Social Capital (Online and Offline) and Citizenship Culture

In recent years and with the growth of the Internet and online social technologies, many questions have been raised regarding the type, quality and extent of social activities in the world based on social networks. Considering the influence of online social networks on recent elections from the year 2009 until now and its following incidents, the present study aims to evaluate the effect of the social capital present in online networks on the citizenship culture of the citizens of Sanandaj. The method of the study was that of a correlational descriptive research and it employed a survey method. The questionnaire was comprised of Dmitri Williams’ standard questions and a researcher-made questionnaire for citizenship culture which had appropriate validity and reliability and was distributed to 400 respondents with the method of multistage cluster sampling. Findings show a medium of the citizenship culture average, and the focus has more been on civic engagement. From the components of civic engagement, the dimensions of attitude and belief were more regarded by the citizens rather than the components of behavior or action. The inferential results also show that the most important dimension of social capital influencing the citizenship culture is the bridging social capital present in the online space