1. 518LE Community Informatics Class 1 / August 29 1 What is community informatics and why does it matter? 2 Introductions 3 Discussion 4 Cyberorganizing/ Cybernavigating

2. Community informatics Local, historical communities Information and communications technologies AKA digital tools CONTINUITY TRANSFORMATION meets +

3. Community Local (geographic) Historical Organic We each live in one, life depends on it It has a history It is not so much DESIGNED as it GROWS

4. Communities change, but usually slowly! Technologies and social polarization two key factors From http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/

5. Different people see community boundaries differently From http://media.apps.chicagotribune.com/ward-redistricting-2012/index.html

6. Social informatics “The interdisciplinary study of the design, uses, and consequences of information technologies that takes into account their interaction with institutional and cultural contexts” Rob Kling, 1999

7. In US, military was first computer user ENIAC: 1940s

8. Second science, third corporations Below: Auto workers in 1932-1933 Right: Robotic auto factory 1970s and later

9. IT came last to local communities: for example 1989, Santa Monica PEN (Public Electronic Network) City govt information Officials with email Online discussions 19 public terminals, in libraries and elsewhere Much local homelessness, discussions began Demand emerged: “SHWASHLOCK!” (showers, washers, and lockers), govt agreed More info at http://www.mckeown.net/PENaddress.html

10. Community: CONTINUITY Information technology: DISRUPTION

11. The digital divide, a useful term from the 1990s “A widening gap in access to and usage of computers and the Internet across the U.S. population and the concomitant exclusion from educational, economic, cultural, political, and social opportunity. … These populations are digitally divided: low-income Black or Latino or Native American senior in age not employed single-parent households those with little education those residing in central cities or rural areas.” US Department of Commerce 1999

12. Gap still widening: Global data

13. US gap persists: CPS 2007

14. Many dimensions to digital inequality (after van Dijk / Dimaggio and Hargittai / Clement and Shade) Technical means of access Individual skill Social support –Technical –Emotional Purpose of use Autonomy over conditions of access

15. YOU CANNOT JUDGE AN INDIVIDUAL BY HIS/HER GROUP Beware the Ecological Fallacy Robinson (1950) looked at 1930 census: (1)States with higher immigrant populations have higher literacy (2)Immigrants, though, do not have higher literacy … they just move to states where natives have higher literacy

16. Digitally divided community, digital producers with global impact

17. US: Personal computing (at home)

18. US: Private computing (work) and public computing

19. Public libraries, an especially important form of public computing Yet, still digital divides persist

20. http://youtu.be/y8rumR214cA

21. Local examples 1.PLATO (1960) 2.Project Gutenberg (1971) 3.Urbana Free Library on the Internet (1984) 4.Prairienet (1994)

22. Your examples Michael Wesch, “Information R/evolution.” October 7, 2007. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CV05HyAbM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CV05HyAbM Michael Wesch. "The machine is Us/ing Us (Final Version)." March 8, 2007. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_ghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g Playing For Change. "Stand By Me." November 6, 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM