A Preliminary Theory of Telecommunications Enhanced Communities W. David Wilde
[email protected] Paul A. Swatman
[email protected] School of Management Information Systems Deakin University Abstract This paper introduces the concept of a Telecommunications Enhanced Community (TEC). The TEC is a community which has a variable mix of real and telecommunications services for reasons of community sustainability. Some telecommunications services may be dispensed with if a population increase results from successful implementation. We examine a number of theories that can support such a concept and attempt to integrate a number to model the TEC. Keywords Telecommunications enhanced communities, virtual communities, community networks, regional networks 1. Introduction The growth in and diversity of computer networks since the mid 1970’s has been truly astonishing. Since computing and communication technologies converged, the potential in both business and social networking applications has increased at an exponential rate, the social applications increasing at a rate unimagined in the early days of networking. The development of social computer networks now affects whole communities, the practice outpacing the development of the theoretical concepts on which they may be based. The adoption of electronic networking by whole communities is often a survival strategy in an environment of economic rationalism and declining population. The form of these networks varies from computer networks or virtual communities in that a network of electronic services is superimposed upon an existing geographic community. The intention is not only to survive but to actually strengthen the community. This is achieved by adopting electronic services and communication methods not only to retain the current population but to increase it by structuring an attractive lifestyle of integrated real and virtual services. Ironically, as the community builds itself to sustainable proportions real services may substitute electronic ones. This paper defines a “telecommunication enhanced community” (TEC) and attempts to identify and integrate some existing bodies of theory to form a “conceptual framework” for the study of TECs.
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2. Network Diversity This section describes a number of types of networks and attempts to trace their development and to distinguish their characteristics. The final section discusses thwe concept of the TEC and attempts to define its distinctive features. i. Computer mediated social networks Computer networks developed as a direct result of the convergence between computing and communication technologies. Outside the academic circles the early adoption of networking was largely business oriented: wide area networks: (WAN) and local area networks (LAN) were concerned with real time transaction processing and software and document sharing. An important benefit of the networking function was a notional shrinkage of space. For instance, a WAN allows effectively instant communication from all quarters of the globe and might connect branches of an international organisation, alternatively it may connect different organisations within an industry such as banking where it is used to facilitate the international flow of funds. A LAN allows shrinkage of space on a more local scale. Intra-building or intra-campus communication forestalls the need for physical movement within that building or group of buildings. The social use of corporate networks began to emerge with the diffusion of groupware and email technologies and, particularly the latter technology, has since become extremely pervasive. Sproull and Faraj [20] describe a computer manufacturer which supports 1200 business groups related to such topics as computer-aided manufacturing, computer languages, etc. and in excess of 350 extracurricular groups devoted to miscellaneous topics as diverse as Celtic culture and four wheel drives. Interestingly, teleconferencing which promised to be one of the more impressive networking applications was slowed in its diffusion by technical difficulties, particularly in respect of the provision of adequate bandwidth. From the non-corporate viewpoint, the Internet was the major and a hugely powerful factor in promoting the possibilities of social networking. Initially, communication was confined to email between early adopting academics since the interface to the internet was of poor quality and not suitable for general use. The world wide web (WWW) provided the quality interface to unleash a plethora of social networking possibilities and as well as the incentive to accelerate their acceptance. However, the nature of communication within social groups in computer networks is very largely asynchronous. Synchronous communication does not frequently occur. As mentioned above teleconferencing has not been widely adopted and chatting in synchronous mode is rare. Email is the most common form of communication and this is subject to delay, address confusion and poor directory assistance. The theoretical considerations describing the nature of social interaction in a general computer network are discussed by Wellman [26]. He discusses social network analysis, a methodology which has developed from the social sciences over the past 3 decades as a methodology to investigate social networks This technique does not
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confine itself to the issue of group membership which has been a traditional methodology but rather seeks to explore underlying structural patterns by examination of a set of structural variables which are shown in Figure 1. Density
Boundedness
Tie Strength
Social Networks Social Control
Exclusivity
Range
Figure 1 The approach is to investigate the social relationships and their nature pertinent to the target personnel. In this context formal group boundaries are considered as more as a variable rather than a constraint. Wellman applies the parameters illustrated in Figure 1 generally to computer mediated social networks which, as discussed, may take a variety of forms, for example, a chat group is a very different social construct compared to a teleconference. • Density is a measure of the degree of connectivity between the members of the network. A totally connected network would have all members connected to each other and the network density would be 1.0. This may be the case in a computer network comprising a small project team in an industrial concern but a chat group would expect to be much more loosely connected, indeed, some members may observe only without contributing at all. • Boundedness describes the containment of the members within the group and is often imposed by physical rather than by conceptual constraints. An intranet, for example, may completely confine its members to the social network as a matter of company policy whereas an academic network is widely spread, allowing internal policy and administrative information dissemination as well as giving members freedom to communicate with their interest groups in both industry and academic circles. • Range is a measure of the size and diversity of the membership and as size increases so too does diversity [27]. The potential for both these measurements to be appreciably large exists if the computer network operates within the internet and the number of contacts may well be greater than could be sustained by any other means.
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•
•
•
Asynchronous communication facilitates this phenomenon and structures such as distribution lists, computer conferences and billboards may afford a rich and varied set of contacts. Exclusivity is the term Wellman [26] has ascribed to the fourth variable, however, we find that this is not a total descriptor of the target concept. In fact, it seems that Wellman has some difficulty in supplying a clear definition of the concept in the referenced paper. We suggest that “availability” is a more descriptive term to portray of the intended concept, since it describes a member’s control of access to other members of the computer network. However, we recognise that this may not be complete in its implications also. In a small project group contacts within the membership are known and access to all members is generally immediately available by all members, thus there is little or no exclusivity. This may not be the case in larger online groups where a member of the group may not wish to be disturbed and so may deny access to other group members. The member, in fact, makes him/herself unavailable for contact. Social control characterises the degree of control that is exercised by external sources over the social network member’s associations and dialogue. This may be substantial in the intranet situation where management are anxious about loss of control, recreational and non-organisational use of the network by staff in addition to risk to confidentiality. Sykes [22] and Taylor [23] suggest that this freer flow of information will change power balances within organisations. They argue that while the ability to withhold or share information is currently used as a way of exercising control over colleagues, with intranet this will change. In fact, an intranet may be used for increased management control. Tie strength of relationships encompasses a number of facets including closeness, voluntariness, breadth and frequency of contact. Rheingold [16] asserts that the virtual community, discussed in the next section, illustrates the strength of ties that may emerge from computer network.: “People in virtual communities use words on screens to exchange pleasantries and argue, engage in intellectual discourse, conduct commerce, exchange knowledge, share emotional support, make plans, brainstorm, gossip, feud, fall in love, find friends, lose them, play games, flirt, create a little high art and a lot of idle talk” [16]. ii. The Virtual Community Virtual communities form a subclass of computer networks. Although virtual communities had existed before the advent of the computer network, for example, the virtual village of Tyler, Wisconsin was a print/voice concept where voice communication was conducted by phone [25] this important social structure proliferated after the appearance of the WWW. The nature of a virtual community as defined by Rheingold [16] implies chance in the sense that such communities are spontaneous, arising from topical interest. Rheingold's well known definition is "Virtual communities are social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace". The term "emerge" implies a lack of considered objective apart from establishing communication with like minded people. This may be an accurate description of many groups, indeed, Rheingold' own Brainstorms Community
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is of this type. It commenced in the second quarter of 1998 and consists of a few hundred people from around the world communicating about "technology, the future, life online, culture, society, family, history, books, health, home, mind, phun, money and academiaville". There is some difficulty in defining a virtual community. Some authors [19] circumvent the problem by determining the ingredients of a virtual community, in their case, communication and people to communicate. In fact, communication is seen as the basis of community and many authors begin their analysis at this point [6] [7], [25]. This was the basis for locality, the village, since physical approximation was at one time the main basis for social contact and communication was dependant on this. The population drift from rural to city areas changed the nature of society and, therefore, of communication. Toennies [24] drew the distinction between community and society, the former denoting social relationships, the latter denoting contractual and mechanical relationships. Community, however, has many other connotations, including common interest [7] and this may be regarded as the basis of many virtual communities. The “virtual” in computer parlance refers to that which appears non-real or imaginary. Virtual storage, for example, is simulated internal computer memory. Applied to a physical object this may be acceptable, but questions arise when applied to a concept such as a community which has a variety of shades of meaning and implications. The term “virtual” when describing the physical village type community may imply a simulated or imaginary village created electronically such as the Blacksburg Electronic Village referred to in the next section. But when the term “community” denotes common interest then there is little simulation involved. Both the interest and the communication are real and the term “virtual” in this context seems to imply “electronic” as the mode of communication. Romm and Clarke [18] acknowledge these difficulties and do not attempt to define a virtual community other than a group who communicate electronically. The model published by Romm and Clarke (1995), “Virtual Communities and Society” defines 3 set of variables: • those that affect individuals’ decisions to join a virtual community, including ⇒ technological, such as problems of access to the internet. ⇒ motivational, relating to such factors as user conservatism, resistance to change, lack of confidence, etc. which it is argued can be overcome if the other inhibitors can be diminished. ⇒ task, relating to the benefits and relevance of involvement in the virtual community. If the task, that is, the major objective of the virtual community, is seen to be of overriding importance and relevance, then membership of the community is an attractive option. ⇒ system, relating to the fit between the system and the member’s environment • those that indicate the effect of the virtual community on the immediate environment ⇒ linguistic, relating to the symbolic enrichment of the written message to denote aspects of communication that occur with speech such as facial expressions and intonation. ⇒ performance, relating to effect the group communication via email may have on
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•
output and behaviour, such as cohesion and unity ⇒ social, apropos the effect that electronic communication may have on social behaviour, for example, shyness reduction factor and the phenomenon of flaming [15]. ⇒ political, referring to the context in which email may be used for political purposes those that describe how virtual communities are transforming society ⇒ production, relating to the integration of production facilities across international boundaries ⇒ national, referring to the strengthening or weakening of national identity via the virtual community ⇒ fragmentation/integration, pertinent to the effect that electronic communication might have on community groups ⇒ personal, referring to the freedom which each community member has to represent him/herself
This model was constructed to represent a type of virtual community which more closely resembles an interest group as befits the Romm and Clarke [18] definition. It is a dynamic model in the sense that as the “effect” or result variables intensify, so too will the input or source variables. Thus, the more successful the virtual community, the greater will be the appeal to membership. Based upon the set of variables that characterise the individuals’ decision to join a virtual community we identify a further established body of theory which is termed innovation theory [17]. Romm and Clarke [18] identify fear of technology as a possible inhibitor to membership of a virtual community implying that, because of this, technology diffusion is constrained. Rogers [17], more formally, identifies a number of stages of technology diffusion and terms the stage adopters as the innovators, the early adopters, the early majority, the late majority and the laggards. In those technologies where a critical mass is essential for innovation success an early majority is critical but could take time to build. Communication technologies may be of this type. Unless the communication network is of sufficient size to make communication between a wide number of parties viable, benefits are limited. The facsimile is the familiar example where the technology was well-known but the network took many years to reach critical, and therefore useful, proportions. We differentiate between the basic technology upon which the virtual community is built and the virtual community itself. The basic technology is the physical telecommunications infrastructure upon which enables dialogue in what has become known as computer mediated communication (CMC). But the actual innovation to which we refer, is the virtual community, based upon CMC. Firstly, we discuss the basic technology. We suggest that because of government policy [5] the basic telecommunications infrastructure in rural Australia and its adequacy for internet speed communications will eventuate in Australia in the not too distant future. However, in general we feel that CMC is still in the hands of a well educated minority which is not representative of greater society. This is not to deny that the rate of expansion and, therefore, of diffusion of this innovation, is explosive as indicated by many surveys (e.g. The Internet Survey,
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http://www.nw.com/zone/WWW/new-survey.html). It would seem reasonable to suppose that the shape of the diffusion pattern will conform to Roger’s S curve of pattern of diffusion. The gradient of curve is currently very steep but will eventually become more level as the user proportion approaches the population potential. In the case of the TEC, diffusion is a function of the community structure into which the technology is to be introduced and the categories of adopters will conform to the Rogers’ norm. Our hypothesis, therefore, is that in the case of a TEC which, by definition, is community based, innovation theory will explain the pattern of adoption. The rate of adoption is more difficult to predict. Rogers [17] bases a non-precise method on an estimate of presence of a number of variables which include relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability. Moore and Benbaset [12] further developed this approach by scaling these five characteristics amongst others. Goldman [10] considered the unit of adoption as organisations and communities and concluded that the four essential elements of rate of adoption were perceived compatibility, simplicity, relative advantage and observability. The Bass forecasting model [3] was designed to forecast the speed of adoption for consumer products within a known market and focuses on communication channels, mass media and word of mouth. The shapes of the curves are soundly based upon diffusion research and so a prediction of adoptions within given time periods is possible. The notion of genres illustrates the problems associated with the acceptance and therefore, diffusion, of a innovatory method of expression. The concept of genres [13] is borrowed from the realm of literature where it denotes generic varieties of written sets of material. The genre of the conference or journal paper, for example, is well accepted within academic circles and is characterised by a set of standards to which it must conform. This example also illustrates the network of allegiances which is responsible for setting and accepting that set of standards. Social acceptance of the genre is crucial for its credibility but may also reflect tensions and divisions within the social context. The social research methodologies, for instance, are not readily accepted by the hard science research community. However, genres develop and change and reflect may reflect large scale shifts in social values. Oravec [13] discusses genres and genre environments in relation to computer supported cooperative work (CSCW). In this context spreadsheets and data bases may be considered as genres and are well accepted by the user community. The genre of the email is less precisely defined and is currently subject to considerable analysis. The importance of the “genre” in the study of virtual communities is clear since participants in such communities must be comfortable with the mode of communication and the sense of belonging which it affords. From the point of view of social acceptance, the relationship between this new form of communication genre and Roger’s diffusion theory is also readily apparent. Genre development “must reflect and extend broad cultural themes (such as privacy, dependence and other issues involving the individual’s relation to the group). [13, p27]. Cross cultural considerations are important as interface standards for non computer-literate people. This links between genre theory and Romm and Clarke [18] model are plain since each regards factors such as culture and linguistics to be important The end-user will ultimately have to
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accept the genre standard if it is to be successful and development will be circular if this is to occur. Hagel and Armstrong [8] adopt a perspective different from the social point of view and discuss the potential of commercial virtual communities in terms of the aggregation of purchasing power. These authors maintain that the need to transact is one of the four basic needs of a member of any community inevitably including virtual communities. Examples such as Agriculture Online are cited where the intention is to provide members with transaction capabilities in addition the information provision. The compelling features that will promote this trend include: • Distinctive membership focus, • Integration of content and communication, • Emphasis on member generated content, • Choice of competing vendor offers, • Commercially motivated community organisers. [8] Communities comprise a meeting point for vendors and purchasers to exchange information about commercial opportunities and to execute transactions. Community prospective purchasers may also form a critical mass influencing vendors and, conversely, forming an advertising target for vendors. Information exchange will occur and relationships of a commercial nature will form. This is potentially relevant to TECs since it includes a business component and will influence its viability on the basis of the trading position of the community through economic commerce activities. iii. The Community Network The community network is a subclass of the virtual community and there is an substantial amount of current practical activity in building such networks. The archetypal community network is the Blacksburg Electronic Village (URL) which was built in 1992 and which has served as a model for many later implementations. The community network differs from the virtual community from the point of view of locality. It is focussed on an existing physical community which may be a town, a city, or a region which may include a number of towns, and which seeks to reinvent or to augment itself through a range of electronic services. Beamish [4] states "Though their names may differ, a community network is always a network of computers with modems that are interconnected via telephone lines to a central computer which provides: • community information; and • a means for the community to communicate electronically". A further term that is frequently used as an alternative to community networks is civic networking. The Centre for Civic Networking defines this as "interacting with others for mutual support regarding civil affairs; using computer or other electronic networks to interact regarding civil affairs". Civil affairs are described in various other definitions on the same web page to include information services about public health, government regulations, arts and recreation, economic development, and well as encouraging participation in communication via billboards and civic participation in
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government. However, Baker (1996) considers that the difference in various terminologies "reflects differences in the underlying philosophical constructs of the systems" and may obscure the essential geographic basis of neighbourhood inherent in many of these local communities. Possibly for this reason in Australia the term "regional network" is becoming more commonly used in preference to community. We adopt the term TEC realising that many of the references we use employ other expressions whilst referring to similar social constructs. Beamish [4] considers that such networks have 3 distinguishing features. The first is a focus on local issues, emphasising local culture, local relevance and community ownership. The second is access, that is ensuring that all members of the community can take advantage of community services, rather than these being confined to the computer literate and elite which characterises billboards and commercial networks. The third and possibly most important feature is the "belief that the system with its communication and information can strengthen and vitalise existing communities". These 3 features in summary indicate a strong belief in the value of community in the traditional geographical sense and a resolute attempt to support and strengthen it in the era of economic change and population drift. Kanfer and Kolar (1995) surveyed 567 city sites in the US to find why the cities are on line, what information they are providing, who is providing the information and to identify any regional variations. The survey included 3 categories of questions: content, audience and site characteristics. The content section showed that business, regardless of degree of sophistication, was the predominant presence, appearing in 80% of sites. Events (50%), education (48%), government (44%), university (43%), chamber (34%), library (28%), health care (25%), and free net (10%) were the other content areas in order of frequency. The expected audience is commonly the tourist related market as in more than half of the sites tourist related information predominates whereas information to attract new business is the least common. Tax information, local labour and utilities feature in less than 20% of the sites. Kanfer and Kolar propose that the two dominant kinds of sites may be classified as tourism sites and local community support sites. This is based on the evidence that the scores for the audience variables relating to new residents and new businesses are lower than those that relating to tourism and local community support. iv. Geopolitical Communities In this section we examine the issue of electronic service delivery in Australia and illustrate the current situation with examples. We consider that the political climate both in government and business are driving change in response to the continent’s unique geography and demographics. Australia is one of the world's most urbanised countries with more than 80% of the population living in a few large cities/towns. More specifically, the 1996 census reveals that 64% of Australia's population lives in the 8 state/ territory capital cities and, were the subsequent 30 largest towns to be included, the percentage of the population resident in these centres would increase to 82%. (Census, 1996). The percentage of Australians resident in rural areas has steadily declined within this century. For example, in 1911 43% of the population resided in rural areas and by 1976 this figure had decreased to 14%. In recent years, as the above figures show, a slight reverse trend has been apparent. The majority of the population
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centres referred to above lie along the eastern seaboard or within a few kilometres of it and this contributes to a further degree of localisation. This situation takes on a new and serious perspective when the immensity of the continent is taken into account with the associated problems of sparseness of population and distance which affects the population that is resident in rural Australia. The sustainability of small remote populations from the points of view of both critical mass for industry and commerce and the provision of commercial and government services is a challenge that has not yet been met. In fact the opposite has occurred. The prevailing trends of economic rationalism, globalisation with its implications of “lean and mean” and national budget balancing have seen governments and industry reduce, and in some cases withdraw from, areas of social responsibility. Reduction of services in rural Australia have been continually highlighted in the national press but continue unabated. These services include: • banking: the banking service throughout Australia is transforming its operations by means of a fee structure which discourages personal based services and encourages transactions by electronic means. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has, for example, increased its “over-the-counter” transaction fees quite considerably (November, 1998) and cited in its justification of these increases the very cheap nature of electronic banking. The Chief Executive of the National Bank of Australia is on record as saying that “social experience” was not a banks’ function. As part of this policy of abrogation of social responsibility, marginal branches are closed (Press Report, The Weekend Australian, 21-22/1198) For example, during the 12 months to 30/6/98 the Australia/New Zealand (ANZ) Bank closed 175 branches. Although figures of the proportion of these which may be classed as rural were not readily available, it is thought to be considerable. The Chief Executive of this bank has stated that withdrawing from urban and rural communities had been a most unpopular strategy. However, there is a growing resistance to this form of deprivation by small communities and in several cases this resistance takes the form of the establishing a community bank. The press report cited above names 4 communities in which community banks are already operating and 4 more which have plans to do so. The major banks response to the criticism of bank closures is to provide an electronic service. To the community at large this may mean either a phone service or a web service. • health services -the quality of rural health services are dependent upon the accessibility of both general practitioners and hospitals. In both these areas there are well documented problems. The difficulties of attracting doctors to rural Australia, in spite of an oversupply in Australia generally ( a position maintained by the federal government), have been endlessly analysed but no solution found. The government actions regarding the oversupply of doctors include reducing the number of students entering medical school by 200 annually [11] and the flow on has an adverse effect on rural Australia. There have been several studies as to why doctors leave rural practice. Hayes et al. [9] report on a Queensland study which identified 59 practitioners who had left rural life and interviewed 37 of these who could be located. The authors produced a conceptual model which involves 3 types of influences. The first is the influences to stay which include work variety,
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professional support, family lifestyle and community relationships. The second is influences to leave which includes after hours workload, long term locum access, management load and remoteness from family. The final set of factors is the triggers which prompt leaving rural practice and include difficulty in coping with change, children entering high school, poor housing quality and personality clashes. The issue of working hours and lack of relief is mentioned in further studies. For example, Alexander [1] surveyed 139 practitioners in North-Western New South Wales and quotes one doctor who had worked 88 days continuously. Issues of higher remuneration (55%), less working hours (39.8%) and more locum relief ((38.8%) were clearly the top 3 complaints put forward by the sample. Mills (1997) allocates some of the fault for indifferent rural health services to the communities themselves. She quotes figures which suggest that 50% of health services are sought outside the patient’s own residential area which she refers to as “the drift of patients to another town or city”. She warns about the “use it or lose it” syndrome. However, the federal government is aware that rural health services can be improved. Anderson [2] analyses the Commonwealth Government’s 1997-98 budget and mentions a budget allocation of $17.4 million over 4 years “to target major rural and remote health priority areas; enabling a greater capacity to identify rural and remote health needs and develop innovative models of health care delivery to remote communities”. • extension services- Extension services in agriculture have traditionally provided information to farmers to assist them in their decision making in the interest of increased production. When agricultural produce occupied the premier place in Australia’s exports, the allocation of funds for this purpose seemed a justifiable investment. However, since the 1970’s public spending for extension has come under increasing scrutiny in an environment of ever increasing demands on the public purse [14]. Governments began to demand accountability and program evaluation and, in addition, employed a strategy of using the extension services to bring about changes in government policy. An example of the demand for a more efficient evaluation of agricultural programs was apparent in the decline in the use of expert systems which flourished in the agricultural domain in the early 1990's [28]. A significant part of this decline was the change in criteria from “curiositydriven” research to the user pays principle. The emphasis on substitution of electronic for physical services is economically driven though socially depriving. There are many initiatives currently being implemented such as the European Union Infocities [21]. 3. The Telecommunications Enhanced Community (TEC) In this section we discuss our concept of the TEC and attempt to integrate the theories outlined above. If a community is to remain viable as a self-sustaining entity a necessary condition is that its component parts be supported by a critical mass of activity. Business, for example, must have sufficient level of custom to be profitable, banks must have sufficient clientele to support costs of the staff and premises, and government services,
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such as health and education, must be used and a community need demonstrated. This implies, at the basic level, a population of a sustaining size. There are other forces at work. There exists an interaction between the components, so that withdrawal of one service results in major dysfunction for those remaining. The withdrawal of banking services, for example, in a rural community that depends upon loans in bad seasons to carry the farmers through proverbial hard times, causes major dysfunction to the agricultural industry. A further force is the current trend towards economic rationalism which has seen social needs overpowered by a “user pays” philosophy and extension services are a pertinent example. Many rural and regional communities have been victims of a declining population which have seen activity levels fall below critical mass. The decline is slow as services falter and withdraw at various stages. Where services are not available locally, they will be sought elsewhere, and this acts in favour of regional centres and cities which attract not only the services but also the population. The TEC concept attempts to give a stronger definition and theoretical basis to those communities which attempt to compensate for the withdrawal of services and arrest or reverse a declining population by superimposing upon an existing community a range of electronic services. We feel that the existing terminology which includes “community network” and “regional network” are not sufficiently descriptive. Our emphasis is on a sustainable community, not a region, which is a less cohesive from the locality viewpoint. The concept of “telecity” or “wired city” as illustrated by Strom [21] diverges from our notion of community and intention. This aims to provide electronic access to a wide variety of services to homes, schools, businesses in such a way that the network becomes the nervous system of the community. We do not support the extreme view that communities should be totally dependant upon electronic services. Rather we concur with Beamish [4] when she defines these have 3 major characteristics of a TEC: which we repeat for clarity: • a focus on local issues, • universal access to members of the community, • and a “belief that the system with its communication and information can strengthen and vitalise existing communities”. The concept we espouse, which differentiates the TEC concept from the community network, is that the focus remains predominantly with the community, and electronic services are regarded more or less as robots. The services so provided may be transitory, reverse substitution may well occur if a community feels that a personal service is more appropriate and is strong and healthy enough to implement it. There will exist, therefore, a dynamic mix of electronic and real services such that electronic services may substitute for real ones to compensate for the lack of population but the reverse may occur as the population rises again to sustainable proportions. The mix of services is a fitness for purpose concept. For example, an electronic library catalogue search may be more efficient than a manual one but a real library loan system is a much more attractive proposition than a remote one. Both may coexist. The TEC as a concept does not appear to have been subject to serious study. Considering the set of theories considered in this paper we suggest that none exactly fit our situation.
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The TEC is a complex set of products as depicted in Figure 2. Community Service
Economics/ Business
Social
Telecommunications Enhanced Community
Figure 2 Community services include health, education, extension services, etc. which provided by government. Economic/business includes banking services, local commerce, tourism, etc. which involves both local and visiting custom. Social includes community groups which may be characterised by interest, age, etc. In Figure 3 we consider that the system comprises all those individuals who take advantage of the services shown in Figure 2.
Individual Community
System GENRE
Figure 3 The community comprises all those individuals who are eligible to take advantage of the services offered. For the sake of illustration we identify one individual who is part of the community but not the system. The concept of the genre relates to the appearance of the TEC to the individual. This will be pertinent not only to the attractiveness of the TEC but to its very acceptability. This has a direct bearing on the set of variables in the Romm and Clarke (R&C) [18] model which affect the individual’s decision to join the system.
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The genre is effectively a match between the individual and the TEC. For example, the cultural expression of TEC must be compatible with the cultural expectations of the individual, culture being one the variables identified by Romm and Clarke. The diffusion of such an innovation is modelled by Rogers [17]. The genre will have a direct influence on the speed of innovation but the pattern is predictable showing the absorption of the individuals from the community into the system. The Rogers model also relates to Romm and Clarke’s concepts of the interplay between the result or effect variables and the input or source variables. An important feature of the R&C model is its dynamism. Variables affect both system and community, for clarity the 3 sets of variables in the R&C model are repeated: a) those that affect individuals’ decisions to join a virtual community b) those that indicate the effect of the virtual community on the immediate environment c) those that describe how virtual communities are transforming society. The b) category variables show the influence of the system on the community as so that the success of the system will show its expanding to occupy more and more of the community. The opposite may occur. The c) category variables are broader in scope. The political potential implied by these variable may affect policy at government level and therefore affect the circumstances of the TEC, for example, by greater or lesser provision of services. They might also have a bearing on the appearance of the community to the outside world and therefore act as an attractor of population. Wellman [26] effectively provides a means to measure the system. The model provides a snapshot of the system at a point of time. Essentially it is a static model identifying a number of variables by which the state of the system may be analysed and compared. 4. Conclusion The Telecommunications Enhanced Community is one that integrates telecommunications with the existing physical infrastructure to provide community sustainability. It is similar to the existing concept of community networks but differs in the degree of dependence on electric services. The adoption of electronic services may be variable, the degree being dependant upon the need for substitution of real services where population has declined. Electronic services may be dispensed with where an increasing population has made them undesirable. There are several bodies of theory which partly cover the concept. This paper has attempted to integrate them although more work needs to be done. However, we feel that a mix of dynamic and static theory will be successful in attempting to model the concept of the Telecommunications Enhanced Community
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