  We use exploratory factor analysis to investigate the online persistence of
known community-level patterns of social capital variance in the U.S. context.
Our analysis focuses on Facebook groups, specifically those that tend to
connect users in the same local area. We investigate the relationship between
established, localized measures of social capital at the county level and
patterns of participation in Facebook groups in the same areas. We identify
four main factors that distinguish Facebook group engagement by county. The
first captures small, private groups, dense with friendship connections. The
second captures very local and small groups. The third captures non-local,
large, public groups, with more age mixing. The fourth captures partially local
groups of medium to large size. The first and third factor correlate with
community level social capital measures, while the second and fourth do not.
Together and individually, the factors are predictive of offline social capital
measures, even controlling for various demographic attributes of the counties.
Our analysis reveals striking patterns of correlation between established
measures of social capital and patterns of online interaction in local Facebook
groups. To our knowledge this is the first systematic test of the association
between offline regional social capital and patterns of online community
engagement in the same regions.
