I see many news and TV reports and articles about the hype surrounding social networking sites such as MySpace. I recognise that the six degrees of separation networking model which these websites are built on is inherently different from previous online community websites which comprise collective communication outlets such as discussion boards and electronic mailing lists. I’m curious to explore how the approach of these social networking sites could be re-appropriated for local, place-based use in the context of social interaction of urban neighbourhoods.

I have written some thoughts about a hybrid approach which would facilitate collective interaction for discussion about place (e.g., community activism) as well as networked interaction for sociability in place (e.g., social networking). These can be found here:

http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00004750/

http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00003686/

I’d be interested to read your views and feedback about these ideas. Thanks.

--
Dr Marcus Foth
BMultimedia BCompSc(Hons) MA PhD
m.foth@qut.edu.au - http://www.vrolik.de/

Australian Postdoctoral Fellow
Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation
Queensland University of Technology (CRICOS No. 00213J)
Creative Industries Precinct, Brisbane QLD 4059, Australia

Marcus, this looks like a really interesting thread, but it's going to take me some time to read the papers you point to. Just wondering if you might like to turn the ideas into an op-ed style article for OLO as it would give a digest of your ideas/research that the article forum thread can deal with.

In the meantime, I'm interested that you've come here to have a discussion about your work and hope others are prepared to put some time into reading the articles you refer to.

Are there people in this field you would like to invite to get involved in the discussion?

Dear Graham,

thanks for your reply. I have in fact contributed an article about this topic previously, which can be found at:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3925

The papers referenced above are more recent and outline the ideas in a more thorough manner than was possible in the OLO article. At this stage I'd be quite happy for anyone who has an interest in social networking sites to hear their views of how they could potentially be or are already used in a local context.

marcus

Hi there Marcus

Absolutely, I have just scan read your articles!

From the viewpoint of social networking to frame grass roots policy development, a more neglected environment is the development of appropriate technology and integrated support for online users who experience disadavantage. How that might be built into programmes and cultivated I have been thinking about.

For the previous 6 years I have facilitated a meeting I designed on the basis of a tutorial programme I attended at the University of Queensland in 1974. It hangs on the hook of the name 'Creative Writers', but is not a conventional writers group, there are no exercises in group or obligations to produce. I intend to begin another group this coming year titled 'Social Philosophy' that was my original inspiration.

Christina Binning Wilson
cbwilson@adam.com.au
(Adress supplied if requested)
(08) 8382 0156
0401811767

Hi Marcus.

Like Graham, I think this is really interesting stuff. Also like Graham, I’m finding the references you’ve provided here and in the previous article a lot more than I can digest in an evening.

You don’t shrink from using the term “community,” though after a quick glance through your two articles I suspect you’re aware of the problems associated with this term when used in online contexts. Physical communities require us to interact with people who are dissimilar in a lot of critical ways, whereas online relationships are optional, and we tend to build them with others who share our interests. Also, the term “community” carries the implication of a shared challenge or threat, which is not normally present in online gatherings.

It will be interesting to see how place-based online forums resolve these features.

My miniscule experience with a neighbour’s online presence makes me think that there’s a way to go before neighbourly relationships regularly extend into the online environment: I recently stumbled across the blog of a neighbour whom I know only by sight. Looking at her family photos and reading accounts of teething children and renovation problems, I felt like a voyeur, like I was crossing a line.

I realise it’s arguing from personal experience, but I have the feeling that it will take us a while to develop the skills for selecting what should, and what needn’t be put on show for the neighbours. We can manage this problem by remaining anonymous in forums like OLO, and on sites like flickr and MySpace. However where anonymity is not possible, we need to develop a new sensibility for what we should reveal online, and what information we should look at.

To this end, I suspect that neighbourhood online spaces will need to be very specifically focussed, at least at first. Neighbourhood Watch, and local action groups are off-line collaborations which could easily go online. However I think it will be a while (if ever) before most of us are comfortable with a generalised online social space for the neighbourhood.

These are interesting and valid points. What helps me in my thinking about these issues is to distinguish between (a) collective interaction for discussion about place and (b) networked interaction for sociability in place. Let me explain.

Collective interaction for discussion about place describes what I think most people conventionally understand by neighbourhood community. Examples include structured online portals and public discussion forums which promote a one-to-many or many-to-many broadcast mode of communication. Offline, there are neighbourhood watches or street rejuvenation initiatives or any type of place-based community activism, eg. rent increases, or Council is building a highway next door, let’s get together and make ourselves heard. I believe these are valid reasons for neighbourhood interaction, but there can be other, more inherently social reasons.

Networked interaction for sociability in place is less frequently associated with neighbourhood interaction. This more private space is occupied by a ‘society of friendships’ or ‘urban tribes’ (Watters), ie. social networks of friends who live within relative proximity to each other. They use informal peer-to-peer type of network communication tools such as email, SMS and instant messaging to interact online, but proximity enables them to gather face-to-face and interact offline. They see each other primarily as ‘friends who live closeby’ and not as ‘neighbours’.

My research found that many residents in inner-city apartment buildings do not know their neighbours. However, they do believe that it is very likely that amongst all the residents, there may be some who they might be socially compatible with, alas certainly not all of them. Yet, besides serendipitous encounters in say, the car park or elevator, there are no convenient means to find out if they are.

I don’t argue and in fact reject the notion that we have to move everyone to an online environment. But I do think that neighbourhoods can be opportunity spaces. Can the communication tools that are already well accepted (such as email, SMS and instant messaging, and now increasingly social networking sites) play a role in realising opportunities?

Marcus, I think the answer is yes, but I think we need to break-down the ethos of anonymity that has grown up on the web, or at least provide some spatial information that people can access, perhaps on a privileged basis.

Dating sites are sites which are designed to introduce people who are proximate to each other, and were probably the earliest social networking type of site. They provide geographical information on a qualified basis once you're sure you actually want to meet the person.

While MySpace appeared originally to be about sex, it doesn't these days appear to have the impetus towards necessarily meeting up. And it's not the sort of site most of us would want to spend any time on.

Maybe you need a MySpace for adults, or just need MySpace to grow-up. And maybe there is a role for a site like ours to provide alternatives, although to do that I think we would also need to break the convention of anonymity.

Hi Marcus, I am yet to fully read your articles, but I certainly get the gist of the case you are making, and the ideas are really interesting with respect to our increasing propensity to post our opinions, stories, photographs - infact to almost exist online, with new tech options to profile/publicise our identities and lives and messages in some mediated form or other turning up all the time.

Two main points interest me here. Firstly, the notion of connecting neighbours or those living/relating in close proximity via online forums and mechanisms interests me in light of a blog I posted recently. This blog is being used as a research tool to gain insight into the perspectives, opinions, and experiences of people who are living in government supported housing at the Kelvin Grove Urban Village regarding how healthy/active their lifestyles are.

Among loads of other things, I found that they really wanted to organise and support each other in pursuing a healthy lifestyle rather than being receptive to a top-down mass communication /health promo/TV campaign type of 'blanket' approach, and an e-network or some kind of e-forum for this would greatly enhance the social links they have already formed, and provide a health-focus for them to discuss and pursue... it would also allow the diversity of activities to flourish, eg some were interested in birdwatching, tai chi, walking groups, a swimming carnival etc in their neighbourhood.

Secondly, the problem of disadvantage (poverty, physical disability, NESB, mental illness) rose as a major inhibiting factor to online connections for offline activities, with access, confidence and ability not being present in equal portions among residents! However, if a portal or computer with wireless access were to be situated centrally (ie kiosk or similar) in this kind of condensed, planned living environment, from what I am hearing from residents this would be embraced with much enthusiasm, with many people very keen to learn how to use the tech and use it to meet their social and health goals

Thanks for these postings, Julie and Graham. I think a discussion forum such as this provides a platform for interest-based communication. The motivation for people to contribute and interact online is based around a shared interest, that is, the topic of the particular discussion thread to which they are contributing.

I think that MySpace follows a different model of interaction. It is more selective and networked, rather than homogeneous and collective. Those are the attributes that interest me in the context of social interaction in a city. Basically: MySpace plus proximity and/or location.

The reference to how online dating sites work is great. I think it would be nice to have some sort of whitepages directory of an apartment building acessible only to residents living there where they can find out who lives in that building, and selectively reach out and connect with people they feel socially compatible with. What do you think?

Plazes has been heralded as the world's first geo-location community bringing physical presence to the Web. Users can share their whereabouts and favorite locations with friends and family and explore what's nearby while on the move. The site connects with other popular social networking tools such as MySpace, Flickr, Skype and Google Maps.

http://www.plazes.com/

I think there is great potential in this approach to allow residents to find each other.

Marcus, thanks for the pointer to Plazes. I've signed-up to see how it all works, and maybe even use it. My point would be that geography is an interest like any other, and people will start using the Internet in a geographical sense when they have an interest in doing so.

Plazes might provide that, although I suspect from what I've seen so far that it will facilitate group behaviour between me and friends I already have, if enough of them sign-up.