An Investigation Into Grassroots Initiated Networked Communities As A Means Of Addressing The Digital Divide

Despite two decades of government and commercial intervention, a digital divide persists in the UK. Access to internet connectivity and the associated tools and services that permit full participation in the information society greatly varies. Researchers argue that a more complex set of insufficiencies must be overcome and continually re-addressed to enable individuals and communities to make meaningful usage of the internet to enhance their activities. This thesis examines the discourse surrounding the digital divide and investigates one response: the establishment of grassroots initiated networked communities. These initiatives represent local neighbourhoods attempting self-provisioning solutions; appropriating technology within their own communities to connect residents to each other, and the wider world through the internet, often building on an existing set of social relationships and ongoing interaction. The research consists of a literature review, a survey of grassroots initiated networked communities in the UK, and the collaborative development of software tools to enhance community interaction working alongside two communities. An analysis of the motivations and goals of these initiatives is presented based on the survey and interviews with ten groups, providing evidence of a range of activities and a simple typology of initiatives, which I define as Pioneers, Subcultures and Cooperatives. The thesis provides recommendations to practitioners and policy makers on how best to support such initiatives, and indicates useful areas of further research. The collaborative development of software tools alongside two initiatives reveals the challenges of undertaking a participatory research approach and identifies barriers to social software adoption. I identify that grassroots community responses to the digital divide face challenges, including achieving critical mass, sponsorship, and sustainability. The research concludes by establishing that grassroots initiated networked communities are a valid response to overcoming the digital divide, and that a community approach offers shared motivation, social support, and knowledge sharing

The impact of local ICT initiatives on social capital and quality of life

This paper reviews the evidence for the effects of local ICT initiatives (‘community networks’) on neighbourhood social capital and quality of life and has been developed from the public SOCQUIT D11 report (Anderson et al, 2006)

DIY networking as a facilitator for interdisciplinary research on the hybrid city

DIY networking is a technology with special characteristics compared to the public Internet, which holds a unique potential for empowering citizens to shape their hybrid urban space toward conviviality and collective awareness. It can also play the role of a “boundary object” for facilitating interdisciplinary interactions and participatory processes between different actors: researchers, engineers, practitioners, artists, designers, local authorities, and activists. This position paper presents a social learning framework, the DIY networking paradigm, that we aim to put in the centre of the hybrid space design process. We first introduce our individual views on the role of design as discussed in the fields of engineering, urban planning, urban interaction design, design research, and community informatics. We then introduce a simple methodology for combining these diverse perspectives into a meaningful interdisciplinary collaboration, through a series of related events with different structure and framing. We conclude with a short summary of a selection of these events, which serves also as an introduction to the CONTACT workshop on facilitating information sharing between strangers, in the context of the Hybrid City III conference

MAZI Deliverable Report D2.5: – Design, progress and evaluation of the Deptford CreekNet pilot (version 2)

In this deliverable, the second in a series of three, we report on progress in the Creeknet pilot. We describe progress towards tasks identified in the Description of Work (DoW) for Task 2.2, focusing on activities in Year 2 (2017: months 13-24) and look forward to Year 3. The Creeknet pilot consists of four phases. This year, our focus has been on consolidating initial contacts made in Year 1 (Phase 1), and continuing community engagement activities alongside carrying out an initial deployment of the MAZI toolkit with a number of engaged community groups and individuals (Phase 2). In the second half of the year, as the toolkit was developed and an integrated set of tool established these groups and others were invited to engage in further trials, and feedback was gathered to further inform onward development (Phase 3). We have continued with our efforts to build upon existing relationships in Deptford Creek and further afield to help us explore the different ways in which DIY networking in the broadest sense and the use of the MAZI toolkit in particular might help address local challenges. We have reassessed some of our foci through seeking out new opportunities for engagement and trialling the MAZI toolkit. A major activity was planning and running the two day MAZI London Cross-fertilisation symposium. This created the opportunity for Creeknet participants to share their experiences and engage with the other MAZI pilots, bringing together existing community contacts in Deptford Creek, and MAZI partners, and attracted new contributors. Through our activities, working with the emerging MAZI toolkit that evolved through several iterations during the year, we have better understood local circumstances and the complexity involved in the conceptualisation of ‘DIY networking’ - it cannot be assumed to be a single notion. We have identified that both social and technological concerns can restrict its uptake, and consider routes to overcoming these challenges. We provide analysis of work carried out so far, and look towards the future activities

From Associations to Info-Sociations: Civic associations and ICTs in Two Asian Cities

Non-profit civic associations are experimenting with information communications technologies (ICTs) in their work inside ‘global cities.’ The “info-sociational” concept is introduced in this paper as a heuristic and an approach for investigating ICT-linked organizational, participatory and spatial transformations in civic associations. The info-sociational approach is applied to four cases of civic environmental associations in two ‘Asian tiger’ cities-Hong Kong and Taipei-to compare their experiments with: urban map mash-ups; digital storytelling; participatory e-platforms; green new media; and networked activism. An info-sociational approach-besides providing a frame for comparatively analyzing digital practices amongst civic groups-arguably advances theory on the co-evolution of civic associations and ICTs.Special Issue: Linking the Local with the Global within Community Informatic

DIGITALLY ENABLED GRASSROOTS ENTERPRENEURSHIP FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT

ICT has been promoted as a way out of deprivation for rural residents who continue to suffer from a limited access to social-economic developments. However, less is understood about how a marginalized community can drive its own development. Simultaneously, the focus on ICT in developing context has eclipsed the study of ICT for development in existing literature. These observations underscore the need for this study that explores the use of ICT for grassroots entrepreneurship through the phenomenal rise of China Taobao E-commerce Village. Through an in-depth case study, we propose the concept of digitally enabled grassroots entrepreneurship that (1) contributes to the existing ICT4D literature by explicating the roles of ICT (e-commerce) in driving the grassroots entrepreneurship through the emergence of an entrepreneurial ecosystem for a self-driven development, and (2) delineates the process of digitally enabled development beyond the provision of the Internet and infrastructure by presenting the development stages of digitally enabled grassroots entrepreneurship through the opportunity exploitation and opportunity exploration of business, knowledge, and institutional entrepreneurship. The findings also provide a reference point for practitioners to reconsider the external intervention-based development approach

Constructing collective identities in the Internet age: a case study of Taiwanese-based internet forums

The thesis presents a case study of asynchronous Taiwanese-based internet forums, aimed at exploring new perspectives in the question of collective identity construction via intemet-forum participation. It develops a discursive-constructivist approach that incorporates the theories and models of Goffman, Butler, Laclau & Mouffe and Melucci, investigating the performative, antagonistic and negotiated dimensions of identities. Methodologically, it deploys a series of analytic tools from linguistics and micro sociology, as well as the methods of content analysis and online ethnography. Focusing on the questions of gay identities and national identities, the case study tracks down ten years of archives of the local gay forums and political forums, examining the ways in which collective identities take form through speech performance and social interactions in cyberspace. The case analysis of the gay forums finds that the internet gives rise to networked online gay communities, where individual gays’ subject-positions are performed. Meanwhile, the forums permit the reconstruction of the Other of the gay community, which ironically results in the creation of an internal Other among the community. Furthermore, the forums allow their grassroots participants to engage in the local gay movement, which eventually leads to change in the public identity of the movement. The case of national identity shows that antagonism between the two oppositional nationalisms in Taiwan penetrates identity practices in this domain; cyberspace is no exception. The local political forums become the space for marking, creating and stigmatising the Other. Nevertheless, they also provide the space for negotiated interactions concerning identity-oriented national projects, as well as facilitate dialogues between Chinese and Taiwanese online participants on the question of Taiwan’s future. To conclude, internet forums do not necessarily lead to the devolution of symbolic and political power of their participants. Mainstream discourses still deeply influence the discourses in cyberspace. Grassroots participation in debates concerning social projects may intervene in decision-making; however, this is dependent on the participants’ access to valid information and the decision makers’ attitudes towards the grassroots forums. Finally, while connecting people together, the internet is also disuniting people in spreading antagonisms and animosity

A social capital framework to assess ICTs mediated empowerment of environmental community organizations in Western Australia

The potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in empowering generally under-resourced community organizations has increasingly been acknowledged in recent years. While organizational empowerment refers to the capability to fulfil its mission by overcoming resource-scarcities, measuring the contribution of ICTs towards organizational empowerment remains an exigent task. Two different theories, ‘resource dependence’ and ‘social networks’ provide a framework to examine how harnessing social capital leads to organizational empowerment. It is in this context that this work-in-progress paper will explore the implications of ICTs adoption on organizational social capital as a proxy indicator of ICTs mediated empowerment. Based on survey responses from 81 Environmental Community Organizations (ECOs) in Western Australia, the findings indicate: (a) the capability to maintain social capital is strongly correlated with the capability to acquire human and financial capital; (b) the trend of access to ICTs (more than one-tenth ECOs not having an access to the Internet) as well as ICTs adoption (less than one-third and one-tenth ECOs hosting websites and posting blogs respectively) is generally weak; and (c) ICTs tend to benefit ECOs already with higher social capital. Apart from illustrating the usefulness of a social capital framework to gauge ICTs mediated empowerment, the findings also exposed the extent of organizational divide amongst ECOs. This paper therefore acknowledges that access to and adoption of ICTs without the necessary skills and support mechanisms will impede empowerment and suggests ways to make ICTs mediated empowerment genuine

Making sense of assets: Community asset mapping and related approaches for cultivating capacities

This working paper critically reviews some main aspects from asset based approaches highlights key strengths and weaknesses for future research/development. Drawing on a large body of reports and relevant literature we draw on different theoretical traditions and critiques, as well as practices and processes embedded within a broad range of approaches including, widely acknowledged frameworks such Asset Based Community Development (ABCD), Appreciative Inquiry (AI), Sustainable Livelihood Approaches (SLA) and Community Capitals Framework (CCF). Although these are presented as distinct approaches, there is a sense of evolution through them and many of them overlap (in terms of both theories and methodologies). We also include emerging frameworks, including geographical, socio-spatial, visual and creative approaches, stemming from a number of projects within AHRC’s Connected Communities programme and additional collaborations

Navigating the technology-media-movements complex

In this article we develop the notion of the technology-media-movements complex (TMMC) as a field-definition statement for ongoing inquiry into the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in social and political movements. We consider the definitions and boundaries of the TMMC, arguing particularly for a historically rooted conception of technological development that allows better integration of the different intellectual traditions that are currently focused on the same set of empirical phenomena. We then delineate two recurrent debates in the literature highlighting their contributions to emerging knowledge. The first debate concerns the divide between scholars who privilege media technologies, and see them as driving forces of movement dynamics, and those who privilege media practices over affordances. The second debate broadly opposes theorists who believe in the emancipatory potential of ICTs and those who highlight the ways they are used to repress social movements and grassroots mobilization. By mapping positions in these debates to the TMMC we identify and provide direction to three broad research areas which demand further consideration: (i) questions of power and agency in social movements; (ii) the relationships between, on the one hand, social movements and technology and media as politics (i.e. cyberpolitics and technopolitics), and on the other, the quotidian and ubiquitous use of digital tools in a digital age; and (iii) the significance of digital divides that cut across and beyond social movements, particularly in the way such divisions may overlay existing power relations in movements. In conclusion, we delineate six challenges for profitable further research on the TMMC