Journal of Community Informatics (2004–)

“Community Informatics (CI) is the study and the practice of enabling communities with Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs). CI seeks to work with communities towards the effective use of ICTs to improve their processes, achieve their objectives, overcome the “digital divides” that exist both within and between communities, and empower communities and citizens in the range of areas of ICT application including for health, cultural production, civic management, e-governance among others. CI is concerned with how ICT can be useful to the range of traditionally excluded populations and communities, and how it can support local economic development, social justice and political empowerment using the Internet. CI is a point of convergence concerning the use of ICTs for diverse stakeholders, including community activists, nonprofit groups, policymakers, users/citizens, and the range of academics working across (and integrating) disciplines as diverse as Information Studies, Management, Computer Science, Social Work, Planning and Development Studies. Emerging issues within the CI field include: community access to the internet, community information, online civic participation and community service delivery, community and local economic development, training networks, telework, social cohesion, learning, e-health and e-governance. The Journal of Community Informatics aims to bring together a global range of academics, CI practitioners and national and multi-lateral policy makers policy makers. Each issue of the Journal of Community Informatics contains a number of double blind peer-reviewed research articles as well as commentaries by leading CI practitioners and policy makers providing feedback on how the significance and application of research for practice and policy development.”

Editor in Chief: Michael Gurstein
Associate editors: Shaun Pather, Alvin Wee Yeo
Open access
ISSN 1712-4441

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Jodi Dean, Jon W. Anderson, Geert Lovink (eds.): Reformatting Politics: Information Technology and Global Civil Society (2006)

“Reformatting Politics examines the ways in which new information and communication technologies (ICTs) are being used by civil society organizations (CSOs) to achieve their aims through activities and networks that cross national borders. These new ICTs–the internet, mobile phones, satellite radio and television–have allowed these civil society organizations to form extensive networks linking the local and the global in new ways and to flourish internationally in ways that were not possible without them.

The book consists of four sections containing essays by some of the top scholars and activists working at the intersections of networked societies, civil society organizations, and information technology. The book also includes a section that takes a critical look at the UN World Summit of Information Society and the role that global governance has played and will play in the use and dissemination of these new technologies. Finally, the book aims to influence this important and emerging field of inquiry by posing a set of questions and directions for future research. In sum, Reformatting Politics is a fresh look at the way critical network practice through the use of information technology is reformatting the terms and terrains of global politics.”

Publisher CRC Press, 2006
ISBN 0415952980, 9780415952989
237 pages

Key terms: ICANN, weblogs, Islamic fundamentalism, mobile phone, Suharto, MacBride Report, Internet governance, WSIS, Indymedia, CSOs, neoliberal, NWICO, power law, Taliban, Information Society, open publishing, ICTs, BitTorrent, Laskar Jihad, microfinance

Review: Athina Karatzogianni.

PDF (updated on 2018-10-24)