Sightings: Research Overview: Internet and Community

Topic: Internet + Community

While online communities and social software are crucial to making more of networks, here we are concerned with local community online and looking into the confusion about the word 'community' online. This is included for people who may be unfamiliar with the internet's affect on communities.

Really community?

Since the beginning of the popular use of the World Wide Web and books such as The Virtual Community, by Howard Rheingold (1993), the term community in the context of the Internet has been muddied. When we hear the word community on the internet, it is important to differentiate between the first meaning of community which denotes relationships based on regional or geographical situations, and the second meaning which denotes relationships based on common interests or characteristics.

In our project, Community, Arts and the Internet, we mean to focus on the geographical sense of community. Yet, it helps to clarify two concepts: an online community and a local online community. Our project is concerned foremost with local online community, but it is important to define both.

What is online community or 'online social networks'?

To clarify the term, researchers have made this concept more distinct by referring instead to online social networks. In the best examples of these online social networks- language, interests and identities define the situations where people gather. People make connections through an interest or identity where they can share information, advice and support. These online social networks can spring up by either being developed by individuals, groups, or companies.

Individuals are attracted to connecting in places where they can share ideas, and where they can be vulnerable and authentic members of a group. It is unerstandable that newbies or those new to using the Internet feel a sudden lack of identity when they go online. For the first time they are faceless, and voiceless; and are asked to choose a username as if creating a new identity. This aspect of being online has been exploited most unfortunately by paedophiles and research academically by cybertheoreticians and sociologists.

In contrast, avid members of online social networks may not see a difference between their off-line and on-line selves. For example, when a newbie offends net-etiquette in some manner by not observing codes of social conduct, they are spurned or kicked out of these online communities. It is possible that through experience, a newbie user would eventually come to understand that his online self as an extension of his identity, and a useful resource for forming identity, developing ideas, and making professional or personal connections. Scientists are studying this phenonmenon.

One of the latest trends in publishing online is personal journalling, where users open their lives to the web, and their online community of friends, albeit with some important details often reserved or protected. To someone new to the internet, it may seem strange that someone is publishing stories about their dog, but looking at a list of links on their pages shows that this person is not alone in sharing the tedium and poetry of daily life. Examples of such journals can be found on Live Journal http://livejournal.com/

It is possible to imagine, that through constant sharing of ideas and allowing for trust, relationships are built, and the person participating feels this is a community for them. Also, it is easy to imagine the advantages and benefits for using online networks as a way to develop professional or personal ties.

What then is local online community?

Local online community development seeks to create an online community where the members would be joined by their locality as a common interest. Local online communities tend to be a public service offering. Local governments are searching for ways to promote this kind of development as a way to expand overburdened services. Volunteer organisations are searching for ways to increase citizens' participation. Community outreach programs are looking for ways to connect isolated groups such as mothers with toddlers or older people.

When online services are developed for the (local) public, the issue of the digital divide takes on a greater importance, especially if people are being excluded from key opportunities and services in their area because they don't have access to computers.

Local online community projects often have a community access area offered as part of their service. These drop-in centres where people would have access to computer use and training become an important part of building the capacity necessary for people to participate in this type of community.

Step One? Access and Training

In 1997, a report published by IBM in the UK entitled The Net Result: Social Inclusion and the Information Society focused on the issues of the digital divide. (Partial web archive available) They identified needs, including ¹:

Public Access (Section 4.33)
Local networking initiatives (Section 5)
"Ongoing, externally funded advice and help which they can trust and understand their needs" (Section 4).

Six years later in 2003, these needs are being met.

In the UK and Ireland (as elsewhere) training programmes and community access centers are providing points of access, and delivering skills-based training for community citizens. Local authorities are delivering effective public services online. In April 2003, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister issued 58 'Beacon Awards' for best practice in this area.
Local networking initiatives are established as working models in the US and are being developed in Europe. Not-for-profit amateur and community wireless WANs (Wide Area Networks) are creating viable free (or cheap) access options. http://www.irishwan.org/
Externally funded and sympathetic support can be provided by open source technologies. These have the potential to offer economical ICT solutions for communities. Educators, SMEs (small to medium enterprises) and not-for-profits now are becoming aware of the benefits of open source technology.

"Open Source is driven by an ethos of cooperation, community and volunteerism, and it is equal in quality and creativity to any off-the-shelf product... Open Source is well equipped for the job; a not-for-profit collective, believing in transparency and freedom of information, and governed by the philosophy of working for the common good." From NIOSC, Northern Ireland Open Source Community http://www.niosc.org/.
NIOSC has been organized to raise awareness of the open source movement by NICVA, (Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action) which deals with a range of voluntary, community and charitable groups in Northern Ireland.

It seems technology is rising to the challenges of social inclusion, but some questions are still unanswered.

"Many local communities which are not integrated or are dysfunctional will need intervention to help build their capacity to exploit the technology and participate fully in society." (p5, Findings and Recommendations from The Net Result)

It is possible that you will find communities in which residents have taken a full range of skills-based computer courses, and community centres which are supplied with a wide variety of tools. But this does not mean there is the motivation and interest to apply these tools.

What is missing?

Why isn't access enough?

Linda Phipps in her article "New Communications Technologies: A conduit for social inclusion" ² discusses how many ICT initiatives on behalf of communities have focused on "access and hardware" without consulting with the communities themselves on their needs. Skills-based training and access to hardware does not ensure adoption of technology because important cultural and social factors are often overlooked or not addressed when such initiatives are proposed. She points out in her conclusion, p 62

"Tackling social exclusion has most particularly been defined in economic terms, in terms of job outputs. Increasingly, the link between interdependence between social and economic factors is being recognized but more weight could still be given to the development of skills as a non-work objective -- as prerequisites for greater engagement within and across communities... Many people in excluded groups may not be seeking employment by virtue of their age, circumstances, disability, etc. Agencies seeking to tackle social exclusion need to facilitate access to skills for social purposes, self-respect, independence and to build 'community capacity' and well as to grow 'employment' skills." (p42)

If we consider that cultural projects in communities have proved their ability to address issues of social exclusion; and that social exclusion exists outside the digital divide, and might only be exacerbated by the introduction of ICTs in a community- the potential is there for cultural technology projects to increase participation, provide motivation and give meaning to the skills participants can acquire.

It is a potential, but also a challenge.

Read about TextTales, in which a technologist collaborated with a group of local historians and community residents in Dublin.

Notes

The Net Result: Social Inclusion in the Information Society. Report of the National Working Party on Social Inclusion (INSINC). published by IBM, 1997 UK
New Communications Technologies: A conduit for social inclusion. Linda Phipps, St William's Foundation, New York. Information, Communication & Society 3:1 2000, p39-68.

Research Overview: Internet + Community