Untitled - socium.ge

228 Keith N. Hamptonimmediately apparent is that weak ties have been shown to be a valuable formof social capital. They provide access to diverse social circles that are separatefrom more “homophilious” strong tie networks. At an individual level, theyprovide a bridge to resources that would otherwise be unavailable, such as jobinformation (Granovetter, 1995). At a group level, they are an important factorin the ability of communities to mobilize collectively (Granovetter, 1973).Wired Netville residents were very successful in their ability to organize forcollective action, on- and off-line. When faced with concerns about the qualityof construction of their new homes, and the rate at which the housingdeveloper was addressing problems, residents organized and discussed strategiesonline, and met off-line to pressure the developer into addressing theirproblems and concerns (Hampton, 2003). When the telecommunicationsconsortium that provided their broadband local computer network decided toend access to their free Internet services and remove the technology from residents’homes, wired residents again took to their screens and sidewalks in anattempt to pressure the consortium into reversing their decision. While theywere ultimately not successful in reversing the consortium’s decision to endthe trial, residents did organize two community meetings, one at a local schooland another at a nearby community center, and exchanged nearly a hundred e-mail messages through the neighborhood e-mail list in the first four weeks oforganizing (compared to 260 messages during the previous 16 months).Residents were also successful in preserving the two features of their “wiredneighborhood” that they valued the most: high-speed web access (offered at aslight discount from a competing telecommunications company) and theneighborhood e-mail list. (For a complete discussion and examples of collectiveaction in Netville, see Hampton, 2003.)When computer-mediated communication is used to facilitate local interactionsneighborhood community may flourish. Indeed, as much as theInternet may afford local place-based interactions, the opposite may also betrue: off-line neighborhood relationships may facilitate new online relations(Matei and Ball-Rokeach, 2001). Still, there are barriers that reduce widespreadInternet affordances of new neighborhood interactions. Low Internetadoption rates, particularly in neighborhoods of lower socioeconomic status,and an inability to locate local information (such as a directory of neighborhoodresidents; see Resnick and Shah, 2002) impedes local interaction, onandoff-line. The community networking movement (see Kretzmann andMcKnight 1993; Beamish 1999) and websites such as UpMyStreet.com in theUK, and i-neighbors.org in North America, provide forums that introduceneighbors, local e-mail directories, and other services to help overcome theinitial constraints to IT-mediated interactions. This does not mean that theInternet can facilitate place-based community in all neighborhood settings.Some neighborhoods are involved to the point that the Internet bridges no