Social Capital in Rural and Urban Communities: Testing Differences in Media Effects and Models

Abstract

This study examines whether the effects of the mass media on social capital and related processes vary between rural and urban communities. A distinction is made between indicators of social networks (association membership and neighborliness), social trust (interpersonal trust and community trust), and pro-social behaviors (voting and volunteering). We test nonrecursive structural equation models with manifest and latent variables on rural and urban U.S. samples. Media effects differ by medium and by community type. Newspaper use has positive effects in each model, while those of entertainment TV viewing are negative. Local TV news use has positive effects in only the urban model, while network TV news use has positive effects in only the rural model. In addition, there is a reciprocal relationship between social networks and social trust in the rural model, while the relationship is linear—from social networks to social trust—in the urban model.