Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
is undoubted truth in the hype, but it is important to remember that ICT is still in
an emergent phase, that technologies can be applied in various ways according to
the social, cultural and political contexts, and that, unless information remains free
and readily accessible, democracy will suffer. As Harris (2003) notes, cell phones
and the Internet enhance their users' capacity to flexibly organize and control their
lives, providing additional opportunities for professional contact, security, emotional
bonding through informal chat, gathering information and entertainment. However,
community identity and community life also depend on the nature and quality of
social interaction, of how people do indeed connect. ICT may stimulate more
connectivity between people who already know each other and may stimulate new
connections between people who have something in common - for example, an
interest in the environment or sustainability but Harris questions whether such
individually orientated interactions reduce 'serendipitous connections' or devalue the
weak ties that are so important in building social capital. Furthermore, people who
lack the skills or confidence to use the new technologies or simply cannot afford to
own or access them, may remain excluded, as will those whose interests and values
simply do not fit. A sustainable community cannot be built if this occurs, since
sustainability requires inclusivity, a learning culture, mutual respect and trust.
ICT, civic intelligence and green culture
New emerging media technologies affect possibilities for community development,
lifelong learning, social capital, civic engagement, political activism and support for
localized actions (Van der Donk
et al
., 2004). Horton (2004) explored how the
Internet is influencing environmental politics and 'green culture' in Britain, which
places great value on face-to-face interaction. The local community Horton studied
in the north-west of England was not especially rooted or determined by locality,
but rather by a sharing of tastes, values and practices that made members somewhat
distinct from mainstream society. New digital technologies were quickly and readily
incorporated into everyday life, because the computer's capacity to facilitate data
management, writing and, most significantly, email communication served to 'lock
in' a person's position and commitment to the green movement networks. New
media technologies enabled these green activists to connect easily on green issues
such as the more sustainable use, reuse and recycling of what is actually a fairly
environmentally unfriendly computer technology itself, through a computer 'swap
shop'. Horton concludes:
The main effect of the internet's arrival into the everyday lives of environmental
activists has thus been not the eclipsing of embodied, local environmentalism
by a virtual, dispersed environmentalism, but the invigoration of local green
networks and an increase in face-to-face, as well as virtual, interaction between
geographically proximate activists. Consequently, there is today a more complex
interweaving of activists' virtual and corporeal socialities and geographies, but
one that tends predominantly to result in the strengthening of activists' green
identities. Overall, the new opportunities for virtual interaction provided by
information and communication technologies promote a more intense sense of
local dwelling among environmental activists.
(2004: 749)
