Community Informatics: Shaping Computer-Mediated Social Networks

by Loader; Brian D.

• ISBN13: 9780415231114
• ISBN10: 0415231116
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-10-19
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Community groups, social support networks, voluntary agencies and government organizations are all actively exploring the potential of the new information and communication technologies to bring about democratic development and renewal. A rich variety of social experiments in what has become known as Community Informatics is now beginning to provide useful research findings and exciting examples of innovative applications. This book sets down some of the defining features of a Community Informatics approach and some of the common themes which are emerging. In particular it considers sustainability, employment, community management, public service provision, and local learning. This edited collection brings together leading exponents of Community Informatics from around the world and critically evaluates their experiences.

Table of Contents

Contributors	x
Foreword	xix
Howard Rheingold
Preface	xxiii
Community informatics: themes and issues	1	(10)
Leigh Keeble
Brian D. Loader
Staten Island stories - handing over the tools of video communi-creation	11	(6)
Perry Bard
PART I Community informatics as place and space
Physical place and cyberplace: the rise of networked individualism	17	(26)
Barry Wellman
Creating community in conspiracy with the enemy	43	(10)
Erik Stolterman
The technological story of a women's centre: a feminist model of user-centred design	53	(18)
Eileen Green
Leigh Keeble
The safety Net? Some reflections on the emergence of computer-mediated self-help and social support	71	(18)
Nicholas Pleace
Roger Burrows
Brian D. Loader
Sarah Nettleton
Steve Muncer
PART II The experience of community informatics
Community networks and access for all in the era of the free Internet: `Discovering the Treasure' of community	89	(12)
Giovanni Casapulla
Fiorella De Cindio
Laura Anna Ripamonti
On crafting a study of digital community networks: theoretical and methodological considerations	101	(17)
Nicholas W. Jankowski
Martine Van Selm
ed Hollander
Community networking in Russia: identifying the research agenda	118	(11)
Sergei Stafeev
Some lessons of social experiments with technology	129	(20)
Birgit Jger
Change agency and women's learning: new practices in community informatics	149	(28)
Anne Scott
Margaret Page
PART III Electronic empowerment and surveillance
Social capital and cyberpower in the African-American community: a case study of a community technology centre in the dual city	177	(28)
Abdul Alkalimat
Kate Williams
Online forums as a tool for people-centred governance: experiences from local government in Sweden	205	(15)
Agneta Ranerup
Surveillance in the community: community development through the use of closed-circuit television	220	(20)
C. William R. Webster
John Hood
The techno-flaneur: tele-erotic re-presentation of women's life spaces	240	(23)
Tamara Seabrook
Louise Wattis
PART IV Policy implications of community informatics
Community informatics, community networks and strategies for flexible networking	263	(21)
Michael Gurstein
Cultivating society's civic intelligence: patterns for a new `world brain'	284	(21)
Doug Schuler
Participating in the information society: community development and social inclusion	305	(19)
Peter Day
Communities and community e-gateways: networking for social inclusion	324	(18)
Sonia Liff
Fred Steward
Glossary	342	(3)
Bibliography	345	(33)
Index	378