Shaping the Future

Local Connections in a Global World

Claire Shearman
Communities Online, UK

The theme of this conference is about claiming the Internet for community, and it is in this context that I want to talk about local connections in a global world as a way of shaping our future. Often when we talk about the Information Society or the knowledge economy we use what to many people are abstract concepts - words like e-commerce, e-government, dot coms, capacity building and so on. Words that are difficult for many people to make any real connection with in terms of their everyday experiences and hopes. Sometimes we talk too about partnerships, and about putting 'people first' as we develop the structures and frameworks for our information societies locally and grapple with the challenges that are emerging for us nationally and globally.

Putting people first though in the development of our Information Societies is more than question of language or words. It is more than claiming our right to ownership of the Internet. It is about having the knowledge and the 'knowhow' to exercise that ownership. It is about having the confidence to ask, in the words of Ross Himona and Margie Scott at the Ballarat conference in Australia last year, 'who's driving this waka?' It is about having a vision of where we would like that 'waka' to go. It is about making sure that we - the community - have the skills and wisdom to get us there. It is about us - local people in local communities - using the potential that the Internet offers us to start to play a more significant role in shaping our own futures.

Shaping the future

The Internet as a tool for transformation

So what is it then that the Internet - broadly defined - offers us in terms of shaping our futures? The Internet itself is a tool - a means to an end. The power lies not in the technology but in what we can do with it. The power lies in how these new technologies can be used in ways that serve to transform peoples' lives and experiences, to open up new horizons and opportunities for people and empower them as individuals and as communities. For many people, the way they see themselves can fundamentally change and this in turn begins to spill over to the way they - and others - perceive their local communities.

I am not talking here about some kind of utopian Internet driven vision or suggesting that every disadvantaged community's salvation lies in effective utilisation of a pc and modem. What I am talking about are the kind of visions that come not from technologies but from the ideas and aspirations of ordinary people living in local communities. People who have begun to experience and then to understand for themselves the kind of transformative opportunities that are available as a result of using these technologies if they just have the confidence to reach out and take them.

Let me give you some examples from the UK to illustrate what I mean. These are taken from a study I researched and wrote last year called 'Local Connections: Making the Net Work for Neighbourhood Renewal' which looked at a range of community-based ICT experiences in the context of neighbourhood renewal.

One of the most successful community based and owned initiatives that I came across is in the Manor and Castle area of Sheffield. Manor has in its time been described as 'one of the worst council estates in the UK' and visually much of the landscape still reinforces that image. What really differentiates the Manor of today from the Manor of yesterday though is the sense of energy, achievement and direction that is increasingly becoming embedded in some of the local community groups and agencies. Local people from the estate are developing their own solutions to their own problems. Local community organisations are developing their own capacity and skills. Some are engaging directly with major regeneration and neighbourhood renewal actors both locally and nationally.

Much of the credit for this energy and dynamism goes to the people at MaTReC - a locally staffed and locally owned training enterprise which along with a whole range of other subjects has been running ICT training courses for the past fifteen years or so. Over time, MaTReC has branched out from basic ICT training to play a much more significant role in the community. Courses and facilities have been upgraded so that MaTReC now offers some of the most state of the art technology training and resources. It has supported local employment not only through its own exponential growth but also by its active engagement with the development of two local 'business parks' offering cheap office accommodation for local firms and community enterprises committed to the ethos of providing local employment for local people.

But much more importantly, in the eyes of those at MaTReC, has been the gradual extension of its activities into the community development arena. MaTReC has used ICTs as a tool to reach out into the wider community. It has installed machines into premises of youth clubs, libraries, church groups, community centres, GP surgeries, advice centres and trained people to use e-mail and the Internet. Working closely with a wide and diverse range of local community organisations over the years, MaTReC has been instrumental in promoting the concept of 'local ownership of local initiatives' and actively supported the development of a local community information network.

Within this context, the lives of individuals and of the community itself has been transformed. Steve Fox, who has been involved in MaTReC from its early days, puts it this way:

."I was unemployed and my house was falling down. There was a tremendous lack of information. For people like me to climb out of that pit was tremendous…. All I do is give people confidence enough to have a chance in life. The Internet can be a tool to do that."

Scott Pilkington's experience is similar. Two years ago he was one of MaTReC's students. Now he acts as a tutor and coordinator of the local community information network:

"I felt as though I was stuck in a dead-end job and, because I left school without any qualifications, I didn’t think there was much I could do about it. MaTReC has given me the chance to prove myself in ways that no other company would have.. I started shadowing the tutors just over a year ago and shortly after I started taking my own classes. I could have applied for a job at any time during the past year, as a word processor or something similar, but I stuck around working voluntarily waiting for an opportunity to arise. I’m glad I did because now I have a job that I enjoy and I feel good passing on the skills I have learnt at MaTReC to others in the community."

These kind of experiences are repeated time and time again. People respond when they see that their future can be better and when they are encouraged to have the confidence to take the first steps. One woman running a community project in Manchester commented that:

"For me it’s a question of awareness, opportunities and channels. Looking back, I see the main constraint was not having any perception of ‘opportunity’ when I was growing up. As a sixteen year old girl getting pregnant or being a secretary was just what you did. You thought it was the only pathway and choice."

Community-based ICT projects can give people new choices. Liverpool Artskills offers young unemployed people who risk becoming drug abusers, the chance to acquire IT, art and vocational skills to enable them to take up further training or get a job. The project combines painting, print-making, drama and performance skills with creative computer design and desktop publishing skills. As project worker Ben McCall noted:

"Computers are very important. They are one of the ways people can begin to engage with what they see as the cutting edge of society. Hitherto they have seen themselves as completely separate from society, so when they begin to develop skills with computers that gives them messages about their own potential."

ICTs then can open the door to the future. Individuals and communities can use ICTs to help them get ahead. ICT skills underpin the new knowledge economy, but for disadvantaged communities they offer a whole lot more in terms of the opportunities - social as well as economic - to get back on track and have a real share of the future. One of the major untapped assets of disadvantaged neighbourhoods is the latent pool of talent and creativity that undoubtedly exists there. Community based projects using ICTs in innovative and imaginative ways provide one of the most effective ways of unlocking this.

ICTs offer real opportunities for better social inclusion too. Young people are finding that ICTs can be a great social leveller. People living in rural areas use ICTs to overcome isolation and develop new opportunities for themselves. Software and interface improvements bring more people with disabilities online. Women returning to the labour market can acquire new confidence and skills that are in very short supply. Older people and ethnic groups reminisce and tell their stories online. People who have been made redundant or who are unemployed work with others in their neighbourhood to try and develop new economic opportunities.

The need to give expression to community voices

Access: from public access points to community development

Claiming the Internet for the community is about having the necessary knowledge and knowhow. One of the first steps in this process is about encouraging and giving expression to the 'community' voice. In part, this is a question of access and uptake. Despite rising numbers of Internet subscribers, it remains the case that for substantial numbers of people - particularly those living in disadvantaged and isolated communities - Information Society media from basic e-mail and Internet to interactive multimedia and associated technologies remain outside of the reality of their day-to-day experience.

A real challenge then is to engage the majority of people in Internet related activities. Numerous social inclusion projects and initiatives targeted at disadvantaged groups such as the unemployed, people with disabilities or learning difficulties, women, ethnic groups and so have been established. As a first step towards integration these are fine. But only in a few cases do they offer a real solution to the challenges being faced.

Too often access via public access points in libraries, schools and community centres is seen as a 'second-best' alternative to home usage. Our research by contrast suggests that what often really matters in developing Internet uptake and usage in the community context is the opportunity for people to develop activities with others at the same time and in the same place. What people want and value is a shared face-to-face experience with others. Even when people have Internet access at home, many still choose to work together with others on shared projects in community locations.

Artimedia, a project based in the small West Yorkshire town of Batley, focuses on developing the cultural uses of new ICTs for community benefit. Founder Brian Cross explains their work in terms of building links within the community.

"What we're doing is helping people to find ways of meeting and connecting with each other. Putting generations in touch with each other. Building trust with others in the community."

Artimedia provides support to community groups so that they in turn can work more effectively in disadvantaged areas locally. The format of the projects - working with individuals reached via community groups - draws local residents into the projects and increases their understanding of and access to ICTs in an informal but effective way. Brian explains how this process works.

"The Digital Identity project involved a group of women who came into contact with us as a result of support we provided to a local health education organisation. The Vet project put a retired vet into contact with local school children as a result of links with the multiple sclerosis group. This in turn led to the development of a women's technology project for parents of children in one of the local schools."

The significance of this approach is that people are excited by the technology which enables them to work together to produce end products. The products that are developed - archives, newsletters, posters etc - are valuable community assets in their own right. In the process of achieving these end products, skills are being developed that will have an impact on local economic and social development.

Most importantly, these skills are being developed in the context of the community as a whole. People are not developing their skills in isolation or merely for their own self-interest. The ICT learning process itself is contributing to community development. The question of access, usage and uptake has moved beyond being defined by infrastructure and physical location (public access points, libraries, etc) to that of community interest, activities and assets.

Helping communities to identify and give expression to their own voice

Using ICTs to help individuals and communities to find their own voice can

take a variety of forms. Reminiscence work is one way. One project leader

described how he worked during a discussion on the Communities Online

COnet discussion list:

"We have a community archiving project where older people can enter their annotated photographs and reminiscences material using a very user friendly interface. The results can then be shared on a network or CD ROM and… posted on the Internet…(The)… essence of the archive .... (would be that) you can follow a person's life back and forward in time using group photographs as a kind of directory."

Artimedia has used this type of approach to work with African-Caribbean women, helping them to tell their stories of how they (or their parents) arrived in the UK and their experiences to date. Reminiscence work can be done on a more individual basis too. Steve Thompson, from Newcastle, interviewed a range of people in the process of setting up the Newcastle Community Newsletter project.

"I recorded a dialogue with an 84 year old lady about an event in her life. The next week I brought it back to the group and demonstrated realaudio on a PC and explained that once published to the World Wide Web, the entire world could hear this story and look at the pictures I intended to add to it. The lady and the rest of this elderly group grasped this medium and loved the concept of this technology. They are now bringing me pictures and stories in numbers."

There are numerous other ways in which ICTs can be used to help identify and give expression to 'community' voices. The development of community webpages is one obvious example. But starting with peoples' own experiences and what is happening in the community can be a better way in. Online community newsletters - written and produced by local community reporters can be very effective, especially when combined with audio and visual material.

Community ICT activities can be linked to major events - interviews with voters and candidates on Election day, for example, or take the form of self-help groups. Cancer, multiple sclerosis, anorexia, bereavement, mental health issues, caring responsibilities and so on are just some of the areas in which people can benefit from the chance to express their feelings and views and seek sources of help and advice at the local level.

Art and local history can play a role too. Artimedia, for example, has encouraged the development of a digital gallery for local artists and photographers, and worked with schools and the local Asian community to develop a digital community archive for people living in Batley.

Much depends on the underlying approach or the way in which these kinds of ICT -based community activities are promoted. Done in the right way, the effect of ICTs on peoples' self-perception and ability to express themselves can be transformative. Liverpool Artskills succeeds with young people who have failed at school and with whom statutory agencies have been unsuccessful. As project worker Ben McCall notes,

"By providing a very high-quality service to people who are not used to being taken seriously, we found that people responded in a fantastic way. The outlook of the students has been transformed from one of demotivation and disempowerment to expanded horizons, optimism and motivation about what they can achieve."

From content consumers to content producers

What is important about all of these kinds of activities is that people are being encouraged to become content developers as well as content consumers. This is a very different experience and opportunity from that of many mainstream ICT and Information Society development approaches. Here the drivers are predominantly commercial and administrative with government information, commercial 'infotainment' and electronic commerce being fed to what are seen as largely passive consumers. With a few exceptions, 'interaction' means accessing public information and services, responding to advertisements online and engaging in a bit of Internet shopping.

The underlying tenet for many websites - including many so-called 'local' ones - is that the experience for the consumer is a mediated one. In other words, the dominant paradigm for many 'local' websites is that instead of being the result of collective local efforts, the resources, information and content have been developed by others elsewhere. We all need to have the option of becoming content producers as well as content consumers. Local people need to develop activities and resources that are appropriate to their particular needs and interests. The main aim should be to develop levels of ICT literacy and confidence that enable people to move from a position of no knowledge or know-how to one of awareness, access, usage and content development and production.

This has major economic and social implications. The movement from what is essentially a model of ICT consumer to ICT producer is crucial. For, as Sir David Puttnam talking about the European context has put it:

"Our long-term future is not going to be decided by how much we consume but by what we produce, the way we produce it and the extent to which the process of production includes the eighteen million of our fellow citizens who presently find themselves unemployed and therefore excluded both as consumers and as producers."

People First Conference, Dublin 1996

The predominantly mediated nature of much current Information Society development is serving to widen the gulf between those who have access to this possibility and those who do not. This is why having a voice and giving expression to our ideas and visions is an integral part of the process of claiming the Internet for community.

Local connections in a global world

So far I have been talking about ways in which we can use ICTs to help us shape our own futures. The second theme I want to focus on today is that of local connections in a global world. ICTs can be potent tools for community development, local economic development and social inclusion. Using ICTs in ways that empower us is partly a matter of exploiting the benefits of making connections both locally and across the globe. It is about making contacts within and beyond our own local communities. It is about sharing our experiences and talking and networking face-to-face as well as online. It is about getting ideas and inspiration from others. It is about building up new contacts and social networks and working together to find solutions to the challenges that face us.

Once we have started making these local and global connections, we also need to ensure that as communities we are both seen and heard. We need to start making sure that the community voice is evident in our local, regional, national and global digital worlds. Securing a place on the digital map is something we must do for ourselves - for if we do not, we can be sure that nobody else is going to do it for us. If we do not act now to look after our own interests and claim the Internet for ourselves, there is a real danger that we will become what I have elsewhere described as the 'Voices from the Tower'.

Voices from the Tower: a metaphor for social exclusion

'Voices from the Tower’ is a Community Arts Development Project in the city of Cork in Ireland which aims to develop artistic skills amongst its members through the process of creative writing, print making, drama, photography, video and film making and oral history recording. Cork is a city which, like many of its counterparts across Europe, has the problem of bridging the divide between the relatively prosperous community living in the South of the city and the relatively deprived one on the North side of the city. Members of 'Voices from the Tower' come from the latter. Many of them have suffered the ill effects of long term unemployment and through the community arts project are learning to express creatively what they feel about their current situation in Irish society today.

The image of 'Voices from the Tower' reflects how many of the people living in the Northside community in Cork see themselves: a community isolated from the mainstream, ghettoised, lacking resources and deprived of the means to influence local policies and decisions.

'The name.... geographically speaks for itself to those who know the topography of the city. The water tower stands high on the hill on the Northside of Cork where for the last fifty years people from the inner city have gradually been relocated. ...Unemployment opportunities are not high in the Northside communities, and in some cases have not been in existence for over fifty years. Metaphorically the name 'Voices from the Tower’ creates an idea of how we feel sometimes when our message is not heard. We have been conveniently put out of sight, the tower being much more visible than we are, and no matter how loud our voices might be when raised they tend to be heard loudest amongst ourselves, sometimes to a deafening degree, as we talk to ourselves in the spiralling vacuum."

This image or metaphor of 'being seen but not heard' is an apposite one when it comes to talking about claiming the Internet for the community. Right now there are a lot of Information Society 'Voices from the Tower' in the making - not just here in New Zealand or in the UK, but across the globe. ICT solutions and applications are being parachuted down from governments and industry to people in local communities. 'Top-down' approaches are shaping 'top-down' agendas. We can see these 'towers' all around us in the form of wired schools, virtual shopping malls, online public service information systems, e-democracy initiatives and local authority driven 'city' websites - fora where people can be seen but rarely also be really heard.

The digital world being mapped out for us is one of e-government and e-commerce, not community development. These approaches are peppered with the language of democracy and social concern so that some of the hard realities of the 'new economy' appear softened by promises to address issues of access and the so-called 'digital divide'. Terms that belong to us are being appropriated by the public and commercial sectors. Addressing the 'digital divide' is the new code for the drive towards increasing the global market penetration of the new communications industries and e-democracy is more a question of voting mechanisms than individual or community empowerment. Governments and others proclaim the importance of engaging with communities and promoting inclusion, but much of this has turned out to be a question of paying lipservice to social ideals than an active commitment to bringing about real change. If we want to claim the Internet for the community, then we must find more effective ways of helping governments and others to 'walk the talk'.

'Walking the talk'

'Walking the talk' is a two way process. Yes, governments do need to support and facilitate the expression of community voices in the digital world. Yes, they do need to actively intervene to ensure universal access and a more equitable distribution of opportunities and benefits. But we as communities need to play our role too. We need to become active participants in - rather than passive consumers of - our local Information Societies. We need to put our expectations and experiences on the digital map and make sure that globally, as well as locally, community development ranks along with market competitiveness as a key digital goal.

We can do this in a number of ways. As individuals we can use ICTs to develop and pursue our personal interests, to build up our self-confidence and self-esteem and to learn new skills, find pathways back into education and develop new ways of working. We can use the technologies to help us reach out to others in our communities, to transcend generation and location boundaries and strengthen our own support systems.

As communities, we can use the technologies to record and share our cultural identities and local histories. We can use these technologies as tools in our community building and as a means of supporting community activities and producing new community products and cultural assets. We can use these technologies as a way of re-engaging with our young people and of including some of our older members. We can use these technologies as a means of local capacity building, supporting the development of sustainable community enterprises and tapping into our local creativity and talent. We can become content producers as well as consumers.

And as a global community we can act to give force to our collective voice. All over the world - from Europe to Asia, from Africa to Central and Latin America, from North America to Australia and Oceania - people like you and I are exploring the same kinds of opportunities and grappling with the same kind of challenges. New models of economic and social development are being forged through the framework of community networking and we are beginning to share our experiences globally. Over the past few years community networkers from countries as diverse as the UK, Spain, Argentina and Mali have begun to celebrate their diversity and learn from their commonalities. This mixture of diversity and commonality is where our real strengths lie. We need to build on this together. We need to reach out to others like us by taking our local connections into the global context and working together to shape our common visions and values and support each other in finding our individual and collective paths to claiming the Internet for community.