Community Informatics: Enabling Communities with Information and Communications Technologies

Community Informatics: Enabling Communities with Information and Communications Technologies

Author: Gurstein, Michael

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 1999-07-01

Total Pages: 605

ISBN-13: 1930708491

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Community Informatics is developing as an approach for linking economic and social development efforts at the community level to the opportunities that information and communication's technologies present. Areas such as SMEs and electronic commerce, community and civic networks, electronic democracy and online participation are among a few of the areas affected. Community Informatics: Enabling Communities with Information and Communications Technologies is an introduction to the discipline of community informatics. Issues such as trends, controversies, challenges and opportunities facing the community application of information and communications technologies into the millennium are studied.


What is Community Informatics (and why Does it Matter)?

What is Community Informatics (and why Does it Matter)?

Author: Michael Gurstein

Publisher: Polimetrica s.a.s.

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 109

ISBN-13: 8876990976

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Community Informatics (CI) is the application of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to enable community processes and the achievement of community objectives. CI goes beyond the "Digital Divide" to making ICT access usable and useful to excluded populations and communities for local economic development, social justice, and political empowerment. CI approaches ICTs from a "community" perspective and develops strategies and techniques for managing their use by communities both virtual and physical including the variety of Community Networking applications. CI assumes that both communities have characteristics, requirements, and opportunities that require different strategies for ICT intervention and development from individual access and use. Also, CI addresses ICT use in Developing Countries as well as among the poor, the marginalized, the elderly, or those living in remote locations in Developed Countries. CI is of interest both to ICT practitioners and academic researchers and addresses the connections between the policy and pragmatic issues arising from the tens of thousands of Community Networks, Community Technology Centres, Telecentres, Community Communications Centres, and Telecottages globally along with the rapidly emerging field of electronically based virtual "communities."


Social Informatics

Social Informatics

Author: Pnina Fichman

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2014-03-17

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1443858021

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Social Informatics: Past, Present and Future is a collection of twelve papers that provides a state-of-the-art review of 21st century social informatics. Two papers review the history of social informatics, and show that its intellectual roots can be found in the late 1970s and early ’80s and that it emerged in several different locations around the world before it coalesced in the US in the mid-1990s. The evolution of social informatics is described under four periods: foundational work, development and expansion, a robust period of coherence, and a period of diversification that continues today. Five papers provide a view of the breadth and depth of contemporary social informatics, demonstrating the diversity of theoretical and methodological approaches that can be used. A further five papers explore the future of social informatics and offer provocative and disparate visions of its trajectory, ranging from arguments for a new philosophical grounding for social informatics, to calls for a social informatics based on practice thinking and materiality. This book presents a view of SI that emphasizes the core relationship among people, ICT and organizational and social life from a perspective that integrates aspects of social theory and demonstrates clearly that social informatics has never been a more necessary research endeavor than it is now.


Connecting Canadians

Connecting Canadians

Author: Andrew Clement

Publisher: Athabasca University Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 519

ISBN-13: 1926836049

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Connecting Canadians examines the role of community informatics, or community-based ICT initiatives, in this process of transition. The Community Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking (CRACIN) set out to study how civil society groups--in locations ranging from Vancouver to Labrador and from remote Northern communities to Toronto and Montréal--sought to enable local communities to develop on their own terms within the broader context of federal and provincial policies and programs. Drawing on diverse theoretical perspectives, from sociology to library and information sciences to women's studies, the essays not only document specific local initiatives but analyze the overall trajectory of the government's vision of a digitally inclusive Canada.


The Neighborhood in the Internet

The Neighborhood in the Internet

Author: John M. Carroll

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-07-30

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 1317571517

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Today, "community" seems to be everywhere. At home, at work, and online, the vague but comforting idea of the community pervades every area of life. But have we lost the ability truly to understand what it means? The Neighborhood in the Internet investigates social and civic effects of community networks on local community, and how community network designs are appropriated and extended by community members. Carroll uses his conceptual model of "community" to re-examine the Blacksburg Electronic Village – the first Web-based community network – applying it to attempts to sustain and enrich contemporary communities through information technology. The book provides an analysis of the role of community in contemporary paradigms for work and other activity mediated by the Internet. It brings to the fore a series of design experiments investigating new approaches to community networking and addresses the future trajectory and importance of community networks. This book will be of interest to students of sociology, community psychology, human-computer interaction, information science, and computer-supported collaborative work.


The Promise of Access

The Promise of Access

Author: Daniel Greene

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2021-04-06

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 0262542331

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Why simple technological solutions to complex social issues continue to appeal to politicians and professionals who should (and often do) know better. Why do we keep trying to solve poverty with technology? What makes us feel that we need to learn to code--or else? In The Promise of Access, Daniel Greene argues that the problem of poverty became a problem of technology in order to manage the contradictions of a changing economy. Greene shows how the digital divide emerged as a policy problem and why simple technological solutions to complex social issues continue to appeal to politicians and professionals who should (and often do) know better.


Social Information Technology: Connecting Society and Cultural Issues

Social Information Technology: Connecting Society and Cultural Issues

Author: Kidd, Terry T.

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2008-04-30

Total Pages: 496

ISBN-13: 1599047764

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"This book provides a source for definitions, antecedents, and consequences of social informatics and the cultural aspect of technology. It addresses cultural/societal issues in social informatics technology and society, the Digital Divide, government and technology law, information security and privacy, cyber ethics, technology ethics, and the future of social informatics and technology"--Provided by publisher.


Social Informatics

Social Informatics

Author: Steffen Staab

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-09-19

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 3030011593

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The two-volume set LNCS 11185 + 11186 constitutes the proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Social Informatics, SocInfo 2018, held in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, in September 2018. The 30 full and 32 short papers presented in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 110 submissions. They deal with the applications of methods of the social sciences in the study of socio-technical systems, and computer science methods to analyze complex social processes, as well as those that make use of social concepts in the design of information systems.


Social and Community Informatics

Social and Community Informatics

Author: Gunilla Bradley

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2007-01-24

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 1134177763

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As a discipline, Informatics has developed over the years from its initial focus on data processing and software development, towards a more recent emphasis on people’s use of technology and its impact on their working and private lives. Gunilla Bradley, an internationally recognized expert in this field, has researched this area for many years and here, authors this indispensable volume on the topic. Providing a broad and deep analysis of the relationship between people, ICT, society and the environment, Bradley examines the impact on/change in organizations and individuals, both in the workplace and in the home. Taking a firmly humanistic view she also looks to the future as ICT increasingly transforms and impacts on our lives, and explores issues including stress, power, competence and psychosocial communication. She proposes normative research questions for the future and presents actions to achieve the Good ICT society. This thought-provoking book will be of interest to students and academics studying social informatics, computing and MIS as well as organizational behaviour, sociology, psychology and communications. Research-based and cross-disciplinary, Bradley's book is a valuable, and topical, resource.