ICT4D Blog

OII SDP 2007 (XXIII): Designing for Place-Based Social Interaction of Urban Residents in México, South Africa and Australia

Lead: Marcus Foth

What’s community? Social network, urban village, swarm, neighbourhood, me and my friends… Have something in common?

Shift from the “little boxes” model to personalized social networks: more permeable boundaries…

Urban tribes: swarms of interconnected friends, filling the gap between college and married life, fluidity of social networks, place and proximity matters.

Communicative Ecology

global vs. local; collective vs. individual; online vs. offline

Community as Collective vs. Community as Network

  collective interaction networked interaction
geographically dispersed online communities online social networking (e.g. MySpace, Facebook)
place based collective interaction for discussion about place networked interact for sociability in place

 

Connectivity does not ensure community. If you build it, they will not necessarily come. On the other hand, social capital rich communities are likely to progress and also to have a preference for “social isolation”.

Readings

More info

Share:

Exit mobile version