What Is Community Networking?

Community Networking: A Working Definition

"Community networking" is as varied as the communities themselves are, and defies a strict "definition". Most community networking projects however do have the following aspects in common:

• They bring together many diverse sectors of the community, to discuss and decide what this "new media" afforded by the Internet means to their own community. In this over-specialized and compartmentalized society of ours, very often community networking meetings are the first time that all these people are ever involved in a collaborative project, much less are in the same room at the same time.
• They result in the creation of some kind of "online presence" that is a reflection of their particular community. This "presence" nowadays is typically on the World Wide Web, and typically provides the following:
  • "official" and not-official community information
  • news and events
  • community members' commentary, poetry, stories, art
  • some kind of communication capabilities (eg., discussion groups, chat)
• They provide community-wide training on using the community network, and the Internet in general. This typically is the only opportunity that the lesser-advantaged sectors of our communities have to learn about and access this so-called "Information Highway".
• Most projects also provide public access sites, in libraries and other public places.

The key though is that local people decide for themselves what the content and services will be. In many cases, it also permits voices in the community to be heard, that had never had the opportunity to be heard before. And in this time of increasing media conglomeration, it is more than ever important for communities to decide for themselves what this "new media " can mean to them, and not wait for the Corporate Giants or the Federal Government to decide for them.

Ultimately though, the most exciting aspect of community networking is not really "the systems" themselves, but the people that are brought together, and the synergies that happen around these projects.