Theoretical Background

Engaging Community

I believe that the best way to broaden the reach of the social relations view of technology may be to take it out of the workplace, and focus on tying it to the strong, community-based, democratic tradition in this country. This is not a trivial undertaking, however. As mentioned earlier, the development of technology is accompanied by systematic barriers to citizen involvement in technology development. Often these barriers are not conscious or malicious, but they still result in the same effect—preventing people from having a voice in the direction technology takes.

Typical views of the technology design process, including user-centered and participatory design, have several aspects that make it difficult, if not impossible, to include community participation. First, these processes typically focus on either small-scale projects or relatively homogenous user communities. Neither field addresses the problem of how to design on the macro level—for "everybody"—when the user community is potentially all of the residents of a city or country.

Furthermore, most technology development is usually carried out by private enterprise with the intention of making a profit. The profit motive typically precludes worrying about the social impacts of technology. User "input" takes the form of responses to market research surveys and product trials. The results of these tests are used to adjust details of the technology to make it more appealing to the consumers.

Technical Professionalism
Most importantly, the design of technology is seen as the purview of people with technical backgrounds. Only those with the proper technical training are considered capable of making decisions about the direction of technology. People with non-technical or manual knowledge are thought of as unimportant—when they aren't ignored. (Braverman, 1974; Cooley, 1980)

In one of the first books that attempted to demystify computers, Theodor Nelson recognized the ways in which technical design and literacy have been monopolized by professionals:

Knowledge is power and so it tends to be hoarded. Experts in any field rarely want people to understand what they do, and generally enjoy putting people down.

Thus if we say that the use of computers is dominated by a priesthood, people who spatter you with unintelligible answers and seem unwilling to give you straight ones, it is not that they are different in this respect from any other profession. Doctors, lawyers and construction engineers are the same way.

But computers are very special, and we have to deal with them everywhere, and this effectively gives the computer priesthood a stranglehold on the operation of all large organizations, of government bureaux, and anything else that they run....

It is imperative for many reasons that the appalling gap between public and computer insider be closed. As the saying goes, war is too important to be left to the generals. Guardianship of the computer can no longer be left to a priesthood. I see this as just one example of the creeping evil of Professionalism, the control of aspects of society by cliques of insiders. There may be some chance, though, that Professionalism can be turned around. Doctors, for example, are being told that they no longer own people's bodies. And this book may suggest to some computer professionals that their position should not be as sacrosanct as they have thought, either. (1974, p. 2)

Although his solution to the problem was technical—ordinary people should learn more about how computers work—he correctly identified an important problem.

Since the 1970s the problem of technical complexity has only intensified. More control of the operation of computer and communications technologies has moved from central administrators out to end users at the periphery of networks. Examples include the transition from terminals and mainframe computers to personal computers, telephony devices (cellular phones, pagers, Caller ID) that give users more information and control over features, and televisual devices (cable set-top boxes, VCRs, video cameras) that allow people to have more apparent choice about what they watch and when.

As computer and communications technology have become more intertwined and have moved from limited applications in the workplace to fuller integration in our daily lives, the complexity of their use has increased. This complexity has spawned a field of technological helpers—those people who explain and manage the complexity. As in other areas, such as social services, the helpers have become professionalized, to the detriment of those needing assistance. Several authors explain how professionals define people who need help as problematic and needy in a way that supports the professionals' continued power, and disempowers those who are being helped. (Gordon et al. 1978; Korn 1979; McKnight 1979, 1986)

In many fields in which professionals have controlled sources of information, there have arisen types of "self-help" movements. As costs have risen, and access to professionals restricted, people have attempted to provide care for themselves. "Self-help" is of course most often used to refer to taking control of one's psychological care, but can also be linked to medical and legal issues. Because of the rapidly increasing costs of health care, the feeling that the money spent on health care does not justify the return, and the perceived insensitivity of the medical profession, many movements have arisen for individuals to direct their own medical treatment. (Consumer Reports 1995) The rise in popularity of alternative medicine (Moyers 1993), and the redirection of research efforts towards the needs of marginalized groups, such as women and breast cancer, or gay men and AIDS, show a willingness for individuals and communities to demand a role in defining the agenda of a profession.

Surprisingly, however, there has not been a corresponding technical "self-help" movement. Individuals and organizations continue to be willing to let technical professionals define the future direction of technology and regularly control access to information. Most people are still willing to be treated as if they are not capable of making technical decisions for themselves.

Democratic & Community Technology
One way to bring about technical "self-help" and foster community participation is to redefine the rules of the game, by recognizing that technology is at least as much about social issues as technical ones. That opens the door to anyone who has concerns about technology and makes them eligible to participate in discussions about its future.

Some of the most promising avenues to explore are the democratic technology efforts described by Richard Sclove (1995, 1996). Sclove and the Loka Institute recently sponsored their first Citizens' Panel to discuss Telecommunications and the Future of Democracy at Tufts University near Boston, Massachusetts. (1997)

This Citizens' Panel was modelled after the consensus conferences and scenario workshops pioneered by the Danish Board of Technology. "A consensus conference is a democratic meeting involving dialogue between experts and concerned citizens...open to the public...whereby the citizens, not the experts, draw up the conclusions....A scenario workshop involves meetings and dialogue among concerned actors at a local level....The discussions are guided by scenarios representing different visions of the technical/social future." (Andersen et al. 1995, p. 6)

The process of the Citizens' Panel was:

1. Organizers selected a complex, controversial policy issue (in this case, emerging telecommunications systems and the future of democracy).
2. Organizers assembled a steering committee comprising a balanced group of knowledgeable specialists.
3. The Project Manager recruited a diverse pool of residents, each of whom was asked to complete a questionnaire.
4. A final lay panel of 15 members was selected with the aim of achieving a balanced group that fairly represented the community.
5. The lay panel was briefed over the course of two weekends. During these background meetings, the panel decided what specific subsidiary issues to address at the public forum and helped develop a list of experts to question.
6. The lay panel heard presentations by a diverse group of contending experts and stakeholders during a public forum. After deliberating privately late that afternoon and in the evening, the lay panel returned on the next day to freely question and cross-examine the experts.
7. During the afternoon and evening of that day, the lay panel met privately to discuss their views and to draft a report summarizing the group's findings.
8. The next day, the lay panel announced its findings at a press conference attended by policy makers, members of the expert panel, the media, and interested members of the public.
9. The lay panel's report was publicized through the media; distributed to members of Congress and the Executive Branch, and to local government officials; and discussed in follow-up local forums.

"The objective was to increase popular and government awareness of citizen perspectives and concerns on this issue, to stimulate debate, and to contribute to public policy deliberations." (Loka Institute 1997) An independent evaluation of the panel by Guston (1998) determined that the panel did not have substantive impact on telecommunications policy, but did prove the concept of citizens panels in the US. Furthermore it taught both the lay people and experts a great deal and demonstrated that citizens unfamiliar with a technical subject could knowledgeably critique it. Their suggestions for increasing the impact of future panels are to include legislative or federal agency sponsorship and the direct participation of key decision makers, to focus on a narrower topic, to produce a timely, targeted final report, and to convene regular citizens panels. Plans are underway by the Loka Institute to sponsor panels on other topics and to experiment with the possibility of nationwide panels.

The Institute has also begun to create a Community Research Network to model a Dutch "national network of 38 university-based community research centers, or 'science shops,'" which respond "annually to 2500 requests on such issues as analyzing the needs of disadvantaged minority groups, workplace safety, industrial pollutants, and all domains of public policy." (Scammell and Sclove 1996) The network would respond to citizen requests for analysis of technical and social issues, and would produce information to support democratic policy-making.

Another step would involve bringing existing methods for generating citizen input from non-commercial, non-technical arenas into the technical arena. An example of this is the asset-based community development model put forth by Kretzmann and McKnight (1993). Instead of focusing on the deficiencies and needs of a community and its members, their work highlights the assets and strengths found in every community. Instead of looking for outside institutions to solve community problems, they bring forward the already existing power of local associations. An association is defined simply as "a group of local citizens joined together with a vision of a common goal." (Kretzmann and McKnight 1993, p. 109)

These associations of community represent unique social tools that are unlike the social tool represented by a managed institution. For example, the structure of institutions is a design established to create control of people. On the other hand, the structure of associations is the result of people acting through consent. It is critical that we distinguish between these two motive forces because there are many goals that can only be fulfilled through consent, and these are often goals that will be impossible to achieve through a production system designed to control. (McKnight 1985, p. 3)

Capturing the power of local community is a multi-stage process involving mapping the capacities and assets of a community, building relationships for mutually beneficial problem solving, mobilizing assets for economic development, convening broadly representative groups to build a community vision, and leveraging outside resources to support locally-defined development. (Kretzmann and McKnight 1993)

Recognizing the power of community is essential to the creation of a democratic technology.

There is no doubt that physical [computer] networks will dramatically affect the forms of our communities. But if we fail to distinguish radically between such networks and the personal sources of community, then the only sure thing is that we will continue to degrade what community remains. (Talbott 1995)

Developing these community-based ideas and practices more fully will provide ways to make technology development an inclusive and democratic process.

Overview | Sociopolitical Technology |
User-Centered Design | Participatory Design | Engaging Community

Contents | Introduction | Background | Methods | Description | Conclusion | References