Can the tectonic shifts in global telematics be meaningful to the average citizen? Community networking is an attempt to provide a context for local citizens to understand and participate in the changes in availability of lower cost computers and expanding telecommunications infrastructure by linking them up with each other and with local organizations and services. However, the gap between enthusiastic technologists and the people affected remains wide, even after all the studies and field experience. How technology is diffused into new settings and communities has been studied and discussed ever since Everett Rogers wrote his seminal work, Diffusion of Innovations.(1) Even as the technology changes from week to week, human habits and local traditions do not easily adapt to even the most beneficial advances.
As aid agencies, international lending organizations, national planners, and local entrepreneurs begin to extend the reach of telecommunications improvements beyond the capital city, they should realize that local citizens and civic groups need to be engaged in planning the expansion process. The Loka Institute in Massachusetts has been working on consensus conferences (2) , an innovative way of involving citizens in important technological decisions. Some governments are planning aggressive telecommunications projects that are primarily topdown with no grass roots input. This centralized approach may work in some cultures or authoritarian political environments, but we have found one of the most effective ways to involve people in the expansion of local infrastructure is in the formation of local community networks. Several hundred of these have been started in North America, Australia, and a few in Europe, Japan, and New Zealand. Some of the lessons we have learned will also apply to areas in Africa, Latin America, the Pacific, and Asia, even though the levels of computer ownership and telecomms usage is much lower than North America.
Some of the first community networks were the FreeNets, and many of these still exist in the United States in Canada. These predated the current growth of the Internet in many towns. Using a server, clusters of modems and regular phone lines, the interface was set up using the metaphor of an electronic city. Users were issued passwords free of charge, and volunteers took over the staffing and operation of sections of the online areas. While a few community networks and some Freenets have evolved into new institutions (though they are still weak financially) they do involve networks of people and organizations as much as they are networks of computers and communications lines. The computer networks have been used to strengthen the networks of people in the community, but it has not been noticed very much by the popular press. Nonprofit groups are in closer contact, and citizens have used the network for interaction with the government officials and service staff from different agencies. For this to have some measure of success, it is critical that the system is accepted and used by the powers in the community and not just lower level enthusiasts.
La Plaza Telecommunity in Taos, New Mexico, serves a rural population of about 10,000 people. Many of these people had never used a computer, yet the trainers and network planners were able to involve many residents as volunteers, trainees, and then regular users of La Plaza. In 1996, the La Plaza Telecommunity Network in Taos, New Mexico, responded to destructive brush fires in the area by using the network to help link people, relief agencies, and outsiders to news about the crisis and to each other.
When it concerns telecommunications, what makes the headlines and the political speeches? Mergers of transnational corporations, the laying of fiber optic cable down the spine of a continent or around it borders, country after country getting some kind of access to the Internet, the plans for networks of satellites that will afford access in every part of the planetfor a price, and new software and faster hardware to increase the network speed and capacity. Yet beyond the growing audience of consultants, industry and PTT officials, government planners, and computer enthusiasts, there are billions of people for whom these changes make little sense. Many of these are among those who live on less that US$2.00 per day(3) and whose concerns are more about survival than about exploring the world on online information and linking up via email with acquaintances and friends. While donors and planners may have a tangible dream to establish such a network, frequently the average citizens have no context to understand what is proposed.
Imagine this: two planners from the ministry of transportation make their way to a remote village where no road exists, and everyone walks or rides a burro or horse. The ministry officials assemble the elders and village leaders and ask for their assistance in providing volunteer labor for a very important task: to excavate a huge hole in a clearing near the center of the dwellings. "But why do we need a hole?" asks one elder. "Infrastructure! Global competitiveness" replies one planner. The villagers are not sure what infrastructure is, but they are persuaded to help the officials. Experts from the capital rarely visit this village, and they must be treated politely. A large group of villagers spends a two days digging the hole and hauling away the tailings. As soon as the hole is finished, the officials summon a helicopter by portable radio, and the next morning a huge automobile fuel tank is ferried from the highway far away and is lowered into the hole and covered by the volunteers who tamp the earth down, but they wonder what sense it makes to have a fuel storage facility when they have no road and therefore no cars or trucks or motorcycles.
This was the feeling some American communities had after NetDay took place. Technologists set the agenda and won the support of the Clinton administration to make wiring the schools a top priority, even though some schools were not yet ready for wiring. Some did not have computers or were far from an Internet connection, or they needed other supplies or improvements before doing wiring for a LAN they could not afford. Other schools and communities, especially those with some existing networking infrastructure, enthusiastically joined in the NetDay program. They had a context for understanding the need, and they saw how they could build on the volunteer work. Some NetDay organizers saw the school staff as barriers to their technological goals of getting the schools wired. The initial project in March 1996, was declared to be a success by the organizers and by the Clinton Administration. Many thousands of volunteers took part in intensive sessions to string cable in classrooms and libraries around the state. However, many schools, especially in rural areas, distant from the high tech volunteers in Silicon Valley, did not participate, and critics pointed out that the project widened the gap between these schools and wealthier ones.
This is not to say that a state or countrywide initiative like this should not be undertaken, but planners need to understand that different areas move at different speeds for a myriad of reasons: cultural, economic, educational, and technological. Community network efforts involve more than just educators and students, so it is even more complex for planners to include many other sectors such as health, government, social services, and libraries, and local organizations.
They did this by helping real people solve real problems in their daily lives. La Plaza trainers began their introductory sessions in Taos with a discussion not of technology, TCP/IP and the World Wide Web but one about problems that people are faced with at home or at work and then suggested some ways that others have solved similar problems using online information or collaborative software and electronic mail. Many of the best trainers are good story tellers. They help their audience make a connection between the proposed network and their own lives, usually by describing success stories from other community networks.(4) Some storytellers are able to make technical issues understandable to people who are unfamiliar with computers and networks.
Once the Community Network organizers begin to make those connections, some people will begin to see the value of having one locally. Obviously, it must make sense to key members of the town, or support will be limited to the fringe group of early adopters of technology. While many tout access to the Internet as an end in itself, the nature of a local network enables people to find information and assistance locally as well as on the Internet. Some systems are emphasizing the production of local cultural, tourist, and government information. The existing community networks have not been studied or analyzed as much as other media such as radio or television, so we do not have a good profile of the users or how they are affected by these local systems. Andrew Patrick, a Canadian researcher, has made some important initial surveys that raise important questions about how these networks are being used.
In our experience we have found that the establishment of community networks will not solve the problems of a dysfunctional community, but they can help a community that works together. Many times, the local people will not put aside their old grievances, turf battles, and pride for a cooperative effort. In most cases the key parties have not worked together previously on a common project; they may even have been competitors, but it is more likely that until the networking project was initiated, they ignored each other. If the town lacks a rich variety of volunteer organizations, a functional government structure that serves the people, or a stable business class, it is unlikely that a community network can take root even if outside agencies and donors bring in the latest equipment, optical fiber and provide adequate training. What may happen is that businesses and government offices will be the initial linkages, but much of the growth after that will result from community development efforts and some infusion of hardware, software, and training for use in public places.
In the towns and rural areas of Canada and the United States where community networks have been established, the motivations behind the efforts have been to understand the technological choices, to bind together members of the existing community through a common project, to maintain some form of control over local communications facilities, to improve the information flow between schools, libraries, health facilities, government offices, and nonprofit organizations, and to promote the local economy through the dissemination of information about tourism, investment opportunities, and job openings. Some community networks focus on one of these goals, while others will support the whole array. Depending on the social, economic, and political ecology of your town or rural area, it can be expected that the community network will take many different shapes.
(2) Consensus conferences, originating in Denmark in the 1980's,were designed to assist a broad range of participants in having discussions about technology policy. Since 1987, the Danish Board of Technology has had a dozen conferences on this topic.
(3) See the Association For Community Networking stories.