GLOBALIZATION, LOCALIZATION AND COMMUNITY ONLINE

A BIT OF LIGHT READING (for lecture Friday, December 6)

On Tuesday we took up and in lab Friday we’ll continue with questions related to globalization, localization, and community with respect to the Internet.  With the global nature of the Internet -- where even the simple act of publishing a Web page means access to millions of people on every continent -- what does it mean to speak of cultural difference?  Of community?  Has the Internet decoupled the expectation that communities be local (or at least that community members be co-located) or even exist outside of the Internet?  And, at the same time, in what ways can online interactions support local communities?  We take up these and a host of other questions related to communities, cross-cultural issues, and online interactions.

Please read the following articles.  This should be fun reading that will provide you with a breadth of examples and perspectives for thinking about the questions above.

What Will Be, Chapter 13: Electronic proximity (pp. 277-294).

Graves, M., Grisedale, S., and Grunsteidl, A.  (1998).  Unfamiliar ground: Designing technology to support rural healthcare workers in India.  SIGCHI Bulletin, 30, 2, 134-143.

Van Tassel.  (1991).  Yakety-Yak, do talk back!: PEN, the nation’s first publicly funded electronic network, makes a difference in Santa Monica.  In R. Kling (Ed.) Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices (2nd ed.) (pp. 547-551).  Boston: Academic Press.