Community Informatics - Background

Background

Human activity, with rare exceptions, is lived in communities. The concept of "community" and its connections to different forms of social networks has seen countless analyses and critiques. It can be seen in two contexts. First, the reality of "community" as a lived and working experience where the lived community and the physical community overlap (as for example in rural areas). Second, "community" as a concept is applied (as for example in urban areas or in virtual networks) to attempts to enable (from a practitioner perspective) and explore (from a research perspective) the reality and significance of neighbourhoods, ethnic and cultural associations, and professional interests among others to provide frameworks for social meaning and social action. Thus "communities", as people coming together in pursuit of their common aims or shared practices both physically and electronically enabled, proliferate even while their "researched" reality remains in considerable dispute.

The notion of community is very important in the development of individuals into actualized and productive adults in society, as well as the continuance of the society as a method of environmental survival, because it reallocates the ways in which resources are developed and consumed. As a culture, societies have to ensure their growth by continuing the norms and mores that are the basis of a way of life of a group of people. Utilizing the infrastructure of information through technology is a method of continuing cultures within the context of the information pipelines of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Once a cultural identity is defined within the context of technology, it can be replicated and disseminated through various means, including the sharing of information through websites, applications and databases, and through software file sharing. In this manner, a group with a cultural identity within the construct of technology infrastructure can allow for valuable exchanges within the spheres of economics, political power, high and popular culture, education, and entertainment.

With the advent of communication technologies through the Internet and the World Wide Web – since their inception, we have seen the exponential growth of enterprises ranging from electronic commerce, social networking, entertainment and education, as well as a myriad of other contrivances and file exchanges that allow for an ongoing cultural enrichment through technology. However, there has been a general lag as to which populations can benefit through these services through impediments such as geographic location, a lack of funds, gaps in technology and the expertise and skills that are required to operate these systems. Participation in using technology and information resources has to be bolstered across demographic areas, specifically amongst those groups that are socially and economically vulnerable – people in rural areas, disenfranchised populations, the elderly and handicapped. If intervention and measures to prevent the widening gap are not taken, we can see these marginal populations made even more at risk through rises in unemployment, information illiteracy, lack of educational opportunities, and a lack of political power to enact the necessary changes to their condition.

To date there has been very considerable investment in supporting the electronic development of business communities, one-to-many social tools (for example, corporate intranets, or purpose-built exchange and social networking services such as eBay, or Myspace), or in developing applications for individual use. There is far less understanding, or investment in human-technical networks and processes that are intended to deliberately result in social change or community change, particularly in communities for whom electronic communication is of second order interest to having an adequate income or social survival.

The communal dimension (and focus of Community Informatics) results in a strong interest in studying and developing strategies for how ICTs can enable and empower those living in physical communities. This is particularly the case in those communities where ICT access is done communally as for, example through Telecentres, information kiosks, Community Multimedia Centres, and others. This latter set of approaches has become of very considerable interest as Information and Communications Technology for Development (ICT4D) has emerged as significant element in strategic (and funding) approaches to social and economic development in Less Developed Countries. ICT4D initiatives have been undertaken by public, NGO and private sector agencies concerned with development such as the United Nations Development Program, the World Bank, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation; have emerged as a key element in the poverty alleviation component of the UN's Millennium Development Goals; and as important directions for private sector investment both from a market perspective (cf. the "Bottom of the Pyramid") and from companies concerned with finding a delivery channel for goods and services into rural and low income communities.

There is thus growing interest in Community Informatics as an approach to the understanding of how different information and communication technologies can enable and empower ordinary, and deprived social and physical communities in relation to the achievement of their collective goals.