about the rules of each of these social institutions as they work together to navigate American society. Oh explores how the “MissyUSA” community creates two distinctive forms of social capital: social resources and social support. For some of its members (inquirers or information seekers), the “MissyUSA” community functions as an important source of their information (social resources) about the rules of the American social institutions. Likewise, it also functions as a network of social supporters (respondents or information providers) for those information seekers. Here, what makes this book a significant one is the fact that these social supporters are distinctively identified as instrumental guiders (information describers, expositors, confirmers, and advisors) and emotional supporters (companions, encouragers, and critics). By researching the lives of Korean-American women who are members of the "MissyUSA" community, Oh's book works to understand how a sub-set of the Korean-American community shares information about American institutions and uses the internet to do so.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2016-02-18
Mått:157 x 240 x 24 mm
Vikt:562 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:256
Förlag:Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN:9781498519267

Utforska kategorier

Medievetenskap inom Samhälle och politik
Migration inom Samhälle och politik
Sociologi inom Samhälle och politik

Mer om författaren

Joong-Hwan Oh is associate professor of sociology at Hunter College of the City University of New York.

Recensioner i media

Joong-Hwan Oh tackles an intriguing topic.... [T]his book makes a valuable contribution to the field of immigration studies and the growing area of social media research.... The details of immigrant experiences as they attempt to deal with the specific types of American social institutions as investigated in this book represent an aspect of immigrant experience not heavily explored elsewhere. This book also sheds useful light onto the ways in which social media serve as a new and emerging space for constructing alternative immigrant social networks