Lauren Silver POLS 540: Political Participation 9-24-09

Robert Putnam, in Tuning In, Tuning Out: The Strange Disappearance of Social Capital
in America, presents evidence demonstrating that American social capital has been decreasing for
decades and presents a case attempting to explain why, particularly given that education levels
have risen within all educational levels since the decline in social capital began. Putnam defines
social capital as features of social lifenetworks, norms, and trustthat enable participants to
act together more effectively to pursue shared obectives.! "e lists a number of possible
explanatory factors, including time pressure, residential mobility, economic hardship, changes in
the composition of the labor force and in marriage and the family, growth of the welfare state,
and technological changes, among others.
"owever, for any of these factors to be deemed the cause of declining social capital,
Putnam outlines four criteria that must be met# $% the explanatory factor must be correlated with
trust and civic engagement& '% the correlation must not be spurious (i.e., there must not be some
third factor causing both simultaneously%& )% the proposed explanatory factor must be changing
in a way that is relevant to decreasing social capital& and *% the proposed explanatory factor
cannot be the result of declining social capital.
Putnam first establishes a broad reason for the decline in social capitalgenerational
effects, rather than life+cycle or period effectsare at the root of this decline. ,n other words,
there is something fundamentally different about being born prior to vs. after -orld -ar ,, that is
at play.
After presenting evidence that exonerates! the possible other explanatory factors,
Putnam concludes that television likely is to blame for the decline in social capital that began in
the $.*/0s. Putnam presents a detailed and compelling case, however, he raises the most obvious
limitation of this conclusion himself# 1how much of this effect is self+selection and how much
Lauren Silver POLS 540: Political Participation 9-24-09
causal remains much debated.! Although he points this out in the context of the impact of
television viewing on children, the same applies to adults and civic engagement. ,n other words,
his conclusion satisfies criteria ) and *, but does not necessarily satisfy criteria $ and 'that
television viewing is correlated with civic engagement and trust and that no other third factor is
responsible for individuals0 television viewing as well as their lack of civic engagement. As
Putnam points out, 2ost studies that report a negative correlation between television watching
and community involvement are ambiguous with respect to causality, because they merely
compare different individuals at a single time.! 2oreover, Putnam has not debunked the
possibility that the relationship between television viewing and civic engagement emerges due to
selection bias, i.e., that people who are more likely to spend more time watching television also
are less likely to be oiners and trusters.