Since our study is showing a clear apparent link between use of online neighbourhood networks and building social capital, this an interesting development indeed. Whilst it might yet seem a little crackpot to imagine that membership of a local digital network might shave a few pence of the life insurance bill, perhaps that time isn’t so far off.

Read the full article at Underwriters start asking about social capital.

This may explain one stereotype of older people – the tendency to repeat the same stories over and over again.

Apparently “destination memory” suffers at the expense of the “communication memory” because as people age their ability to concentrate reduces and they increasingly lose the ability to focus on one thing at a time.

Since we’re currently engaged in a project in north London using a social media based approach with older people, I started to wonder what this research implies for how older people are likley to relate to social media.

Will it help because it creates an auditable trail of the who, what where and when of some social communications? Or, will it hinder because it will potentially multiply the number of “destinations” attached to memories?

Another story, also in the DT today, describes a second piece of research highlighting more issues of interest for the use of social media across the generations. It seems that in some respects older people and younger generations may be oil and water online.

The study by Prof Knobloch-Westerwick and Matthias Hastall of Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen in Germany looked at the media stories preferred by different generations. Their findings showed that the older participants were more likely to select negative articles about younger people, but they did not show a strong preference for either positive or negative stories about people in their own age group.

Younger people, however, showed low interest in articles about older individuals – regardless of whether the stories were positive or negative.

The first study appears online, ahead of print publication, in the Online First Section of Psychology and Aging.

The results of the German research appear in the September 2010 issue of the Journal of Communication.

Hugh Flouch

Whilst the headline issue around this may spring from the observation by the Wolfenden Committee long ago that the “soil for voluntary action was more fertile in some places than others”, the central question posed was how can we spread volunteering beyond the civic core? (“those who collectively contribute two-thirds of unpaid help, participation in civic groups and charitable donations”).

This civic core, often unkindly known as the ‘usual suspects’ is a recognisable group in many areas. During our study into how online neighbourhood networks contribute to neighbourhood strength, it’s a group we’ve heard about time and time again. What’s interesting though is that we’ve not actually met many of them. We’re finding that new people are getting engaged locally in new ways through local online networks.

One of the things that seems to make a difference is the new opportunities offered by local digital platforms to get involved in a different way. Many locals are simply not interested in being involved in the more formal, structured civic participation. Digital spaces seem to offer opportunities to take an altogether more modern approach. No longer does participation require regular attendance in draughty church halls on the third Thursday of every month. Now citizens can create more tailored participation experiences; pick your issue from the comfort of your armchair and get involved if you want, when you want and in bite sized pieces if you like.

Okay, so this may not sound like the revolution that will provide the upsurge in participation we need, but it may be an interesting development.

I’ve been coming across a few instances of micro-volunteering of late.

We’re looking at the possibility of including the Good Gym in our Haringey Neighbourhood Connect project. (Essentially Good Gym taps in to joggers’ time and asks them to spare a few minutes from their routine to knock on the door of an elderly neighbour). There are also a number of initiatives around looking at taking 5 minute slices of time to do some volunteering via the mobile phone.

Doesn’t sound like much, does it, but as an Orange staffer pointed out to me the other day, if one million people each gave five minutes volunteering time, it would equate to nine and a half years’ worth of volunteering.

If we can use new technologies to activate a different type of participation, it seems to me that we ought to think about what’s the best way of encouraging and harnessing all that micro-goodwill.

Hugh Flouch

The survey also suggests that neighbourhood values of shared interests amid like-minded people could be in decline. More than a quarter (27%) of us say we “do not trust” our neighbours and most of us feel we neither have a lot in common with (59%) nor share their values (44%).

Coming on top of more recent research by Co-operatives UK, this makes for glum reading. However, Legal & General’s findings do offer a ray of hope:

It seems some of the values of neighbourliness have shifted online. Many of us are now more ‘neighbourly’ with people on social networks than with those in our street: 34% of social networkers are ‘friends’ with or ‘follow’ people we’ve never met before on Facebook or Twitter but fewer than one in five (19%) are online friends with a neighbour.

Although the study did also find that only 8% have bothered to check if a neighbour is on a social network site, it does suggest that online connections may offer a way with which people feel comfortable building connections.

Early findings from our London’s Digital Neighbourhoods research certainly bear this out. We’re coming across good evidence to suggest that online neighbourhood networks stimulate positive connections between residents, both in terms of encounters and exchange.

People who use local websites claim that their local online life means they are more likely to meet neighbours, more likely to recognise a neighbour when they’re out and about and more likely to lend things and exchange favours with people who live nearby.

Whilst local websites are unlikely to prove a panacea to the decline in neighbourliness, it does seem like they might offer an effective way of building neighbourhood social capital.

Hugh Flouch

Bowes Park initial website meeting

There’s no single model to explain the emergence of successful citizen-led neighbourhood sites. Most have grown from a little pioneering experimentation by a single individual, finding the fertile soil of local interest, but requiring a good deal of vigilant moderation to establish a tolerant positive culture.

This doesn’t sound neatly replicable. But we think there are a number of principles and key issues which can be shared with people who are interested in starting a new site in their neighbourhood. This week Hugh Flouch and I held a meeting with residents in the Bowes Park / Bounds Green area of north London, to explore how they might establish a site of their own.

Being able to draw on Hugh’s experience in setting up neighbourhood websites was obviously a huge advantage, and we were joined by Harringay Online administrator Liz Ixer who shared insights into how she had benefited personally from participation. A small group, some with experience of IT and all with a passion for their local area, has formed at Bowes Park and we look forward to watching the site evolve. They started immediately: the pic shows Richard McKeever interviewing former community association chair Cathy Herman about the prospects for the site. The resulting video is here.

The mix of presentation and discussion we have devised for these sessions seems to go down well. We offered people an outline introduction to local sites, describing the variety, their pros and cons, with insights we have gleaned from Hugh’s direct experience and from our joint research (especially from speaking to founders). We went on to explore practical concerns that people might have and alert them to potential issues, like persistent negative commenting, fraudulent claims, libel threats and so on – without implying that these negative factors in any way outweigh the benefits of a flourishing local site. There are plenty of positive stories that can be told to justify the efforts that people put in. This week’s session was part of a funded project which enables us to offer extensive support and handholding if necessary to those who want to move forward with the idea.

Kevin Harris

With the session chaired by the GLA’s Emer Coleman, we sought to offer an easy-going discussion given that it was a hot Friday afternoon in central London.

Steven reflected on his considerable experience in online community-building, in particular through e-democracy forums.  He spoke about how, at the neighbourhood level, sites were originally seen as ‘not politically threatening’ but broke ground because they provide ‘dialogue with people who disagree’. They also offer something to those who are not ‘the meeting types’.

There was some interest in the insistence that participants in these forums use real names. Steven argues that it gives stability, and it’s fair to say that anonymity and pseudonymity can affect discussion. It might put some people off, but it might help avoid for example this sort of exchange,

‘Anon@ 19:46 and 20:01. Who cares about your warnings if you’re too timid even to give yourself an assumed name’

– in a comment posted here, presumably with a sense of irony, by someone calling themselves ‘Now Then’.

Or this lovely example where a councillor responds to a pseudonymous resident:

‘Obvisouly I wont have logged any casework under the pseudonym of wonderwoman. Could you please contact me direct…’

Check out the e-democracy set of civility rules.

Where negativity erupts on a local site it needs to be moderated of course, and there was some discussion around this. Brockley Central founder Nick Barron, who hosted our meeting on behalf of Edelman, warned against making a big issue of this:

‘good hyperlocal sites have contributions that are much more positive than local newspapers, talk radio, or any other mainstream media, or indeed most conversations in the pub.’

Steve Clift explored some of the findings of the recent Pew Internet study (which we discussed here) and spoke about issues of social inclusion, arguing for example that from his experience,

‘You can’t just colonise, it takes time and money to do real inclusion.’

Hugh Flouch and I presented some early findings mostly from our survey of local forum participants, noting for example that where the police got involved on a site (Harringay Online), a significant proportion of respondents said that their attitude towards them had been changed for the better; and where a councillor participated online (East Dulwich Forum) similarly, people reported an improved attitude towards elected members.

We also raised some questions about the future contribution of local online to community organising and civic involvement, suggesting that local sites do not seem to offer a strong link to Alinsky-style community organising envisaged by the Big Society Network.

And while these online spaces clearly do contribute in some ways to the strengthening of traditional representative democracy (for example through the more efficient dissemination and linking of information) it may be more important to recognise their contribution to conversational democracy and making visible a latent demand for informal, controlled commitment to local issues. People are creating as well as responding to new opportunities for participation and co-production, but generally not within the context of formal, structured civic involvement.

The discussion raised a number of points about the role of local sites in relation to local democracy, including for example whether a site could become registered as a statutory consultee; the extent to which democratic mechanisms (such as scrutiny and referenda) can be bolted on to local sites; the possibility of linking flagged-up ‘local issues’ on a digital map (reminiscent of some of Giles Lane’s early urban tapestries work, eg); and an important point made by Tim Davies (seen in the pic behind speaker Steven Clift) about a future with plural sites at local level (raising the question, if local authorities are not up to speed by the time clusters of sites start to appear, will they be completely left behind?).

We wish to thank Steven for his experience and inspiration; all participants for their contributions; Martin Dudley for the image uploaded above; Emer Coleman for her time and expertise; Edelman for generously providing the venue and Capital Ambition for providing the catering.

The project aims to reduce the burden on public services by helping older people to live independently where possible. It will do this by working in two areas of Haringey borough to:

• Establish and support networks of local advocates to empower older people in their care choices. Advocates will help older people manage their individual budgets and will help stimulate informal support in the neighbourhood.
• Bring together older people, carers, care workers, local advocates and other volunteers and professionals to form a learning network, in order to share understanding of formal and informal neighbourhood support for older people.
• Exploit the potential of local citizen-led websites and social media to help people in these networks to share information, provide support and advice, and mobilise local support for older people both online and offline.

In doing this the project will provide customer insight into service provision while increasing levels of interaction and support at neighbourhood level.

A short account of the workshop, together with the presentation slides, is available on the project microsite at London Councils.

Kevin Harris

Jane uses the three sites being studied in our London’s Digital Neighbourhoods research - Brockley Central, East Dulwich Forum and Harringay Online – to help build the argument that politicians’ attitudes need to change if the potential contribution of local sites is to be fulfilled.

She quotes Councillor Alan Stanton, a regular contributor to Harringay Online, who says:

Most councillors are deeply suspicious… Many are still at the stage of ‘we are the council and we tell you what to do’.

Networked Neighbourhoods’ Hugh Flouch and Kevin Harris are both quoted. Building out of Hugh’s experience of building successful local sites and now researching them, the article notes his view that there are lessons for local councils seeking to mimic the successful sites:

The first lesson for local councils is to loosen the reins of control and be prepared to let citizens take the driving seat.

Kevin suggests that networks such as these are

..part of a fundamental shift towards conversational democracy.

It’s based on telephone interviews with 2,258 Americans, and while I didn’t read anything that hit the wow-box it certainly helps us think about communication at neighbourhood level. The questions asked about face-to-face interaction with neighbours, telephone contact, and a range of local online resources.

Unsurprisingly (and as last year’s Pew Internet study demonstrated) internet users are just as likely as non-users to discuss local issues face-to-face. People in higher income households and with higher educational attainment are more likely to talk face-to-face with neighbours about local issues.

Between 4% and 11% of all those surveyed exchange email with their neighbours about local issues, read a blog dealing with local issues, or are signed up to a locally-focussed online forum or social network. This is baseline data, hopefully Pew will repeat the questions every now and then.

For me the most interesting finding was this:

15% of internet users who know none of their immediate neighbors by name read community blogs or join a community-focused group on an online social network.

This compares with 14% of those who know all of their neighbors. Maybe communicative folk will use f2f, telephone, email, twittever they can, to communicate. But there are obvious differences. For example, generally if you’re going to speak to a neighbour on the phone, you’re going to ‘know’ them first; if you connect with a neighbour through an online forum, you don’t need to know them. Non-communicative folk who realise they are disadvantaged by lack of connection and information now have local spaces where they can lurk comfortably and still become informed. Dat’s progress for yer.

As always with this kind of material, the meaning of the findings is subject to what we understand by ‘knowing’ our neighbours; and by the significance we attach to that. I maintain that it is not knowing neighbours by name that matters in terms of a supportive local social environment, but recognition. I can’t say whether or not the north American context is comparable, but I observe that Keith Hampton has found it necessary to stress the importance of weak ties against a tendency to privilege strong ties. If our understanding of the contribution of online to neighbouring is focused on strong ties, we could be missing, or misinterpreting, a lot.

Last year’s Pew Internet Survey asked a question designed to ascertain whether the internet had affected people’s understanding of the word ‘discuss’ in relation to ‘important matters’ and ‘significant ties’. (The researchers did not find that it has). If they can do that, maybe they can work on the question of whether the internet may be affecting our understanding of the word ‘know’ in relation to ‘neighbours’. And perhaps more importantly, we can start looking at how local online resources allow us to connect with people we don’t know.

Kevin Harris, Networked Neighbourhoods