Will Davies - Digital Inclusion And Social Capital

[email protected] www.potlatch.org.uk 1

Social, digital networks in deprived communities

20th May 2009

RSA

Will Davies


Vicious and virtuous circles of networks

• Network analysis - social and digital - highlights vicious and virtuous circles of inequality:

• Connectivity delivers confidence, information, reputation-formation, well-being, economic advantages; these deliver further confidence, information, reputation-formation, well-being, economic advantages

• Demonstrates the ‘embeddedness’ of economic activity in social and cultural contexts

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1. Why do we need digital inclusion?

2. Why do we need social capital?

3. How does ICT aid social capital formation?

4. Challenges and questions


Digital inclusion

An economic issue on paper:• 51% of non-internet users cite cost as a reason• 90% of new jobs in the UK require ICT skills• Online services and price-comparison are more efficient

But not in the psychology of non-users:• Lack of interest dominant reason for non-use• Lack of literacy and education in general• Cultural image of computers

Or users: • benefits include social connectivity, civic participation, media content,

better information on jobs, services etc


Social capital

• “Networks, norms and trust”

• Bonding social capital: • Long-standing close ties, which are likely to also know each

other• For when you need to borrow £100 in a hurry• Emotional and psychological support

• Bridging social capital:• Weaker, more ephemeral ties, which are less likely to connect

to each other• For when you need a job• Potentially more diverse, cosmopolitan, associational


Social capital

• An economic issue:• Bonding social capital is an efficient response to emotional,

physical and financial dependency, that would otherwise fall to the state

• Bridging social capital is an efficient response to ‘information asymmetries’ in markets; it circulates reputation

• Beyond economics:• Civic participation is a good in its own right• Civic participation and information networks lead to better

governance• Informal sanctions against ‘anti-social’ and criminal behaviour• Nearly any positive policy outcome correlates to social capital• Malign social capital


Social capital and exclusion

• Vicious circles:

• Key finding is that social capital has been rising amongst middle classes and falling amongst working classes

• Poverty - especially unemployment - tends to correlate to disproportionately more bonding social capital than bridging social capital

• The excluded may suffer from dysfunctional social capital, where networks are divisive or ‘anti-social’


Internet and social capital

• Sufficient empirical research now shows the internet’s capacity to build social networks:

• Can be used to maintain both forms of social capital, especially over distance

• Lowering barriers to entry for civic engagement• Effective at circulating information and reputations,

including at a local level• Social networking sites and publishing platforms offer

new opportunities to build and maintain community, including at a local level

• New form of community, between formal and informal


Speeding up and entrenching network effects?

• There is a risk that the internet exacerbates existing trends in social capital:

• Vibrant, middle class neighbourhoods exploit capacity of internet to circulate information, build reputations, publish their good news

• Deprived neighbourhoods do not, but are stigmatised by the technology.


Opportunities for excluded groups

• Digital inclusion strategies generate online/offline networks themselves

• Shift to audiovisual content broadens definition of literacy

• Online communication is potentially more inclusive, less intimidating, more cosmopolitan than face-to-face - potential to build bridging capital

• Building networks in and around labour markets

• Considerable local knowledge could be ‘freed’

• P2P social technologies have ‘tipping points’ of take-up

• Potential for virtuous circles amongst elderly


Challenges

• Maintaining networks beyond engagement of founding entrepreneur

• Altering cultural representation of ICT

• Avoiding prescriptions over how networks are to be built and what is to be communicated and how

• Dealing with the risk of bad online social capital - stigmatisation, bullying,


Examples

• Talk About Local - training young bloggers in deprived communities

• People’s Voice Media - hyper-local, audiovisual news platform

• Digital Bridge - wired neighbourhood based on IPTV, to deliver public services and local content to TV and PCs

• Haringey Online - platform for local news, networks, discussion, reputation


Questions

• Which are the individuals or agencies best suited to engaging with people in this way?

• Leaving ICT aside, what are the most effective strategies for generating networks in deprived communities?

• How can ICT be represented in a way that doesn’t seem like ‘education’?

• How can information be better circulated around local labour markets?

• How can the shift to institution-building occur, if it should at all?


Questions

• How to respond to the ‘grey economy’ or questionable networks?

• Which ICTs are most suited to developing social capital in deprived communities?

• Which software platforms are most suited to developing social capital in deprived communities?

• Who are the hardest to reach groups, and can anything be done to change this?

• What is needed from public services to facilitate benefits discussed here?


Discussion…

• Which are the individuals or agencies best suited to engaging with people in this way?

• Leaving ICT aside, what are the most effective strategies for generating networks in deprived communities?

• How can ICT be represented in a way that doesn’t seem like ‘education’?• How can information be better circulated around local labour markets?• How can the shift to institution-building occur?• How to respond to the ‘grey economy’ or morally questionable networks?• Which ICTs are most suited to developing social capital in deprived

communities?• Which software platforms are most suited to developing social capital in

deprived communities?• Who are the hardest to reach groups, and can anything be done to change this?• What is needed from public services to facilitate benefits discussed here?

Will Davies - Digital Inclusion And Social Capital

Technology

social capital networks

social networks

dysfunctional social

forms of social capital

social connectivity

trust bonding social

information networks

digital networks