SOCIAL

NETW

ORKING W

ITHOUT

SOCIA

L

CLASS

?

THE

ROLE O

F TR

UST BET

WEE

N LOW

-INCOME

JOB S

EEKER

S AND

MIDDLE

-CLA

SS E

MPLOYE

RS FO

R THE

INDIA

N JOB-P

ORTAL

BABAJOB.C

OM

IAMCR 2

015 – DIG

ITAL D

IVID

E WORKIN

G GROUP

MONTREAL J

ULY 1

2TH

- 16TH 2

015

ANIL KUNNEL

BABAJOB‘S SOCIAL NETWORKING PORTAL

2

SOCIAL NETWORKING WITHOUT SOCIAL CLASS?

Babajob is the first site that tries to connect low-income-job seekers and (private) employers for jobs as drivers, maids, cooks or housekeepers through a collaborative social network approach

Babajob was founded in 2007 by Sean Blagsvedt (former Microsoft Research), based in Bangalore (Bengaluru)

uses their website, voice services, SMS-texting and hired mediators to connect users

LOW-INCOME EMPLOYMENT SECTOR

3

SOCIAL NETWORKING WITHOUT SOCIAL CLASS?

- Babajob’s approach is based on A. Krishna‘s research on poverty which claims that people get out of poverty through better job information in the low-income job sector

- According to Krishna’s research, poverty is a dynamic, fluent concept: „Contacts providing information are critical for most cases of successful diversification. [...] [T]he availability of an external contact, a friend or more often a relative already established in the city, was critical for a households’ successful break from poverty.“ (Krishna 2004: 130)

- Usually, there are only informal ways of finding a new job, mostly by using personal contacts

- Babajob attempts to offer informational efficiency for both job seekers and employers:

„I mean, literally, I read [Krishna’s] paper, I thought ‘wow’ if we had just ‘LinkedIn’ for the village that would be fine.’” (Sean Blagsvedt, Founder)

4

“I have told many friends, but they are not helping me out. And it also takes almost two, three months to find a job through them. So I contacted an agent to find me work. My friends they take every job that is good, they take it themselves. Whichever job is bad, they tell me.“ (Job Seeker)

GROUNDED THEORY APPROACH

5

SOCIAL NETWORKING WITHOUT SOCIAL CLASS?

QUALITATIVE STUDY1.visit to Bangalore, observation of local factors such as the milieu of job seekers and employers and the daily routine at Babajob2.first interview phase with Babajob staff and experts

Babajob staff (7), employment sector NGOs and technology researchers (5), job seekers test group (5)

3.second interview phase with network participants: job seekers Ulsoor district (7), job seekers Indiranagar district

(7), employers (6)

RESEARCH QUESTIONS – BASIC EXPLORATION•How does Babajob get their low-income job seekers online?•How do two socially different groups connect online in a network?•How efficient is the communication in the network?•What is the role of trust and distrust between users?

INTERVIEW RESULTS

6

SOCIAL NETWORKING WITHOUT SOCIAL CLASS?

„So you have people who don’t have phones, who are living in sub-existential living conditions. Maybe you have a mother who is working as a maid, the father is drunk. The kids are still in school, in government schools without fees, so she doesn’t have to pay fees. And they just manage. You live from your salary to your salary. They are always living on loans [...] it’s a vicious cycle.“

„Probably a similar family whose kids are outgrown, they are also working, they are able to contribute. Or where husband and wife are both economically viable, they’re both working and a little more comfortable. They are able to educate their children, because both parents are working. Therefore their daughter or son can work in an office. Their kids will probably be IT-students. The generations then get better and better.“ (Babajob staff)

THE GROUP OF JOB SEEKERS IS VERY DIVERSE

INTERVIEW RESULTS

7

SOCIAL NETWORKING WITHOUT SOCIAL CLASS?

„[The employers are] people with disposable income, people who work, where both partners work. People who have kids. And people who have a broader worldview, who travel abroad a lot. It doesn’t bother them to do something online. It’s not something that they have to learn how to switch on a computer.”

“[On the other side,] [y]ou could still have a family, say two kids, mother, father, both are working. Working at mid- to low-level jobs, as in an office, which means that he might do something like data-entry. He’s just handling day-to-day accounts. His wife may be a secretary somewhere. Together they might be earning 20.000 to 30.000 Rs. a month. 8.000 to 10.000 for a rent, another 5.000 on transport, the remaining on your kids’ fees, it’s a squeeze.“ (Babajob staff)

THE GROUP OF EMPLOYERS ARE EQUALLY DIVERSE

8

SOCIAL NETWORKING WITHOUT SOCIAL CLASS?

INDICATORS OF A DIGITAL DIVIDE IN ACCESS TO BABAJOB‘S NETWORK

job seekers employers

physical accessibility* access through mobile phones or mediators, rarely internet cafés

access through PC and mobile phones, payment necessary

affectiveaccessibility*

random, no real emotional involvement or integration in daily life

no real emotional involvement, but an efficient tool to find labor

suitability* another employment agency that you can try

fits the needs as a search engine and agency

ICT literacy low to no experience basic ICT skills

connectivity hard to get in touch with employers online, need assistance

don’t really want to get in touch, need assistance

trust Low towards employers, high towards Babajob

Low towards job seekers, moderate towards Babajob

* compare van de Wijngaert 2005

INTERVIEW RESULTS

SOCIAL NETWORKING WITHOUT SOCIAL CLASS?

„I’ve had a maid who used to rob stuff. She stole clothes from the terrace and her children used to collect all my Dad’s new shirts. I’ve had maids who just sat and watched TV the whole day, you know. My sister’s diaper was only changed once or twice a day, when ideally it should be changed nine to eight times. Things like that. When you try and confront them, we don’t get any response. They say ‚no, but we’ve changed the diaper.’ Stuff like that.“ (Employer)

„Now I work at a house on the opposite road which pays a thousand Rs. and I cook a little bit and most of the time I clean the house. [...] I got the job through my sister in law. I’m looking only for a better job because the rent itself is 1.000 Rs. So what will I eat if all my earnings go for the rent? [...] It’s 1.000 and I pay 1.000. So I’ve got nothing to eat, that’s why I look for a job.“ (Job seeker)

TRUST AND DISTRUST IN BABAJOB‘S NETWORK

9

MOST OF THE INTERVIEWEES EXPERIENCED SOME KIND OF FRAUD,THERE IS A HUGE AMMOUNT OF SOCIAL DISTRUST

SOCIAL NETWORKING WITHOUT SOCIAL CLASS?

„Trust or lack of trust may be a key factor in determining whether online relationships will thrive and move to deeper levels, providing reliable social support, or whether they will remain weak ties that provide little benefit to the individual and do the little to build social capital.“ (Green 2007: 43)

TRUST AND DISTRUST IN BABAJOB‘S NETWORK

10

„In terms of community, social capital makes the difference between individual connectivity and community connectivity. Social capital benefits include the ability to trust network members, to have common language and to depend on network-based mechanisms to manage behaviours.“ (Haythornthwaite 2007: 129)

THE TRUST OR DISTRUST BETWEEN INDIVIVUAL USERS INFLUENCE THE OVERALL COMMUNICATION STRUCTURES OF BABAJOB‘S NETWORK

11

SOCIAL NETWORKING WITHOUT SOCIAL CLASS?TRUST AND DISTRUST IN BABAJOB‘S NETWORK

trust and distrust

relational trust is the assumption of convergent mutual expectations about future conduct in social relationships, a converging shared identity leads to confidence

relational distrust is the assumption of divergent mutual expectations about future conduct in social relationships, a diverging shared identity leads to scepticism

network communication

CONVERGING EXPECTATIONS

12

SOCIAL NETWORKING WITHOUT SOCIAL CLASS?

1. behavioral dimension (experience of interaction) users integrate their past experiences into their reception salary negotiations are a big problem if the wages are not

standardized only a few incentives for continuous use of Babajob

2. cognitive dimension (trustworthiness)- reputation system is still very random (ratings, uploaded

references…)- social connections (friends of friends) not really working- no real standards for profile use and personal content

(image-building strategies)

3. affective dimension (sense of belonging) Babajob is not perceived as a community, but rather an

agency or search engine no interest in altruistic goals difficult to develop the social capital necessary for an online

network

DIMENSIONS OF RELATIONAL TRUST AND DISTRUST IN BABAJOB‘S NETWORK

CONCLUSION

13

SOCIAL NETWORKING WITHOUT SOCIAL CLASS?

the trust and distrust between users influence the general structural stability of Babajob’s social online network on a meso level

building trust in a network is a multi-dimensional venture, communicated on a behavioral, cognitive and affective level

extensive work needs to be put into the interaction design in order to build shared identities and use them as „social glue“

interactional rules and routines need to be established and because of the high diversity of users, a lot of the informal communication needs to be formalized

connectivity and its relation to trust, participation and access should be further considered in digital divide research, especially with diverse user groups

TRUST CAN BE ONLY BUILT IN A SOCIAL NETWORK IF IT FEATURES CONVERGENT AND FORMALIZED EXPECTATIONS AMONG ITS USERS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Endreß, Martin (2008): Fungierendes Vertrauen – Eine prä-reflexive wie meta-reflexive Ressource. Vortrag Berlin 2008.

Engesser, Sven (2013): Die Qualität des Partizipativen Journalismus im Web. Springer.

Krishna, Anirudh (2004): Escaping Poverty and Becoming Poor: Who Gains, Who Loses, and Why? In: World Development, Vol. 32 (1), S. 121-136.

Kunnel, Anil/Quandt, Thorsten (2015): Relational Trust and Distrust: Ingredients of face-to-face and media-based communication. Unpublished.

Luhmann, Niklas (1979). Trust and power: Two works by Niklas Luhmann. Wiley: Chichester.

Maring, Matthias (Hrg) (2010): Vertrauen – zwischen sozialem Kitt und der Senkung von Transaktionskosten. Karlsruhe: KIT Scientific Publishing.

Möllering, Guido (2013): Process views of trusting and crises. In: Bachman/Zaheer (Hrg): Handbook of Advances in Trust Research, 1-18.

Gill, S. S. (2004): Information Revolution and India. A Critique. Neu Delhi: Rupa & Co.

Giddens, Anthony (1991): The Consequences of Modernity. Polity Press.

Putnam, Robert D. (2000): Bowling Alone. The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.

Quandt, Thorsten (2012): What‘s left of trust in a network society? Anevolutionary model and critical discussion of trust and societal communication. In: European Journal of Communication, Vol. 27, 1, 7-21.

Van de Wijngaert, Lidwien (2005): Old and New Media: A Threshold Model of Technology Use. In: Oostendorp et al. (Hrsg.): Creation, Use, and Deployment of Digital Information. London: LEA.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!