[cma-l] New Issue of 3CMedia on CBOnline - Australia

[Salvatore Scifo]

Source:
http://www.cbonline.org.au/3cmedia/3c_issue4/index.shtm

The Australian Community Broadcasting Series
ISSN 1832-6161

Issue 4
Emerging Technology: New Opportunities for the Community Sector
Guest Editor: Marcus Foth


Editorial
This issue of the Journal of Community, Citizen’s and Third Sector Media 
and Communication brings together research papers that seek to continue 
a dialogue about key questions started in the last issue of 3CMedia. One 
of these key questions deals with the continuing quest to find the 
raison d’être for community organisations (including community media 
organisations) in times of participatory culture, media convergence and 
Web 2.0. Do the affordances of these socio-cultural and technical trends 
render the third sector less significant or even obsolete as some 
commentators speculate? Citizen journalism challenges conventional 
notions of news reporting. Users of blogs and social networking sites 
display and discuss their political, civic and environmental concerns on 
their profiles through personal statements, online group affiliations 
and virtual badges. Taking advantage of peer to peer forms of electronic 
communication such as mobile phone text messaging, the Critical Mass 
movement has established a history of successfully organising large 
political demonstrations in a decentralised manner without the need for 
a single dedicated institutional entity to coordinate the efforts. 
Indeed, in Shirky’s words, ‘Here Comes Everybody’ (2008).

In the last issue of 3CMedia, Rennie (2007) discussed principles of open 
source software development to propose the notion of the ‘open source 
organisation’ as a practical way forward. Responding to challenges (and 
opportunities!) of convergence, user-generated content and participatory 
Web 2.0 services, Rennie renews the third sector’s reason for being. She 
sees community media organisations as conduits that channel and harness 
the grassroots motivation, efforts and activities by providing capacity 
and leadership in operating, managing and maintaining media services and 
systems. The papers in this issue of 3CMedia continue some key aspects 
of this debate, especially in the context of young people, digital 
identity, digital divides and the lessons to be learnt by non-profit and 
community organisations.

Four of the papers in this issue have been selected from presentations 
given at the Making Links conference 2007, which was held at the NSW 
Teachers Federation
Conference Centre in Sydney on 30th and 31st October, 2007. Although its 
origins are with community health organisations, the Making Links 
conference series targets the whole community and non-profit sector. 
Jill Sergeant, Making Links Conference Chair and Website Officer at the 
Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations (AFAO), organised a 
networking meeting on 17th May 2004 as a satellite event in conjunction 
with the HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C & Related Diseases Social Research 
Conference in Sydney at the time. This informal gathering brought 
together web, media and information technology workers and volunteers 
based in a variety of community organisations throughout Australia to 
discuss common issues and challenges, to share resources and knowledge, 
and to organise means to communicate more effectively across the sector. 
With this spirit in mind, the idea to organise a more coordinated and 
regular event, that is, the Making Links conference series, was born at 
this meeting.

This year, we celebrate Making Links’ 5th birthday from 11th to 13th 
November, 2008, at The University of Melbourne with the core themes of 
community, responsibility and sustainability (see 
http://www.makinglinks.org.au/). By now, Making Links has established 
itself as one of the leading forums in Australia where social action and 
technology converge and related questions and developments are discussed 
in a supportive environment. So far, community media organisations have 
been underrepresented at these events, and I encourage the readers of 
3CMedia to check out this year’s program and to consider participating 
in what always shapes up to be a stimulating and thought provoking event.

It is very welcome and appropriate that the Community Broadcasting 
Association of Australia, a peak association of the community 
broadcasting sector, is facilitating the dissemination of research 
presented at the 2007 Making Links conference. The papers in this issue 
of 3CMedia explore some current and emerging technology trends and 
examine the opportunities these trends open up to the community sector 
from a number of different perspectives.


Utilising technology to promote social connectedness and civic 
engagement amongst marginalised young people (164KB PDF)
http://www.cbonline.org.au/3cmedia/3c_issue4/metcalf.pdf
Atari Metcalf and his colleagues report on a research and youth 
development initiative by The Inspire Foundation that looks at the role 
information and communication technology plays in the life and 
well-being of young people. The objective is to promote civic engagement 
and social connectedness with young people at risk of mental health 
issues and experiencing marginalisation. The article traces the 
project’s development and seeks to better understand young people’s use 
of ICT and outline new media literacy skills necessary to promote and 
support civic engagement and social connectedness.

The Re-creation of Identity in Digital Environments and the Potential 
Benefits for Non-Profit and Community Organisations (1.25MB PDF)
http://www.cbonline.org.au/3cmedia/3c_issue4/satchel.pdf
Christine Satchell presents research findings derived from two new media 
and mobile technology studies into the identity formation of young 
people in digital environments. She describes how the challenges for 
digital identity management systems in these studies were responded to 
with design solutions, and offers a set of lessons and recommendations 
how these ideas relate to organisations in the non-profit and community 
sector. Christine was a keynote speaker at Making Links 2007.

Iranian Youth Online: Identity between traditional and modern lifestyles 
(1.25MB PDF)
http://www.cbonline.org.au/3cmedia/3c_issue4/kia.pdf
Ali Asghar Kia provides a unique account of the situation of young 
people in Iran accessing the Internet to satisfy personal and collective 
communication and interaction needs. He discusses the role the Internet 
plays in the everyday life of young people who participated in his 
study. His paper offers a rich analysis of the way Internet access and 
usage shape and impact on how these young people form, represent and 
experience their identity between traditional and modern lifestyle choices.

Reflections on the Politics of Practicality: Evaluating ICT for 
community development (161KB PDF)
http://www.cbonline.org.au/3cmedia/3c_issue4/butt.pdf
Danny Butt was the second keynote speaker at Making Links 2007. His 
article highlights some of the problems associated with planning, 
executing and evaluating development projects that seek to take the 
benefits of new media and information and communication technology to 
local communities. Danny suggests a way forward by avoiding an 
externally forced upon focus on short term practical outcomes and 
instead recommends a nuanced communication approach in order to manage 
and balance the expectations of external stakeholders.

Sporting Organisations: Do they need to communicate with members? (231KB 
PDF)
http://www.cbonline.org.au/3cmedia/3c_issue4/luck.pdf
Edwina Luck and Elizabeth Buchanan wrote a paper that is not based on a 
presentation given at the Making Links 2007 conference, but we felt that 
its topic and contribution was sufficiently complementary to the theme 
of this issue that it warranted inclusion. The article looks at sporting 
organisations in Australia and discusses their current communication and 
membership outreach strategies. In a number of ways, sporting 
organisations – being attractive to and populated by a majority of young 
people – face similar concerns and challenges as other non-profit and 
community organisations, and this paper presents a thorough study that 
points at ways organisational capacity can be strengthened to meet the 
contemporary communication needs of members and constituents.


I would like to express my sincere thanks to Jill Seargant, founder and 
chair of the Making Links conference series for her excellent work, 
vision, collegiality and immense productivity and organisational talent. 
I also thank 3CMedia’s editor, Dr Christina Spurgeon, for fruitful 
discussions and for her great support of this special issue. Further, 
each article has been carefully refereed by expert reviewers, the editor 
of 3CMedia, plus myself as the guest editor of this issue, and I am 
grateful to these colleagues for their comprehensive commentary and 
quick turnaround of reviews, including: Prof. William Dutton, Oxford 
Internet Institute; Prof. Michael Gurstein, New Jersey Institute of 
Technology; Dr Neil Selwyn, University of London; Dr Mary Ann Allison, 
Hofstra University. Thank you.

References
Rennie, E. (2007). Community Media in the Prosumer Era. Journal of 
Community, Citizen’s and Third Sector Media and Communication, 3, 25-32.
Shirky, C. (2008). Here Comes Everybody: How digital networks transform 
our ability to gather and cooperate. New York: Penguin Press.


About the guest editor
Marcus Foth is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Creative 
Industries and Innovation, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), 
Brisbane, Australia. He received a BCompSc(Hon) from Furtwangen 
University, Germany, a B. Multimedia from Griffith University, Australia 
and an MA and PhD in digital media and urban sociology from QUT. Dr Foth 
is the recipient of an Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship supported 
under the Australian Research Council’s Discovery funding scheme. He was 
a 2007 Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of 
Oxford, UK. Employing participatory design and action research, he is 
working on cross-disciplinary research and development at the 
intersection of people, place and technology with a focus on urban 
informatics, locative media and mobile applications. Dr Foth has 
published over fifty articles in journals, edited books, and conference 
proceedings in the last four years. He is the conference chair of OZCHI 
2009, a member of the Australian Computer Society and the Executive 
Committee of the Association of Internet Researchers. More information 
at www.urbaninformatics.net