The Long Arm of Facebook – Social Media as a Tool for Survival in Informal Settlements
Facebook fulfils many functions. Users engage with this platform for a myriad of reasons, and these are well documented and researched. In white informal settlements in Gauteng, South Africa, residents are using Facebook for survival. In this qualitative study, participants in two white informal settlements share how they connect with donors (“sponsors”) through Facebook, and how their active Facebook “marketing” campaigns secure a steady stream of donations. This intersects the link between social capital and poverty, and it challenges the notion that “the poor” universally lacks bridging social capital – loose social ties with people in higher socio-economic brackets. Through in-depth, semistructured interviews, participants explain how they use Facebook to increase their bridging social capital and to leverage their networks for the purpose of “getting by”.
