Networked Neighbourhoods organised a roundtable discussion on local websites last week, to take advantage of a visit to London by US e-democracy pioneer Steven Clift and to offer some early findings from our London study.

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.