中国科学院文献情报中心机构知识库

Underresourced or socially excluded communities in Manchester, England demonstrate active use of information technologies despite continuing digital inequalities. A systematic look at 31 grassroots community groups, at how they use IT and who helps them, reveals possible mechanisms towards a more inclusive network society. Social network and social capital theories help make apparent how people are self-organizing with respect to information technology in ways that reach across ethnicity, class, gender, and generations for skilled help, yet stay close to their strong-tie, bonding-social-capital networks, relying largely on people in their own communities. Based on 25 measures of IT use, the groups fall into three progressively more extensive categories: Downloaders (using computers and the Internet, particularly e-mails), uploaders (maintaining a group web presence), and cyberorganizers (helping others to become uploaders or downloaders). These categories align with each individual group's purpose.