Working Towards Continuity in a Highly Volatile Community Network
(2004) Working Towards Continuity in a Highly Volatile Community Network. In O'Riordan, Kate and Rafaeli, Sheizaf, Eds. Proceedings 5th Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), Brighton, UK.
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Abstract
Sustainability has been identified as a key, yet controversial issue in community informatics and community networking research. This paper describes an action research study which utilises the PAD methodology of participatory design and sociocultural animation to investigate an urban apartment complex comprising approximately 160 residents in Brisbane, Australia. The site is characterised by a high turnover of residents and thus offers various opportunities to study different facets of sustainability in the context of systems design for residential community networks. The paper explores three aspects of sustainability: community capacity building, neighbourhood identity and the continuity of the online community network itself; and how these aspects apply to this case study both online and offline. Preliminary results indicate that (a) working towards increasing conventional forms of social capital may lead to high barriers of entry and is thus counterproductive to ensuring sustainability in highly volatile and diverse communities; and (b) there is a need to move beyond technology for collective activity and work towards peer-to-peer networking tools which allow for a fluid, diverse and individualised swarm of residents.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper |
|---|---|
| Status: | Published |
| Keywords: | community networks; community informatics; urban neighbourhoods |
| Subjects: | 400000 Journalism, Librarianship and Curatorial Studies > 400100 Journalism, Communication and Media > 400104 Communication and Media Studies 370000 Studies in Human Society > 370100 Sociology > 370104 Urban Sociology and Community Studies 370000 Studies in Human Society > 370400 Human Geography > 370401 Urban and Regional Studies |
| ID Code: | 1905 |
| Deposited By: | Foth, Marcus |
| Deposited On: | 04 August 2005 |
| Alternative Locations: | http://aoir.org/2004 |
| Copyright Owner: | Copyright 2004 (please consult author) |