Participating in civil society: the case of networked communities

Abstract

A community computer network facilitates civic participation by providing pervasive local resources online and by connecting people to local communication and discussion channels, public and non-profit organization leaders and members, and many other civic resources. We present findings from longitudinal data (two rounds between 2001 and 2002) of a stratified random survey of 100 households in a mature community network, the Blacksburg Electronic Village (BEV). We offer exploratory and confirmatory analyses, including a 'civic effects' model, that show demographic characteristics (education, age) and psychological factors (extroversion) explain staying informed, collective efficacy, group membership, activism, and using the Internet for civic and political purposes. The model further explains differences in respondents' involvement in local issues once they go online. Informed activists with multiple group memberships become more involved in local issues once going online, whereas informed non-activists become less involved once online. Our study suggests that in order to play a constructive role in creating a more civil society, community networks should explicitly pursue strategies that encourage community activism. One way to do this, given the strong role of association membership in activism, is for ISPs to offer bundled standard Internet applications at low cost to non-profit community groups (e.g. email for leadership, online discussion for members, web space). Community networks should also promote and support the use by local groups of innovative tools for non-experts, such as easy collaborative web-based tools for information production and collaboration. q

Making Decision in Open Communities: Collective Actions in the Public Realm

“…The practical need to face challenges and act in the real world is what brings people together in "open communities" of action. This tendency is mainly discussed by the literature in terms of activism (Pattie et al 2003;Vromen 2003;Kavanaugh et al 2005;Flanagin et al 2006;Yau 2011) thus confirming Anderson's findings (1999) and demonstrating the open nature of the public sphere. This process of individual and collective self-involvement can explain some important phenomena observed and analysed in the literature (for different observation lenses on this, see Staeheli 2008;Hayes-Conroy 2008;Carmo and Estevens 2017) and is giving rise to the emergence of new practices of the collective action in the public realm.…”

HCI and Societal Issues: A Framework for Engagement

“…One of the pioneering efforts at children's computing was the Logo language, created by Seymour Papert (1993) to help teach (Williams et al, 2005); context-enhanced mobile messaging (Jung, Persson, & Blom, 2005); deception (Hancock, Thom-Santelli, & Ritchie, 2004) Civil society Informatics design (Walker & Dearden, 2005), participation (Kavanaugh, Carroll, Rosson, Reese, & Zin, 2005) Underserved populations…”

Sharing Wireless Internet in Urban Neighbourhoods

“…Even so, individuals may be more tolerant of minor impairments to their connection when utilizing ad-hoc networks with friends and neighbours. Kavanaugh et al (2005) wrote that their notion of community commitment is "related to an individual's sense of collective efficacy: the belief that members of the community can pull together and act effectively to foster desired change" (pg.13). If an individual has a strong sense of collective efficacy, they are more likely to put in more effort into a group endeavour, in this case, supporting wireless sharing.…”