The Seamless Web and Communications Equity: The Shaping of a Community Network

Abstract

Drawing on field data gathered from 1994 to 1996, this article considers tensions in the development of community networks and highlights the decisions that shape particular types of networks. Four key decision points include interface choice, content, interaction, and outreach. Discourse about decision making is often dichotomized around civic and consumer social currents. Civic currents demand text-only interfaces, exclusively non- profit content, full electronic interaction capabilities for everyone, and deep outreach efforts. In contrast, consumer currents push graphical interfaces, the inclusion of profit-making content, limited interaction options, and meso to shallow outreach. While considering the influences of these currents, the article problematizes the dichotomy and considers more specific social influences on decision making. It also suggests specific network decisions that may contribute to greater communications equity.

The development of community telecommunication infrastructure: An evaluation of rural telecommunications project

“…Without providing substantial benefits to the community, the KCN will be eventually privatized due to financial difficulty and regulatory holdup. This result, interestingly, is similar to the case study of the Boulder Community Network (Virnoche, 1998) where decision making debate among actors was couched in civic vs. consumer discourses, and actors used these discourse because of their own situated experiences. It is also similar in that the Boulder Community Network is driven by the technical elitism of a few actors.…”

The Antecedents of Community-Oriented Internet Use: Community Participation and Community Satisfaction

“…According to this perspective, Internet use is located within a context, affected by a plethora of sociocultural variables (Baym, 1998; Bijker, 1994, 1995; Carey, 1988; Doheny‐Farina, 1996; Jones, 1997; MacKenzie & Wajcman, 1985; Matei, 1998). Located in opposition to the early research that conceptualized technology as the impetus for social change, the social shaping of technology approach studies the social factors that lead to the creation and experience of technologies, and the “social implications of particular technology formations” (Virnoche, 1998, p. 200).…”

“…Other research on the community and the Internet has investigated community networks (Virnoche, 1998; Virnoche & Marx, 1997). Community networks “use electronic communications to connect people who live in the same area, city, or neighborhood” (Virnoche, 1998, p. 199).…”

Public Libraries and Networked Information Services in Low-Income Communities

“…They found that telephone use by members of low-income households was directed by such factors as friends and relatives running up long-distance charges, the desire to prevent contact between a teenage son and his friends, and strategies for maintaining communication links when household telephone service had been disconnected. Virnoche (1998) demonstrates the importance of going beyond easy assumptions about the needs of groups typically associated with the digital divide. In her study of special outreach initiatives pursued by a community network, she found that seniors-who were relatively affluent, well-educated, and already had computers at home-avidly took up what for them was an enriching social and educational activity.…”