Collaborative knowledge construction in digital environments: Politics, policy, and communities

How individuals share information with respect to politics and policy in networked research environments is an area ripe for interdisciplinary study. In this analysis, I explore some of the more current and salient research findings from several disciplinary literatures (communications, computer science, organizational behavior, information science, and public policy) to examine how current research perceives the influence of technology-aided communications on policy-making conversations. I suggest that a community-centric view, which takes into account online and offline group affiliations and their related power dynamics, is just as important as an individual-based unit of analysis. This understanding points to directions for the thoughtful creation of digital resources that appropriately reflect and support inter- and intra-group knowledge-sharing behavior.