Community Networking as Radical Practice

Abstract

The practitioners of community networking sense that its nature as a “Movement” is ending. But what does that mean? As daily life online becomes ordinary, and as capacity to engender community online becomes an ordinary function of daily life, what is effective in advancing community networking as a community of practice? How can we get a clear view of community networking as radical practice in social change? Finding answers to these questions requires, in part, defining the roles of technologies and individuals in the structuring of social networks in unexpected ways. Effective community networking then occurs when individuals act cooperatively to make the Internet "happen" more rapidly in support of the need for community and the need for change in local governance.