Conscious Communities

Human beings are the only species with a history. Whether they will also have a future is not so obvious. The answer will lie in the prospects for popular movements, with firm roots among all sectors of the population, dedicated to values that are suppressed or driven to the margins within the existing social and political order: community, solidarity, concern for a fragile environment that will have to sustain future generations, creative work under voluntary control, independent thought, and true democratic participation in varied aspects of life.

-- Noam Chomsky

Activists and social entrepreneurs, more or less independently, all over the world have developed thousands of public computer systems over the past several years. These systems are typically publicly accessible, inexpensive to use and address one or more "community core values" (Schuler, 1996) (Conviviality and Culture; Education; Strong Democracy; Heath and Well-Being; Economic Equity, Opportunity, and Sustainability; and Information and Communication). During this time a network of researchers has also been growing . We now feel that the time is right to give additional form and structure to a network of researchers and, at the same time, to explore the concept of a network by examining our own efforts.

The CSCW 98 / PDC 98 workshop on "Designing Across Borders: The Community Design of Community Networks" brought together researchers from North America and Europe who are interested in public computer systems. Beyond that, however, we hope that the workshop will be an important step towards the creation of a worldwide interdisciplinary action-oriented research network.

We feel that the roles of researcher and social activist need not be distinct. In fact, we believe that in many cases the roles of each will be strengthened and invigorated by combining the two in a careful, conscious way.

Many disciplines, e.g. computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), without necessarily acknowledging it, often assume that corporations and other large institutions will be the "owners" of the new systems and the employees in those companies (and, by extension, people in society) will be the users. We believe, on the other hand, that explicitly acknowledging society -- and the citizens that comprise it -- as the "client" for our work has important implications that we as researchers and citizens must embrace. "Clients", it should be noted, is not the correct word, however, for the relationships we envision. This is because we assert and acknowledge that citizens -- including those from marginalized populations -- must be co-designers as well as recipients (or "clients") of these systems.

While not being technological utopians we at least entertain the idea that technology can be developed and used for social benefit; for public deliberation of ideas, improving education or reducing social exclusion, for example.

While not being technological determinists, we suspect that directed, rational and conscious technology development (and management) is more likely to provide support for societal ends then ambiguous, undirected, and other "side-effects" or market-oriented arguments that are apparently driving much of today's research and development.

We recognize an increasing role of technology (especially communication technology) as a major social influence. We also recognize other major historical forces currently at work such as the internationalism of social movements and networked economic systems. We feel that all of these factors are of concern to us and studying them without influencing them disparages and diminishes our own research.

While we intend to raise the level of our involvement as a social player in the world, we freely admit the incompleteness and fallibility of our own knowledge. At the same time we feel that our contributions can be useful. For those reasons we are deeply interested and motivated by collaborations with specialists and non- specialists including governments, NGOs, media concerns, professional organization, companies, and citizens.

The central focus is on current and future public communications systems. We have identified the following research fields as being related to this central focus. Each field is followed by a short list of the type of questions that we hope to address. Please note that this list is intended as an aid -- not as a way to artificially limit inquiry. The list below includes links to papers that network participants and others have written that pertain to these themes. In addition to the issues shown in the figure we are interested in self-reflection on the ongoing evaluation and evolution of our network.

• Critical theory: What new critical theories could incorporate the type of research and activism we envision?
  See Community Computer Networks: An Opportunity for Collaboration Among Democratic Technology Practitioners and Researchers (Doug Schuler).
• Science and technology studies: How are these systems developed? What are their ramifications?
  See Community Networks in a Generational Perspective (Herbert Kubicek and Rose MM Wagner), and Technology Matters in Virtual Communities (Erik Stolterman).
• Empirical studies: Who uses these new systems? Who doesn't? How does their use play out in society at large? What makes them successful?
  See Participatory Methods for Community Network Design (Carrie Rudman), Research on virtual communities: an empirical approach (Dennis Beckers).
• Technology research and development: What new user interfaces can make these systems easier to use? What new approaches are needed that could facilitate community problem solving?
  See Campiello - New user interface approaches for community networks (Antonietta Grasso, Michael Koch, and Dave Snowdon); Enabling for mass communication: The struggle for structure (Volkmar Pipek).
• Public policy: How does public policy affect the development and use of community systems?
  See Community Development in the Information Society: an European perspective of Community Networks (Peter Day); Local Economic Development and the Internet: Searching for a Partnership (Michael Gurstein).
• Social work, activism, change and movement: How do these systems change the nature of social work? What role do they play in social change theory? How do they contribute to social activism and social change movements?
• Self reflection:What is our research agenda? What is the relationship of activism and research? How does a network differ from other organizational structures? What is the relationship of the network to other researchers? To other activists? How do we know if we're making a difference?
  See Community Networks, a New Research Field (Leandro Navarro and Artur Serra).

Growing a network in this way is not without risks of course. The first is that the network will remain or become insignificant. This can happen in many ways. All of its members, for example, are extremely busy and participation in the network can be seen as another demand on the too-finite resource of time. For this reason we hope to be able to vitalize a network that provides its members with as much (or more) than it takes. Like the Internet itself (especially in its early pre-commercial days), the secret of its strength will lie in the willingness of people to contribute voluntarily to a collective culture. In the development of a new research perspective it is necessary for some critical mass of participants with interconnected agendas to emerge. The research wheel can help suggest interconnections as can increased communication and information sharing among participants. The other risk is that of too much anarchy, the tyranny that comes from too little structure. Cyberspace, of course, is famous for this: flame wars and their less colorful cousins the endless discussions that dribble off into irrelevance are but two examples. To combat the problems of too much anarchy, it may be necessary to enact rules, regulations, specific responsibilities to maintain coherence of the project without sacrificing the network's core strengths.

Finally, we hope that the network will help facilitate research and activism around the ideas of new public communication systems. We further hope that it will be influential, exciting, and, even, fun for the participants.

• To advance the state of our knowledge in this area
• To build an effective network of activists, researchers, and citizens
• To legitimatize and call attention to our concerns
• To develop and disseminate useful, high-quality information for citizens, activists, students, policy-makers, and researchers.
• To evaluate and consult with existing projects, systems, applications, and organizations
• To develop and evaluate new interfaces, applications, systems, and organizations
• To convene forums (both face-to-face and virtual) for sharing information, concerns, and ideas.
• To engage with NGOs, governments, and businesses to further this area

We invite other researchers and activists, especially those from outside of North America and Europe, to join our effort. We are hoping to meet together in 1999, at least in smaller groups. We also plan to seek additional funding for this work. Please check the call for participation on our web site ( http://www.scn.org/tech/the_network) which provides additional information.

De Cindio, F. et al (1996). Community Networks Promote Groupware in a Metropolitan Area.

Navarro, L. and Serra, A. (1997). Community Networks, a New Research Field. Papers from ECSCW 97 Workshop. http://www.canet.upc.es/ws/#serraileandro

Schuler, D. (1996). New Community Networks: Wired for Change. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Schuler, D. (1998). Computer Supported Community Work: CSCW for the 'Real World.' In work. http://www.scn.org/ip/commnet/new-cscw.html.