Networked Communities

This afternoon, I would like to discuss some ideas regarding how communities exist in modern society and how technology has transformed the way in which they operate. As I have mentioned in previous posts, media convergence has lead to the fragmentation of media and audiences. Therefore, using the idea of ‘audiences’ as ‘communities’, it is obvious that media fragmentation has affected the way in which people communicate within communities. In this week’s reading, Barry Wellman (cited in Keeble and Loader. 2001, 17) refers to communities as “networked societies”, where “boundaries are permeable, interactions are with diverse others, connections switch between multiple networks, and hierarchies can be flatter and recursive.” Wellman also cites Manuel Castells’ idea that “class pertains to relations of production and reproduction – including communities.” This basically means that the level of access one has to resources and technology fluctuates with their structural position, or social class in community networks.

Therefore, the whole notion of the ‘networked community’ has become a real issue for impoverished people around the world. Due to the lack of infrastructure and resources, these groups are being excluded from networked communities, which have evolved alongside technological development and ICT applications such as the Internet. However, according to Hopkins (2005) ‘much time and money has been committed by governments, private business, and the third sector over the last 5 years in establishing opportunities for underserved populations to gain access to new forms of information and communication technologies, in an effort to overcome the so-called "digital divide."’ A good example of this was mentioned by Marcus Foth in this week’s lecture, whereby a single high-rise public housing estate was constructed in Williamstown, Melbourne. Members of varying classes living in this “networked community” were connected, not only by place but also were offered a free Internet connection so that they could communicate in the virtual world. However, as soon as the Internet connection was cut, community members disbanded and the Williamstown project failed abysmally.

I think that attempts to create “networked communities” between people of varying classes are admirable. However, assimilating completely different people into a collective group will always be tedious, specifically because new media technologies have encouraged individual freedom. I think the point Marcus made in the lecture about smaller groups having higher levels of social capital than bigger communities is poignant. Although these smaller groups are more exclusionary, they have a greater ability “…to organize and mobilize effectively for collective action because they have high levels of social trust, dense social networks, and well-established norms of mutuality” (Kavanaugh, et al. 2005).


I hope that this post has provided you with greater insight about networked communities and the inherently complex social structures within them! I promise to post again this week but I have been extremely busy with uni work so I apologise!

Until next time, take care.

Em x

References

Hopkins, L. 2005. Making a Community Network Sustainable: The Future of the Wired High Rise. Information Society, 21 (5): 379. (accessed May 18, 2006 from ProQuest: Multiple databases).

Kavanaugh, et al. 2005. Weak Ties in Networked Communities. Information Society, 21 (2): 119. (accessed May 18, 2006 from ProQuest: Multiple databases).

Wellman, B. 2001. ‘Physical place and cyberspace. The rise of networked individualism’, in, L. Keeble and B. Loader (Eds) Community Informatics. Shaping Computer-Mediated Social Relations, London, New York: Routledge.