9/14 Class: Community Informatics Theory and Research
This week, we are reflecting on some of the core concepts, philosophies and approaches to the emerging "community informatics" movement. A brief orientation to the readings appears below (they may make most sense in the order they appear here). Please post your comments, questions, thoughts, enthusiasms, skepticisms, etc. by 8 a.m. Friday (9/14).
1. Weick, K. E. (1984). Small wins: Redefining the scale of social problems. American Psychologist, 39(1), 40-49.
Weick’s article provides an introduction to thinking about social problems in general. He takes a psychological perspective, considering that when viewed unbounded. Persistent social problems can seem intractable and overwhelming, thwarting action. The small-scale approach provides a way to reconcile abstractions of ideals and theory with on-the-ground, everyday practice.
2. Sawyer, S., & Eschenfelder, K. R. (2002). Social informatics: Perspectives, examples, and trends. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 36(1), 427-465.
This is a chapter in an annual volume published by the American Society of Information Science and technology that provides an overview of grounding principles and research informing the study of social informatics. Social informatics is in some ways a “parent” field of study to the newer community informatics- CI draws on a lot of similar sensibilities about bringing a social sciences perspective to studies of information and communications technologies, only focuses them in the study and development of community-focused initiatives. This article is quite long and fairly academic, but provides an nice introduction to sociotechnical perspectives that are important to CI and, in fact, to much of the work we do at SI.
3. Gurstein, M. (2002). Community informatics (white paper). www.communities.org.ru/ci-text/ci-v2.doc
This is a short “white paper,” aimed at researchers and practitioners of community informatics. It is definitional in focus, attempting to clarify some terminology and raise issues confronted by the field in research and practice. Gurstein is widely considered the “father” of community informatics, and here is pushing toward edification and clarification with the hope of moving CI research further into theoretical development that will facilitate broader and more systematic understandings of CI phenomena and issues.
4. Gurstein, M. (2003). Effective use: A community informatics strategy beyond the digital divide. First Monday, 8(12). http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_12/gurstein/index.html
Here Gurstein turns the attention of community informatics researchers and practitioners toward a reconceptualization of the “digital divide,” a term which he feels can be more effectively framed as that of “effective use,” He argues for applying community informatics theory in order to understand problems with equitable access to information and technology not just as ones of physical access, but as issues of usability, relevance and applicability to the communities being served. This article is particularly interesting in that it calls our attention to problems of overused rhetoric and the potential contributions of theoretical perspectives in building a more effective and sustainable field of study and practice.
5. Bishop, A. P., & Bruce, B. (2005). Community informatics: Integrating action, research and learning. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science &Technology, Aug/Sep 2005, 6-10. http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Aug-05/bishopbruce.html
In this brief article published in the ASIST Bulletin, Bishop and Bruce present an introduction to the field of community informatics, focusing on how it is approached in library, information science, and technology programs. They focus on research issues and on how those are addressed in university environments through actual community engagement and action research, highlighting some of the excellent community informatics projects taking place at UIUC’s Graduate School of library and Information Studies.