Community Networking and Civic Participation: Surveying the Canadian Research Landscape

Social scientists and policy makers have been grappling for a number of decades with an apparent decline in civic participation in many western liberal democracies (Putnam, 2000). The mass media and the rise of new information and communication technologies (ICT) are often implicated in explanations for the decline (Putnam, 2000; Sunstein, 2001; Kraut et al, 1998). On the other hand, some have claimed that the new ICT hold the potential to help reverse this trend by revitalizing and strengthening democratic participation and community involvement (Etzioni, 2004; Lévy, 2001; Rheingold, 2000). Much of the debate focuses on the quantitative and qualitative aspects of participation in “virtual communities,” such as whether or not they promote the development of social capital.

The following paper explores the relationship between new ICT and civic participation by examining the role played by specific kinds of ICT-enabled community organizations, namely community networks, in fostering civic participation in local, geographically-based communities. Unlike the polarized and largely unresolved debate about civic participation and virtual community, there is considerably less controversy about the impact of community networks and related community-based ICT initiatives on local civic participation. Existing research and anecdotal evidence suggests that community networks foster civic participation in the emerging information society by providing access to new ICT for those threatened by digital exclusion, and by providing, via training and other services, opportunities for their effective use within communities to promote communication, information sharing, community involvement, social development and local learning (Gurstein, 2004).

This paper documents community networking’s achievements in civic participation by reviewing the growing research literature on community networks, and by examining a number of case studies from an on-going research project of the Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking (CRACIN). Early results from CRACIN’s research reveal a number of noteworthy successes, while raising questions for future research as well. The paper also finds that community networks in Canada currently face a number of challenges that jeopardize their ability to sustain, let alone advance, the gains made in recent years.

For the purposes of this paper, community networks are defined as community-based ICT organizations committed to universal access to the internet and to the use of ICT systems to promote local economic and social development, civic participation and community learning. A number of definitions are offered in the growing academic literature on community networks. Schuler, for example, defines community networks as enabling electronic environments that promote citizen participation in community affairs (2000). Gurstein describes a community network as “a locally-based, locally-driven communication and information system” designed to enable “community processes and [achieve] community objectives” (2004). Carroll and Rosson (2003) define community networks as community-based ICT initiatives that “support interaction among neighbours” by facilitating “information dissemination, discussion, and joint activity pertaining to municipal government, public schools, civic groups, local events, community issues and concerns, commerce and economic development, and social services” (381). While community networks take a variety of forms, they have in common the broad ideals of promoting economic and social participation by using ICT to enhance the informational resources available to geographic communities and their residents (Gurstein, 2000; Keeble and Loader, 2001b).

Civic participation refers to individuals’ active engagement with and involvement in their communities. Common forms of civic participation include, among other things: donating time and/or money to charitable organizations; belonging to and/or participating in community groups; attending public meetings; voting in elections; attending religious services; and maintaining social networks with friends, neighbours and co-workers. Civic participation is a key indicator of both individual and community development and community well-being.

Social capital refers to the social networks maintained by individuals and within communities, including ties to family, friends, neighbours, local businesses and co-workers, and the norms of reciprocity and trust which arise from them (Putnam, 2000: 19). High levels of social capital have been linked to a variety of positive benefits, including economic growth, civic participation and individual and community well-being (Woolcock, 2001). Social capital and civic participation are mutually reinforcing. Face-to-face interaction among neighbours and community members involving deliberative and collaborative work within voluntary organizations fosters interpersonal trust and social norms of tolerance and cooperation. Social capital, meanwhile, is supportive of civic participation in so far as the latter is reinforced by healthy levels of trust in people, confidence in public institutions, and a sense of belonging on the part of community members.

The broad methodological approach reflected in this paper is that of community informatics. As an emerging interdisciplinary research field, community informatics is concerned with the study of the enabling uses of information and communication technologies in communities – how ICT can help achieve a community’s social, economic, cultural, and political goals (Gurstein 2000). Community informatics brings together the perspectives of a variety of stakeholders – community activists and groups, policymakers, users/citizens, artists, and a range of academics working across disciplines (communication studies, cultural studies, computer science, information studies, sociology, political science, urban studies and geography). Community informatics methodologies and evaluation frameworks for assessing community networking projects, including their impact on civic participation, are still undergoing development and refinement (O’Neill, 2002). O’Neill’s review of such methodologies and evaluation frameworks suggests dozens of candidates that might serve as useful indicators of civic participation and social capital in relation to community networking initiatives, which she groups according to a number of broader categories. Figure 1 contains a list of selected indicators adapted from her work. The following review of existing research on community networking and civic participation draws attention to a number of these indicators.

The work of Putnam and others suggests that there has been a significant decline in civic participation in the major industrialized democracies since the end of WWII, particularly the United States. While there is a dearth of historical data, a number of recent studies have shed light on civic participation patterns and trends in Canada (Minister of Industry, 2004; Canadian Centre for Philanthropy, 2000). Canada appears not to have suffered the same precipitous decline in civic participation and social capital that Putnam found among American citizens over the last few decades. With the exception of notable declines in formal political participation, there is little evidence that civic participation in general is in crisis. According to a 2003 Statistics Canada survey, 60 percent of respondents belonged to at least one community group, including recreational and sports clubs, trade unions, cultural or religious groups, and school, neighbourhood or community service organizations. Many participate in these groups at least once per week. The Canadian Centre for Philanthropy has found that almost 80 percent donate money to charitable groups. In addition, respondents reported relatively extensive social networks among family, friends and neighbours and a majority reported a strong sense of belonging to their local community (Statistics Canada, 2003). A minority of the population reported participating in political activities, with 28 percent having signed a petition and one-fifth having attending a public meeting. Many other studies and surveys have found a marked decline in formal political participation in Canada as well, as measured by voter turnout and membership in political parties (Statistics Canada, 2003; Gidengil et al, 2004).

Having said that, while the data indicates that perhaps half of all Canadians are at least somewhat engaged in civic life, when quantified in terms of the time, effort and money donated to civic groups and causes by individuals, it appears that a much smaller group of Canadians – roughly 25 percent of all volunteers - are responsible for contributing the lion’s share. This group has been referred to as Canada’s “civic core” (Reed and Selbee, 2000). Furthermore, this “civic core” is a relatively unrepresentative group of Canadians who tend, on average, to be middle-aged, well-educated, and affluent (Reed and Selbee, 2000). The Statistics Canada survey also confirmed that individual levels of community and political participation were positively correlated with increased household income and educational attainment. Such findings suggest that Canada’s “civic core” is in need of enlargement and diversification by, for example, overcoming some of the typical barriers that impede civic participation, including economic insecurity, lack of information about opportunities to participate, and lack of time. Community networks, as we shall see below, have a role to play in reducing such barriers.

While the origins of community networking in Canada can be traced back to a number of experiments in the early 1970s, dramatic growth in community networking took place in the early 1990s, as personal computers and modems became increasingly affordable. One of the first and, initially, most successful community networks in Canada was Ottawa’s National Capital FreeNet (NCF), which was established in 1992 as a community-based, non-profit cooperative project by a group of enthusiastic volunteers, university professors, and private industry donors. In addition to providing free dial-up internet access, NCF offered access to information posted by over 250 community organizations and government agencies and hosted listservs for dozens of specialized interest groups. Modeled on this and other successful initiatives, dozens of other community networks were established in communities across Canada in the early nineties. By the mid-nineties, 35 community networks were spread across the country, located in most major cities as well as a number of regions and smaller communities, serving a total of between 250,000 and 600,00 Canadians (Shade, 2003). Typical services offered by these networks included free or low-cost dial-up internet access, email accounts, bulletin boards and listservs, access to public computer terminals, ICT training sessions, content development and, later, web hosting and on-line training and discussions forums.

Community networks in Canada take a variety of forms, but are typically comprised of a few paid staff, a voluntary board of directors, and a larger group of volunteers who participate in activities such as training, technical support, fundraising and content development. Community networks are often affiliated with public institutions such as universities and public libraries, as well as with non-profit community organizations such as social service agencies. Funding and other forms of material support are typically provided through a combination of membership fees, government grant programs, cash and in-kind donations from individuals, volunteer labour, and equipment donations from corporate benefactors. The one constant across all community networks is the contingent and unstable nature of this funding and support. This compels staff members to be constantly engaged in fundraising and program and grant application activities and to be continuously recruiting, training, motivating and renewing their volunteer staffing base. These activities inevitably divert energy and resources from other core activities, such as developing, maintaining and promoting content and the other services provided by the network (Moll and Shade, 2001; Rideout & Reddick, 2005).

In the mid-1990s, community networking received a significant boost of support through the federal government’s Connecting Canadians initiative, a suite of funding programs designed to make Canada “the most connected nation on earth”. Programs like SchoolNet, the Community Access Program (CAP) and Urban CAP, and the Smart Communities pilot programs were directed primarily at providing technical access to the internet in locations like community centers, public libraries and schools. Other federal programs have pursued related goals, such as rural broadband connectivity, on-line training and education, and the development of Canadian content on-line. Altogether, over $400 million has been spent through these programs in support of almost 10,000 community-based ICT initiatives.

Community networks were major recipients of funding under the Connecting Canadians initiative and became lynchpins in the development and success of many of the community projects. Community networks were natural partners for community organizations such as libraries and community centres seeking to establish public internet access sites under the CAP program and, today, community networks manage hundreds of such sites across the country. In addition, community networks have been active providing computer training, technical support, and content development for many CAP sites and various VolNet, LibraryNet and SchoolNet projects (Moll and Shade, 2001).

For the last decade, a small group of researchers and practitioners have endeavored to document the achievements and benefits of publicly-supported community networking in Canada. Work by Clement (Clement and Shade, 2000), the Canada West Foundation (1997a,b), Gurstein (2004), Moll and Shade (2001), Ramirez et al (2002), and Rideout and Reddick (2005) has highlighted their many contributions to local civic participation, social inclusion, information-sharing, community learning, and human and social capital development.

For all their success, however, community networking initiatives in Canada stand at a crossroads. With internet access rates approaching 70 percent, their continuing relevance and necessity have been called into question. Major funding and program cuts were announced in 2004 and both federal and provincial governments have for some time appeared poised to withdraw significantly from supporting community networking, even while a number of recent studies have pointed to the continuing need for public funding for the sustainability of community networking initiatives (Industry Canada, 2004; Rideout & Reddick, 2005). Waning government interest in community networking has placed thousands of community-based ICT initiatives across Canada in jeopardy and threatens to undermine the significant progress recently made in closing the digital divide and enabling individuals and communities to access the benefits of new ICT.

In 2003, thanks to a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), a group of Canadian community informatics researchers, community networking practitioners, and federal government policy and program personnel launched the Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking (CRACIN)[1], which is conducted case studies and more broad-based research on community networking in Canada. CRACIN research documented the activities and achievements of a handful of community networks in order to ensure that the benefits of community networking achieved in the last decade would be recognized and taken into account in ICT policy making.

CRACIN researchers were interested, among other things, in the role played by community networks in fostering local civic participation and social capital, and in affording new electronic public/deliberative spaces to local communities. CRACIN researchers inventoried and analyzed relevant initiatives and programs at the case study sites, documented how these contributed to civic participation and social capital development, and attempted to identify best practices, challenges encountered and lessons learned. This paper summarizes preliminary CRACIN research on civic participation, including a longer background study entitled, Community Networking and Civic Participation in Canada: A Background Paper, prepared with the support of the federal Department of Canadian Heritage (2005).

Community Networking and Civic Participation: International and Canadian Research Perspectives and Case Studies

While debate continues regarding the broad civic implications of the internet, there is considerably less doubt and skepticism among researchers with regard to the contributions to civic participation and social capital made by community networks. Much of the concern about the detrimental impact of internet use on civic participation and community stems from concerns about the displacement of face-to-face social interaction within proximate communities by faceless and placeless on-line interaction within virtual communities. Given that community networks strive, by definition, to use ICT to increase civic participation and social cohesion within local, proximate communities, such concerns do not readily apply.

Community networking practitioners tend to view civic participation as both a central tool and goal of community networking. The best practices in community networking treat community members as active designers of the network and producers of local content, and strive, through training and other forms of support, to help transform them into skilled agents in the use of ICT to pursue individual and collective goals (Gurstein, 2004; Pinkett, 2003:366; Ramirez et al, 2002; Silver, 2004). The following review of international and Canadian research highlights three main aspects of civic participation in community networking practice:

A growing body of international research literature documents the civic participation practices and experiences of community networks in the United States, Europe, South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia.[2] Early accounts of U.S. networks such as San Francisco’s The Well and the Cleveland Free-Net paint impressive records of achievement in fostering civic participation and social capital both on- and off-line (Hafner, 1997; Rheingold, 2000; Schuler, 1996). In recent years, considerable research attention has been focused on the Blacksburg Electronic Village (BEV) in Virginia, and to a lesser extent on networks in Seattle, Boulder, Santa Monica and Minneapolis, among others. Numerous studies have documented the ways in which these networks stimulate civic participation and build local social capital (Beamish, 1995; Carroll and Rosson, 2003; Kavanaugh, 1999; Kavanaugh and Patterson, 2002; Kavanaugh et al, 2005; Schuler, 1996; Silver, 2004; Virnoche, 1998).

While often touted as a model of what community networks can accomplish with respect to civic participation, BEV’s achievements are not necessarily generalizable to all communities, however, as a number of researchers have pointed out (Kavanaugh and Patterson, 2002). The town of Blacksburg has many characteristics conducive to success, including its relative affluence, its existing social capital and the high level of education of its residents compared to surrounding areas, and the fact that, as a university town, it was populated by many “early-adopters” of technology keen to experiment with innovative applications. Furthermore, it is also worth noting that a gradual decline in the vitality of the BEV network has been observed recently in terms of the amount of civic participation and relevant local content, with some commentators citing as explanations the ‘top down’ management approach and predominantly commercial vision of the network adopted by the three institutional partners (Silver, 2004: 323; Carroll and Rosson, 2003: 386).

In Europe, the Digital City of Amsterdam (DDS) was one of the most spectacular community networking successes of the 1990s. The research documentation of the achievements, as well as the eventual demise, of DDS offers useful insight into the connection between community networks and civic participation (Lovink and Riemens, 2004; Lovink, 2002, van den Besselaar, 1997). DDS originated out of the grass-roots initiatives of a loose coalition of artists, computer hackers, media activists and community organizations collectively known as the Amsterdam Public Digital Culture, who were committed to creating a vibrant and accessible “digital public domain” in Amsterdam and the rest of the Netherlands. Originally launched as a ten-week experiment in e-democracy to coincide with municipal elections, the DDS network expanded rapidly over the next few years, recruiting at its height (in 2000), a reported 160,000 registered users, and many more site visitors.

Ultimately, however, DDS was something of a victim of its own success. The publicity it attracted both in the Netherlands and internationally attracted more and more users from outside Amsterdam. The DDS experienced such rapid growth in its user base that within just a couple of years a mere 25 percent of its registered users actually resided in Amsterdam (Day and Schuler, 2004). The increasingly deterritorialized nature of its user base slowed the development of locally relevant content and allowed an increasingly entrepreneurial management team to run the network unchecked by local users (Lovink and Riemens, 2004; Lovink, 2002). DDS was eventually privatized and repurposed as a commercial ISP in 2001, the inevitable result, most commentators argue, of the network’s failure to sustain local participation in management and content development.

The Milan Community Network, or Rete Civica di Milano (RCM), has been a more sustained (if less spectacular) success than its Dutch counterpart (de Cindio, 2004). Today RCM has 15,000 registered users and over 700 discussion forums accommodating a wide range of interests and issues. RCM continues to foster civic participation and local social capital through a variety of initiatives and programs (Casapulla, et al, 2001).

Schauder has documented the achievements of Australia’s Victoria Community Network (VICNET). VICNET provided internet access, ICT training, and support to community organizations throughout the State of Victoria (Schauder, 2004). VICNET was one of Australia’s first ISPs, and it helped establish over 500 public access sites across the state and trained over 100,000 individuals on internet use. Over 38,000 people joined VICNET’s various on-line communities and it at one time hosted over 5,000 community web sites, thus entrenching VICNET as an important thread in the social fabric of the state. The ‘Reach for the Clouds’’ initiative, meanwhile, which notably wired a high-rise public housing project in Melbourne, showed early signs of success at reinforcing social capital within the diverse ethnic groups residing in the complex (Meredyth, et al, 2002).

Community informatics research from countries outside the OECD has produced similar findings. Finquelievich, for example, relates the experience of Argentinian community networks, which played a central role in mobilizing and coordinating large scale civic protests and activities in response to the country’s December 2001 economic crisis. Citizens, communities and neighbourhoods engaged in a massive, grassroots effort to mobilize and coordinate various political and mutual aid activities, including the formation of “neighbourhood assemblies” to plan and put in place services such as soup kitchens and child care. Community networking groups such as Indymedia Argentina played a crucial role, she argues, by setting up web sites with event notices and electronic discussion forums which supported and complimented the in-person, face-to-face activities of neighbourhood residents and community activists (Finquelievich, 2004).

A growing literature also shows how community networks have provided opportunities for increased civic participation among disadvantaged groups, including low-income earners, racial minorities, women, and youth. Community networking initiatives in U.S. inner-city African American neighbourhoods have been the subject of a number studies, and have revealed positive impacts in terms of increasing awareness of community issues and resources, increasing communication and information-sharing among residents, and expanding social networks (Alkalimat and Williams, 2001; Hill, 2001; Pinkett, 2003; Schön et al, 1999). Green and Keeble (2001) and Vehviläinen (2001) have documented effective community networking initiatives targeting disadvantaged women. Projects and initiatives offering internet access and ICT training to children and youth have also been studied (Clark, 2003; Sandvig, 2003).

Canadian Research Perspectives on Community Networking and Civic Participation

With the exception of Wellman and Hampton’s well-known research on the wired Toronto suburb of “Netville’, few Canadian studies of community networking have focused on civic participation per se. Nonetheless, a number of existing studies provide both anecdotal and more systematically-derived evidence of community networking’s impact on local civic participation and social capital development. Moll and Shade, for example, have tracked the progress and development of community networks in Canada for much of the past decade, documenting the success of networks such as Ottawa’s National Capital FreeNet (NCF) and Halifax’s Chebucto Community Net (CCN) in engaging community members and organizations in the use of ICT for local community-building (Moll and Shade, 2001, Shade, 2003). NCF is a member-driven, non-profit organization that has served as a key entry point onto the internet for thousands of members of the Ottawa community and surrounding region, many of whom would not otherwise have been able to access the internet due to the cost or other restrictions. In addition to helping community members acquire basic internet access and ICT skills, NCF and its members provide and update local content. At its height in the late-nineties, NCF had approximately 60,000 users and enlisted over 250 organizations in posting information to the NCF network, including information on health, social services, recreation, education, federal and local government, and women’s issues. Individuals and local groups established an eclectic series of community discussion boards on topics ranging from sports, dogs and arts to astronomy, beer- and wine-making, and mental health (Moll and Shade, 2001; Shade, 2003: 43).

In Halifax, meanwhile, the Chebucto Community Net (established in 1993) offered low cost internet access, email accounts and web hosting services to individuals, community groups and local businesses. In partnership with the Halifax Regional Library, CCN offered free ICT training courses to local community members, and operated a program to provide recycled computers to persons with low incomes for the purposes of training and distance education. CCN’s “Chebucto Neighbourhood” community billboard provided access to information on over 200 local businesses, community groups, social service agencies, health care organizations, arts and culture groups, government offices, and churches. CCN also operated a web camera mounted on top of the tallest building in Halifax, which has been used to raise community awareness of events like the “Tall Ships” festival and, of local issues such as the controversial harvesting of thousands of trees in the city’s Point Pleasant Park in 2000 to ward off a beetle infestation.

The Canada West Foundation (CWF) reported on the activities of 29 community networks from across Canada in 1997 (Canada West Foundation, 1997a, 1997b). Two CWF reports detailed the many ways in which community networks fostered civic participation, from providing free or low-cost access to the information highway as a public good; training users to become more sophisticated producers, as well as consumers, of local information and services; to engaging and attracting community members as volunteer technical support and training personnel (1997a). While a number of the networks surveyed by CWF were small, a handful served substantial populations of users. In addition to NCF’s 60,000 users, for example, networks in Toronto (38,400), Hamilton-Wentworth (15,000), Edmonton (9000), Victoria (18,000) and Vancouver (9000) enjoyed relatively heavy use given the preliminary state of public internet awareness and development at the time (1997b). While varying in size, most of the networks studied enlisted anywhere from 25 to 250 local individuals, organizations and businesses as information providers, and relied on the unpaid time and effort of between 25 and 150 volunteers each to operate the networks and provide content and programming (1997b).

A number of researchers have also studied the impact of federal government programs related to community networking, including the Community Access Program (CAP) and the Community Learning Network Initiative, both of which sought to have an impact on, among other things, civic participation. According to a recent evaluation, the roughly 8,000 remaining public internet access sites supported by the CAP program continued to serve a vital public good by providing internet access and ICT training to hundreds of thousands of Canadians, particularly those from groups affected by the digital divide, i.e. low income households and those in rural communities (Industry Canada, 2004). CAP fostered civic participation in terms of providing the basic infrastructure, in the form of technical connectedness, for citizen participation in the knowledge-based economy and society. Furthermore, in addition to helping to narrow the digital divide significantly, the report also concluded that CAP offered a number of other benefits to individuals and communities consistent with fostering civic participation, including:

“increased knowledge about, comfort with and use of the Internet and ICT; exchange of information and ideas among citizens; social/cultural development and better integration of users into the community (e.g. through opportunities to meet or communicate); and even some improvement in the economic situation of users (e.g. development of job skills, assistance with job search, selling locally produced goods over the internet.” (Industry Canada, 2004:vii).

Rideout and Reddick have conducted research on the importance and impact of both the CAP program and the Community Learning Networks initiative with respect to ameliorating the digital divide in Canada (Rideout and Reddick, 2005). While critical of the short-sighted way in which governments have funded and implemented such programs, they argue that sustaining community networking initiatives is critical to providing individuals and communities afflicted by the digital divide, and various other inequalities and developmental challenges, with opportunities to access the requisite tools, skills, and information for participating fully in the knowledge-based economy and society.

Balka and Peterson as well conducted a survey of internet users and usage at a branch of the Vancouver Public Library in 1999 (Balka and Peterson, 2002). According to their findings, while the Library’s public internet terminals were heavily used for entertainment rather than civic purposes, they did “seem to lead to social cohesion to the extent that [they provide] a mechanism for the formation and cohesion of local social groups … [and] to the extent that many patrons use the Internet to maintain contact with family and friends” (369).

Other researchers have been somewhat more circumspect about programs such as CAP which, they argue, operate on the basis of a rather technical and narrow definition of access which prevents them from being used as effectively as they could be, suggesting that the full potential of community networking initiatives to stimulate civic participation has yet to be tapped (Clement and Shade, 2000; Gurstein, 2004).

Ramírez et al studied the civic engagement practices of 11 Canadian community networks of varying size and organizational form (Ramírez, Aitkin, Kora and Richardson, 2002). Focusing on how community networks engage community members and local partners and stakeholder organizations in the project of community networking itself, their research reveals that community engagement “is an ongoing interactive process characterized by commitment to ever-changing community needs and interests” (2002: 2). The authors found that the on-going process of engaging and mobilizing community-members in the project of community networking involves the following best practices:

Ramírez et al provide numerous examples of these best practices being adopted by the networks that participated in their study.

No review of Canadian research on community networks and civic participation would be complete without acknowledging the extensive research conducted by Wellman, Hampton and various collaborators. Wellman and Hampton conducted a two-year study of the social life of “Netville,” a new suburb built on the outskirts of Toronto in 1996-97 that was wired with an experimental network owned and operated by a technology firm in partnership with the residential developer (Hampton, 2003). While the network lacked many of the organizational attributes of the other grassroots community networks discussed here, the Netville studies found that the wired residents of Netville used ICT to expand and deepen their networks of social ties, and that they displayed a greater propensity to form ties with neighbours compared to their non-wired counterparts (418-421).

One final area in which community networks in Canada have attempted to foster civic participation revolves around the development of public policy and governance mechanisms related to ICT. While, as in most other countries, the opportunities for meaningful public involvement in agenda-setting and policy making with respect to new ICT have been limited, community networks and related advocacy organizations have lobbied vigorously to inject public interest concerns into these processes (Clement, Moll and Shade, 2001). Through organizations such as Telecommunities Canada, community networking advocates have inserted themselves in policy consultations, discussions and debates on new media and the information highway since the mid-1990s, beginning with the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) public hearings on convergence (1995) and new media (1998).

Community networks were also active during the consultation and report-writing phases of the Industry Canada-sponsored Information Highway Advisory Council (IHAC), which issued major agenda-setting reports and recommendations on federal information highway policy in 1995 and 1997, and again in 2000-2001 during the work of the National Broadband Task Force. However, while community networking advocates in the 1990s achieved some success in carving out a space for public interest voices in ICT policy discussions, their concerns have taken a back seat to industry and government eagerness to develop the commercial potential of the internet. Finally, community networking organizations in Canada have also become increasingly active at the international level, participating in global conferences and forums on global media governance in an attempt to exert influence on such multilateral processes as the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) (Moll and Shade, 2004b).

While the preceding survey reveals some noteworthy achievements by Canadian community networks in the area of civic participation, with the exception of the work of Wellman and his collaborators on the “Netville” case study, there has been little in-depth research focused on community networking and civic participation per se. What evidence has been found of benefits to local communities in terms of increased civic participation and social capital is often anecdotal. The limited nature of existing evidence and indicators of civic participation and social capital within Canadian community networking leaves a number of important questions unanswered. For example, while there is evidence of a certain degree of civic participation, as measured in terms of the number and diversity of community web pages and discussion lists maintained by the networks discussed, there is little in-depth analysis of their usage from either a quantitative or qualitative standpoint. How many community members actually make use of these resources? How up-to-date is the information they contain? What is the level and quality of on-line discussion and debate?

CRACIN’s research agenda was designed, among other things, to document and assess the impact of community networks on local civic participation and social capital in greater depth and with somewhat greater rigour. In collaboration with participating case study sites, CRACIN documented the achievements of community networks in this regard. Preliminary work entailed an academic literature review and on-line documentary research. On-going research included field work and interviews at participating case study sites, as well as the development of appropriate indicators of civic participation and social capital incorporated into a survey administered to case study sites and other community networks across Canada in late 2005 and early 2006.

The final section of the paper introduces a number of CRACIN case study sites and presents preliminary findings in the form of brief inventories of civic participation-related activities and outcomes at selected sites.

The Vancouver Community Network (VCN) offers a variety of free networking services to individuals and non-profit groups in Vancouver and British Columbia, including dial-up internet access, computer training, e-mail accounts, listservs and web site hosting. VCN has 11,000 individual users and over 1,200 non-profit groups that take advantage of its services. VCN hosts over 100 listservs on its Sympa system, enabling individuals and groups to set up electronic mailing lists to share information and discuss issues of mutual interest and concern, ranging from arts and culture to politics, health, and sports and recreation. VCN has a volunteer board of twelve, over 50 active volunteers, and 1,000 donors (Chan, 2004). Encouraging broad civic participation in the use of electronic public space is one of VCN’s primary missions.

VCN provides network access, training and technical support to community-based non-profit groups to enable them to more effectively accomplish their goals in the areas of community development and civic participation. VCN partnered with the federal government, among others, to launch the “604 Connect!” program through which over 400 area non-profit groups acquired internet access, training and support.

In 2001, VCN also launched a Community Learning Network pilot program designed to explore the effectiveness of community networking in support of community development and local civic participation. VCN worked closely with numerous community groups and community centers to develop interactive websites to make their programs better known and more accessible to the local community. Groups such as the Carnegie Centre, Collingwood Neighbourhood House, Ray-Cam Cooperative Centre, and Kiwassa Neighbourhood House were trained in the use of an open source website content management system, which enabled community members and groups with limited computer and web development skills to produce and edit local content on the site, including news articles, event calendars and descriptions, discussion boards, and link lists.

Many of VCNs public computing initiatives focused on using ICT to organize and empower marginalized individuals and groups. VCN has coordinated 32 public internet access sites throughout the region, as part of the federal CAP program. Many of these sites are situated and designed to serve the poor, new immigrants, youth, and the homeless, including the residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside neighbourhood, one of the country’s poorest. Among the many non-profit organizations with web sites hosted by VCN is the West Coast Domestic Worker’s Association (WCDWA), an independent advocacy organization which helps domestic workers organize and advocate on their own behalf on issues such as employment rights and immigration. In 2003-4, in conjunction with WCDWA, VCN helped to develop and run the “Computer Literacy Project” computer training program specifically designed to meet the needs of domestic workers. Other VCN projects have included the development of a Spanish language portal containing community, health and legal information and resources for Spanish speakers, and, in partnership with the 411 Senior Centre, an on-line Seniors Gateway to Legal Information and Resources to empower seniors and their advocates to better access benefits, services and programs.

Kuh-ke-nah Network of Smart First Nations – K-Net (Nishnawbe Aski First Nation)

In 1994, Keewaytinook Okimakanak (KO), a council of First Nations chiefs from 5 Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) aboriginal communities in north-western Ontario, established the Kuh-ke-nah (K-Net) regional community network, in an effort to leverage local connectivity to promote education and community development (Beaton, Fiddler and Rowlandson, 2004, Ramirez et al, 2004). A total of 49 NAN communities are spread across a territory the size of France, and average roughly 400 members each. Except for a few weeks in winter, the remote NAN communities are accessible by plane only. Residents have struggled for decades with high unemployment, dependency on social assistance, above average rates of suicide, and below average rates of high school completion. NAN communities also lack basic health and educational services taken for granted in much of the rest of Canada. Considerable stress and dislocation are imposed on NAN communities as a result of residents having to leave to access medical treatment, and children as young as 13 leaving to attend high school in population centres hundreds of kilometres away. K-Net has worked in partnership with federal and provincial governments for a number of years to connect NAN communities to the internet. Thanks to these partnerships, some NAN communities have progressed from having a single phone in the community to residential broadband access in less than a decade.

Recent K-Net initiatives in tele-health and on-line education contribute to social capital and civic participation in NAN communities by enabling residents to access vital services that previously were available only by flying to larger communities hundreds of kilometers to the south. KO Tele-health currently offers telemedicine services to 5 KO communities, with plans to add 19 more to the network. The K-Net Internet High School (KiHS) enables students in 13 NAN communities to complete Grades 9 and 10 on-line via internet access to curriculum materials and trained teachers. In addition to reducing the sense of isolation and disconnectedness felt by residents of such communities, K-Net services such as KO tele-health and KiHS play an important role in strengthening local communities by enabling residents who might otherwise be forced to leave to stay in the community, and by encouraging those who have left to return (Ramirez et al, 2004).

In addition, K-Net provides a host of other network, training and content development services, such as video-conferencing, and individual, family and community homepages which enable community members to stay in touch with friends, family and community. K-Net is host to First Nations community portals, 11206 listed personal homepages, over 22,348 email addresses, as well as various chat rooms and school web sites. K-Net also hosts the Turning Point discussion forum, an internationally recognized on-line forum devoted to engaging aboriginals and non-aboriginals in discussions of mutual interest and concern, and to improving cross-cultural communication and race relations in Canada. With an average of 4.3 million hits a month, the K-Net portal (knet.ca) provides a significant on-line presence for Ontario’s remote First Nations.

St. Christopher House (SCH) is a non-profit social service agency which has served less advantaged individuals and families in western downtown Toronto since 1912. SCH offers a broad range of community-based social service programs, serving over 8,000 community residents a year. In an effort to tackle the digital divide, SCH is host to a CAP project called Bang The Drum, which offers free internet access, computer tutorials and comprehensive lessons on website design and programming at various sites within its catchment area. In February 2005, SCH launched an ambitious Community Learning Network (CLN) web portal. The SCH CLN enables users to add and edit various kinds of content on the site in both public and private areas, co-construct pages and resources related to SCH programs and services, create community event listings and announcements, set up discussion forums, establish community group web sites, participate in on-line training courses, translate pages into various languages, and create or post materials to support informal learning on a wide variety of subjects of interest to community members.

As a social service organization committed to community engagement and participation, SCH adopted a participatory design approach to the conception, design and implementation of the CLN as an open source tool (Luke et al, 2004). With the assistance of a private web development firm and the support of community informatics researchers from the University of Toronto, SCH embarked on the development of the CLN portal, beginning with an assessment of SCH staff and community needs and the development of a blueprint for the web portal. Successive prototypes of the SCH CLN portal were released on SourceForge and tested on groups of SCH staff and community members over the next year and half, until its final public launch in February 2005. While the design and implementation of the CLN was not without its tensions, all participants agree that the process was a rewarding and successful one that is far more likely to engage members of the community than had the CLN been designed and implemented in top-down fashion without consultation (Luke et al, 2004:18).

CRACIN’s on-going research on community networking in Canada was directed to provide a detailed overview and analysis of the civic participation practices, experiences and achievements of its community networking partners. Based on the evidence collected, the community networking organizations, sites and initiatives described above have had a perceptible impact. As key players in providing free or low cost internet access and training, community networks help to maintain vital public on-ramps to the information highway for hundreds of thousands of Canadians. In addition, the community networks documented in CRACIN’s research demonstrate a strong commitment to civic participation, both in terms of the innovative uses they make of ICT to stimulate and support community engagement and development, and in terms of how they engage community members in the project of community networking itself as volunteers, content providers and board members. Many are also actively involved in regional, national and even international dialogues and debates about ICT policymaking and governance as well.

Having said all this, what is increasingly evident is how fragile and tenuous many of the gains achieved by community networks are. CRACIN sought not only to validate the role of community networks in promoting civic participation, but to also identify and acknowledge the challenges and difficulties they currently face in maintaining and advancing their work in this area. The vagaries of government program implementation and funding inhibit long-term planning and hiring decisions and tax the resources and energy of staff, who must continuously prepare funding applications, participate in evaluation exercises, etc.

Community networks also struggle to maintain the interest and engagement of members when the latter achieve greater independence, or can afford to pay for their own hardware and commercial internet access; securing the engagement of participation of “information haves” within communities remains a struggle. CRACIN undertook research on civic participation at its partner community networking sites in order to better understand and appreciate these difficulties, to shed light on how government policies and funding programs might alleviate or exacerbate them, and to offer practical suggestions and solutions for overcoming them.[3]

A previous version of this paper was prepared on behalf of the Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking (CRACIN) for the Department of Canadian Heritage, as a background paper for CRACIN Workshop #3: Community Networking and Civic Participation, held at the Coast Plaza Hotel, Vancouver, B.C., February 25-27, 2005. CRACIN acknowledges the generous support of the Department of Canadian Heritage in providing funds to help stage this event. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author alone.

The author wishes to thank Brian Beaton, Andrew Feenberg, Michael Gurstein, Alexandra Samuel, Mark Surman, and Duncan Sanderson for their comments on previous drafts. Valuable research assistance was provided by the following graduate students attached to the CRACIN project: Brandi Bell, Diane Dechief, Nicolas Lecomte, Katrina Peddle, Cathryn Staring Parrish, and Ken Werbin.

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2. A number of very useful edited collections have appeared in recent years to document the work of community networks in this regard, including: Michael Gurstein, ed. (2000) Community Informatics: Enabling Communities with Information and Communication Technologies. Hershey PA: Idea Group Publishing; Keeble and Brian D. Loader, eds. (2001a) Community Informatics: Shaping Computer-Mediated Social Relations, New York: Routledge; Stewart Marshall, Wal Taylor, Xinghuo Yu, eds. (2004) Using Community Informatics to Transform Regions, Hershey PA: Idea Group Publishing; Schuler, Douglas and Peter Day, eds. (2004a). Shaping the Network Society: The New Role of Civil Society in Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press; Tanabe, Makoto, Peter van den Besselaar, Toru Ishida, eds. (2002) Digital Cities 2, computational and sociological approaches. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2362, Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

3. A collection of papers documenting the CRACIN research and its findings is scheduled to be published sometime in 2009.