Historically, new communication systems have been first adopted and exploited by large governmental or corporate enterprises with extensive resources and organizational capacity (Innis, 1972). Sophisticated communication systems, for example, helped maintain the dominance of the Roman Empire for over 400 years (Stephens, 1988). The average citizen of today, however, has little access to, or influence over how communication systems are developed or deployed. Citizens generally use broadcast systems like television or newspapers passively as consumers, or letter-writing and the telephone actively as producers of informati
In rough these systems are regularly used by a relatively small percentage of the population (as are all network systems currently), community computer systems provide a proof of concept for universal access to e-mail (Anderson et al, 1995). With approximately 250 operational "community computer-based information systems" installations around the world and over 200 more in the planning stage (Doctor and Ankem, 1996), an estimated 600,000 people currently use these systems. New and increasingly inexpensive technology coupled with democratic, community, and civic activism is largely responsible for these new free or low-cost systems. As such the new community networks represent a new paradigm or model that reorients technology, resources, and community assets in a new way. And because communication systems can strengthen or weaken existing social, political, and economic ties within society (Calhoun, 1992), community networks could re-orient aspects of modern life in fundamental ways.
The term "community network" traditionally has been used to describe the invisible set of linkages or relationships within a community. These patterns would come into play in a wide variety of ways depending on the context. These patterns could change radically when, say, a family health crisis occurred, and people of varying cultures and economic class often interact with different people for different reasons in similar situations. It is upon this traditional meaning that community computer networks should be developed.
The first forays into community building using computer networks started in the mid to late 1980s. These efforts included Community Memory (CM) (Farrington and Pine, 1992) in Berkeley, California, the Cleveland (Ohio) Free-Net (CFN) (Neff, 1995), Santa Monica (California) PEN (Wittig, 1991), the New York Youth Network (NYYN) (Schuler, 1996), and Big Sky Telegraph (BST) (Odasz, 1991), a rural system based in Dillon, Montana.
These disparate systems were, in many ways, before their time: people in the geographical, non-wired community were less likely to be interested, and the overall level of computer use, skills, and experience in the community was far less than it is now. Moreover, technology price per performance ratios were several orders of magnitude greater than they are now.
The pioneering community network developers also suffered from a lack of community among themselves: They were working in isolation and there was little or no accumulated wisdom from which to draw. It was their early experiences, however, that helped form much of the body of knowledge from which current community networkers draw. Those concepts include rural telecommunications and "distance learning" (BST), democratic participation and access to municipal government (PEN), the "Free-Net" model (CFN), networking and equity issues (NYYN), and community building (CM) among many others.
Today there are hundreds if not thousands of projects that could be called community networking projects. In this section we discuss the community "core values" that these projects must support. We examine one such project, the Seattle Community Network, and some first and second order effects that the community networking movement (if it may be called that) is having and might have in the future on the local community and on society more broadly.
Objectives vary greatly among community network developers (Cisler, 1994), but generally they address one or more of six community "core values" (Schuler, 1996). These core values, which are critical for a vital community life, include (1) conviviality and culture; (2) education; (3) strong democracy (from Barber, 1984); (4) health and human services; (5) economic equity, opportunity, and sustainability; and (6) information and communication. Each core value suggests a multitude of projects and Figure 1. lists several that have been carried out using networking technology (see Schuler, 1996 for more description of each project).
Figure 1.
Although there is no typical community network, the Seattle Community Network (SCN) shares many characteristics with other systems around the world. The SCN project was launched in 1992 as a project of the Seattle chapter of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR). After two years of planning, fundraising, negotiating, meeting, and wrangling, SCN was formally launched at a "Community Introduction" at the public library in early 1994. By early 1996 SCN had over 8,500 users.
SCN's basic services originally differed little from traditional Free-Nets. SCN offered Internet e-mail, access to community information and forums, and limited access to Telnet (and no access to FTP). SCN is evolving into a Web-based system and provides Web access via Lynx and via I-COMM, a shareware graphical browser. SCN is accessible from the Web as well and community organizations and other "IPs" (information providers) are increasingly developing their own Web pages on SCN.
As of this writing, SCN is hosted on two Sun SPARC 4 servers and number of other machines (which act as different types of servers - mail servers, news servers, web servers, etc.). There are 20 SCN phone lines in addition to the ones supplied by the Seattle Public Library (SPL). It is also possible to reach SCN through public access terminals in all SPL branches and King County branches. Like the library, all SCN services are free.
Since SCN started as a project of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) it is no wonder that extra care was taken in formulating both principles and policy. The principles consisted of a number of declarations under five basic commitments: to access, service, democracy, the world community, and the future. The policies reflected strong support for privacy, freedom of speech and expression, and a "due process" for dealing with policy disagreements. (Note that this type of internal network policy differs from external policy imposed from the outside [and discussed below] that helps establish conditions under which community networks could thrive or fail to thrive.)
SCN often enters into strategic alliances with the community. For example, the Seattle Public Library (SPL) has been a strong supporter of SCN since before its inception. Working with SPL has been mutually beneficial. Since the library already had public-access terminals it was straightforward to put SCN on its menus. SPL also allowed SCN to place its machines in the SPL computer room, saving SCN thousands of dollars. The SPL receives general support from the community due to its support of SCN. SCN has six committees - outreach, services, fundraising, policy, hardware/software, and webmasters - and a "coordinating council" consisting of one member from each committee, two "at-large" members and one member from SPL. As SCN moves to being its own non-profit organization, there will be a 15 member board of directors which will replace the coordinating council as the oversight and leadership body.
SCN is currently run exclusively by a corps of over 150 volunteers. The tasks vary tremendously but include supporting the hardware and software, developing the overall system design, managing the paperwork including registrations, giving presentations, creating and administering policy decisions, showing people how to use the system (often accomplished through regularly scheduled "road-shows") and helping IPs to put their information on the system (through "mentoring").
SCN now has a wide range of services that help support Seattle's core values. These include the Job Corps, several neighborhood groups and forums, a distribution list for social service agencies in King County, the Basecamp women's' project, and Wheel, a project for homeless and formerly homeless women, and many others. (Telnet to scn.org and login as visitor. Also check http://www.scn.org/.)
Although there have been many "successes" relating to the goals of the system, there have been problems as well, three of which are described below. Most of these problems stem from a user's desire to communicate with one or more people in a manner that the intended recipient does not share. The first incident was when an SCN user created a list of all system-generated user names (e.g. "ad123@scn.org" or "zf881@scn.org" but not "douglas@scn.org" or "topkat@scn.org"). Using a computer program, the user sent a partisan political note to every user on the list, an act that was widely criticized, The coordinating council sent a note to the user asking that he not repeat the action and there have been no similar incidents since then. The second incident occurred when some men posted insulting and threatening notes in a forum that was intended for women's use exclusively. Similar notes were sent via e-mail to women that participated in the forum. The third incident occurred after a forum participant discovered that it was possible to delete postings that other people had made to the forum. After the user did, in fact, exploit this bug, he was also sent a letter and the bug was repaired before any other users had a chance to create similar mischief.
These incidents reveal the inherent difficulty of establishing and enforcing community network policies. Insofar as the "rules of the road" are still evolving community network developers must somehow balance possibly conflicting demands of principles, conflicting interests, and the law.
We have discussed some of the ways in which community networks may be used to further community goals. We have also briefly noted a few ways in which community networks have been misused. These uses - and abuses - can be characterized as first-order effects. We now turn our attention briefly to some second-order effects - epiphenomena if you will - that may accompany a rise in community network use.
The first of these effects is a general increase in network literacy. When the media first exploded with stories about the "information superhighway" the vast majority of people had never heard of the Internet, let alone have an understanding of the technology, its potential, and the multitude of issues associated with it. This new "information superhighway" was generally presented as a sparkling new commodity that would provide consumers with increased entertainment and shopping opportunities. At this point those people without subsidized Internet access (at Universities, software companies or other places) who wanted access generally signed up for a commercial account with Compuserve, America Online, Prodigy or others. With no visible alternatives network services were increasingly viewed as commercial services.
Community networks are educational in at least two ways. The first way is general network literacy as people gain confidence and skill in accomplishing their aims. The second way is in re-framing the discussion - people who have been exposed to free community network use will be less likely to perceive network services as a purely commercial undertaking. The parameters of the discussion have been expanded, thus broadening the range of future trajectories for the medium.
With increased understanding of the medium and the range of policy options, two varieties of politicization also become possible. The first has parallels in the consumer movement. The more information people have on products, the more they are able to intervene in issues related to costs, marketing, labor practices, and product quality. The second variety can arise when users become an organized constituency. Although rarely acknowledged or appreciated by community network developers, it is through this second variety that the community networking community could realize increased power to re-orient technology into one that is more democratic and community-oriented.
Where is the community network movement going? In the section below we discuss challenges that community networkers must face and a range of possible strategies for dealing successfully with these challenges.
People commonly ascribe a wide range of utopian possibilities to the Internet, including a general democratization of society based on a "leveling" of hierarchical relationships leading generally to greater equality between traditional social dichotomies such as rich and poor, white and non-white, male and female, and urban and rural. These views appear to be based on characteristics of Internet technology (that are presumed to be inherent and immutable) and the (often implicit) policies that circumscribe uses of the Internet as it is currently constituted.
Many technological attributes including the existence of a common protocol, open standards, a network-style topology (rather than an hierarchical tree topology) with its presumed lack of chokepoints, the lack of centralized control, the nearly limitless potential in terms of bandwidth and access, suggest that two-way, universal access may be inevitable. Although the manifold conditions under which this seemingly inevitable trajectory may be altered are not the focus of this essay, a few words will be helpful. Technological attributes alone do not determine or circumscribe use of a technological system. Consider for a moment, the impact both actual and potential, of Bill Clinton's signature on Internet censorship legislation or the lawsuit launched by telephone companies to prevent the distribution of audio information on the Internet. Bill Gates, the helmsman of the Microsoft behemoth has noted that nobody has made any money off the Internet. While not entirely true, this "flaw" is one that Gates and the other corporate captains seek to remedy, for companies - naturally enough - only invest in ventures that are likely to repay at higher rates. While these - possibly fundamental - changes to the Internet may bring advantages as well as disadvantages, it is clear that "policy" (as differentiated from the technology itself or the internal policies governing the use of community networks) is a critical and influential determinant of use and those who advocate free community networks will be well-advised to remember this.
Mario Morino asked, in his 1994 keynote address at the "Ties that Bind" community networking at Apple, whether community networks will ultimately achieve "lasting social change in their communities" or whether they will "implode." There are two critical challenges that community networks must overcome if they are to avoid imploding.
The first challenge is meeting the objectives that the systems were set up to address. This means working closely and forming strategic alliances with community organizations that share goals. Throughout this process, the outcomes must be continually monitored with respect to program goals. Service quality, also, must be kept at a high level. This requires good management, both administratively and technically, a somewhat daunting challenge for any enterprise, let alone one that relies heavily if not exclusively on volunteer labor. There are also, of course, a wide range of technical challenges, not the least of which are scalability challenges that result from a rapidly growing and nearly limitless demand.
The second challenge, closely related to the first but somewhat independent, is the challenge of institutionalizing community networks in ways that meet the needs of the community, maintain an effective volunteer base, and establish an adequate level of funding for continuing service, administration, and development of community networks. Although community networks will continue to rely heavily on volunteers into the foreseeable future, it is likely that some paid staff will be needed as the systems become larger and more important to the community. Although there are many funding options for community networks (Schuler, 1996), it will ultimately be the community decision whether or not to fund community networks, and, if the answer is yes, how should they be funded.
Community activists in many locations have developed a variety of strategies that complement community network development. The first strategy is self education. It is critical that activists learn the basic issues of information technology and policy. This activity can precede and accompany the second activity of community education, which can include a wide variety of conferences, workshops, and other meetings. Due to the critical importance of this, the government at all levels should help ensure that this is carried out. Unfortunately this is rarely the case and important decisions are often made by government and industry working together with little or no input from the citizenry.
At a national level, a "Telecommunications Policy Roundtable" (TPR) whose members were drawn largely from non-profit organizations was established for educational and political reasons. Regionally, too, there has been coalition building around these issues. In Boston, for example, TPR-NE has been launched (Klein, 1995) as a forum for these issues in the northeast region of the country. Citizens also have been working with the cable refranchising process to push for increased influence and access to telecommunications channels. Also as a part of this process, citizens have pressed local governments to set up public meetings and citizen committees (like the Technology and Computer Committee recently established in Seattle by the Mayor and the City Council). Finally, participants in local and regional initiatives can also begin working on national and international issues. including participation in a number of organizations that are devoted to these issues.
Without a prolonged, organized, and informed struggle, the Internet will merely reflect and reiterate the dominant norms in our society. The rich and powerful will probably become increasingly rich and powerful while the poor and the powerless will become probably continue to become increasingly poor and powerless. Community networks built upon the unique, new communication infrastructure of the Internet offer a challenge to business as usual in the social, economic, and political arena, but the window of opportunity is sliding shut quickly. People interested in the democratization of technology - particularly that of community technology - need to realistically examine their contribution to the debate. Taking part in this struggle will probably not be easy. As Frederick Douglas reminds us, "Without struggle there is no progress."
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