Community Technology and Community Building: Early Results from the Creating Community Connections Project

As community technology and community-building initiatives move toward greater synergy, there is a great deal to be learned regarding how they can be mutually supportive, rather than mutually exclusive. This article sheds light on the possibilities inhered at this nexus. The project that constitutes the basis for this paper is the Camfield Estates-MIT Creating Community Connections Project, an ongoing effort at Camfield Estates, a predominantly African-American, low- to moderate-income housing development. As part of this project, we worked with residents to establish a technological infrastructure by offering every family a new computer, software, high-speed Internet connection, comprehensive courses, and a web-based community-building system, the Creating Community Connections (C3) System, that I codesigned with residents. This article presents an overview of the Camfield Estates-MIT project, theoretical framework developed in relation to this work, research design and methodology, project methodology and timeline, and early results. It concludes with a set of recommendations for the community technology and community-building movements.     

A Trajectory for Community Networks Special Issue: ICTs and Community Networking

We argue that the World Wide Web, network communities, and computer-supported cooperative work have transformed the context for community networks, occasioning a reconstruction of the concept. We analyze features of proximate communities and use these as a basis for examining the design rationale for current implementations of community networks. In particular, we highlight multiple roles and relationships, social and material reciprocity, personal and institutional visibility and accountability, personal and collective efficacy, community-based institutions, and place. We use the analysis to identify directions for further study and development of community networking.     

Assessing the Need and Potential of Community Networking for Development in Rural India Special Issue: ICTs and Community Networking

This article reports the results and conclusions of a mixed-methods research strategy designed to assess the potential of community networking in rural Tamil Nadu, India. The data reported and analyzed in this article include socioeconomic and household spending, agricultural marketing and price search, availability and use of information on agricultural problems, and communication media use. We use these data to define a framework of existing sources of information for various community agents, with a special emphasis on farmers. We analyze the methods and costs at which these agents obtain information, and identify information and communication gaps that information and communication technologies (ICTs) may help alleviate. This study allows us to demonstrate opportunities for socioeconomic development through ICT-enabled information access. The article concludes by stating the importance of basic communication technologies and contextually relevant information services, and suggesting recommendations for future research in this area.     

地方财政科技投入对广东省经济增长的影响:基于面板数据的实证分析

依据内生经济增长理论,采用广东省21个地市2000—2009年的面板数据,运用面板单位根和协整检验等现代计量方法分析财政科技投入对地方经济增长的影响。结果表明财政科技投入对广东省区域经济增长起到了积极的推动作用,并且人力资本与政府财政科技投入的结合对经济增长作用显著。基于这一结论,提出了相关政策和建议,从而使财政科技投入更好地发挥其作用,来促进区域经济又好又快发展。