The article makes a point to connect the sustainability of ICT projects to social capital. “Social capital is used to describe beneficial outcomes that can be derived from multiplaying existing community assets, such as trust, reciprocity and cooperation, shared values and norms, pro-activity and leadership, and a strong sens of community that can result from interaction and participation in strong social networks in a community”. In this sense, community informatics innitiatives, through the use of ICT, can help to improve a community's social capital by the use of technologies.
The author connects different theoretical approaches in order to make her point: diffusion of innovation, community development and capacity building, and social capital. So, starting with diffusion of innovation, it is said to be composed of four generally accepted elements: the innovation itself, the communication channel(s), the timeframe and the social system where the innovation is introduced. In this sense, diffusion of innovation highlights the importance of social networks, more than mass media, as a critical point in terms of acceptance of the new technology, ie, people tend to start using something after the opinion of someone they know who has already been using it.
Further, the adoption of an innovation like ICTs projects depend o others facts, according to diffusion theory: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability. In the case of CI initiatives, where you have different target groups, the initiatives should be tailored to suit individual needs. In the case that it is not possible to have different venues for different publics, a timetable should be developed in order to accommodate different kinds of people. Another important factor which is highlighted by the article is the aspect of time: the uptake of an innovations is a process that takes time, and in many situations, the financial support available does not offer the necessary time for the innovation to difuse among most part of the community and neither for the community to adapt it to its own needs.
The author then proposes a frameworks of capacity building as an strategy to ensure ICT initiatives sustainability. This would be reached through providing training on leadership and promoting community development strategies. And even if counting with a top-down support from the government, community development must be a local process. “Many of these projects became heavily dependent on volunteer time and support because ongoing awareness raising and education activities to reach all sectors of the community extended well beyond the period of time that the funding allowed.” It is because of this that capacity building is important, as it consists in building networks, organization, leadership skills etc which will lead to sustainable development: it is important to invest both in “soft technologies”, ie, capacity building, as well in hardware technology in order to make and ICT initiative work. Also, it is important to highlight that projects that inflate too much community expectations are unlikely to enjoy sustained success. In promoting capacity building, the community will grow stronger and the community social capital will grow.
The article offers a good overview regarding social capital and how it interwines with ICT projects and communities. Some key aspects:
- Importance of having both bonding and bridging social capital
- Communities with high social capital have diversified leadership representative of age, gender and cultural composition of the community.
- Unsustainable ICT projects can diminish social capital
- In CI initiatives, the community cooperates to develop the attributes necessary to raise social capital.
In terms of CI initiatives, social capital highlights the importance of:a
- Building community capacity in awareness of the potential of the CI initiative
- Exploiting the capability of the CI initiative to build new forms of social infrastructure
- Encouragin and enabling local community ownership of the CI initiative
- Understanding the importance of appropriate environments and sociability to the implementation of CI initiatives for fostering social inclusion.
Sustaninable community developments need an explicit policy emphasis on strategies to build the community field and generate social capital”.
The article concludes offering a framework of how these concepts are related, in are dynamic process.
1. Lyn E Simpson, “Community Informatics and Sustainability: Why Social Capital Matters,” The Journal of Community Informatics; Vol 1, No 2 (2005) (2005), http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/210/169.
Posted in
- dani matielo's blog
- Login to post comments