And during the 1990s, there was much discussion about the rise of virtual communities -- a loose description for various social groups interacting via the Internet. Howard Rheingold, for instance, published a book by that title that described his adventures in the online community the WELL, and experiences with a range of computer-mediated communication and social groups. One early, fundamental debate was whether such virtual groups would replace or augment physical interaction.
Today, we don't hear so much discussion about virtual communities. They have become, in effect, a fact of life for many people. Rather, the new Internet phenomena is often described as social networking, fueled by popular Web sites such as MySpace and other interaction and linking venues. Blogs not only link to each other, but often cross-reference one another's content as well.
The first social networking Web site was Classmates.com, created in 1995, according to Wikipedia.com. Company of Friends, the online network of Fast Company magazine, introduced business networking to the Internet. Other sites followed suit, including SixDegrees.com, Epinions.com -- which introduced the circle of trust in 1999 -- followed by European equivalents Dooyoo, ToLuna and Ciao!
Facebook was originally designed to mirror a college community, but expanded its scope to include high-school, job-related and regional networks. Popularity of these sites continued to grow, and by 2005, MySpace was getting more page hits than Google. New social networks are now often focused on niches such as art, golf, tennis, soccer, cars, dog owners and even cosmetic surgery.
All of this has had a significant impact on our very notion of community. Melissa Leong sums up the shift in the National Post: "Decades ago, the word community was associated with a place, a religious group, an ethnic population -- the lakefront community, the Catholic community, the Chinese community. These days, however, the word has become a catch-all to describe any number of people who share a common interest -- no matter how bizarre, brief, frivolous or fringe-like it may be."
Leong suggests that the arbitrary and ubiquitous use of community to describe almost any grouping of people seems to coincide with the breakdown of traditional communities. That's an easy leap to make. It's frequently noted that in large cities, for instance, people are often more closely acquainted with people they've met online -- people they have never met physically -- than their own next door neighbors.
Trying to isolate root causes for what is increasingly perceived as community breakdown in America seems to depend a great deal on perspective. Marcia D. Lowe, a researcher at the Worldwatch Institute, for example, argues that the demise of the traditional community has been largely caused by the physical separation and dispersion inherent in suburban sprawl.
Robert D. Putnam presented the case in his book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Renewal of American Community, that TV played a significant role in pulling people away from involvement in traditional community organizations -- such as the Lions and Kiwanis, church groups and bowling leagues.
What has been lost, according to Putnam, is social capital -- "the collective value of all social networks and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other." In his analysis, Putnam found that during the past 25 years, attendance at club meetings has fallen 58 percent, family dinners are down 33 percent, and having friends visit has plummeted by 45 percent.
This decrease of group activity has renewed grass-roots efforts to develop, or reinvent, new public spaces. The idea is, as Ray Oldenburg lays it out in The Great Good Place, that people need three places: the home, the workplace and a community hangout.
With a decline in popular community hangouts, Oldenburg suggests that western cultures are losing the spirit of community that once flourished in institutions such as churches and community centers.
Geoffrey Nunberg, a professor and linguist at the University of California, Berkeley, suggests the shift in importance from traditional social groups to social capital has resulted in the notion of community now being used in virtual groupings.
Using community to describe virtual associations -- everything from online exchanges of Campbell soup recipes to TV program fan clubs -- not only imparts a kind of instant legitimacy, but also shows the extent of traditional community decay.
When we look at the evolution of the digital community, the inclination for technology-oriented folks is to focus on the digital. However, the operative word here is community. The digital components -- IT applications through broadband and wireless -- are simply the enablers.
Changing Role for Government
In his new book Mind Set!, best-selling author John Naisbitt -- who has proven himself one of the most accurate observers of our fast-changing world -- discusses how our mindset or frame of reference determines the way we see the world.
"Judgments in almost every area are driven by mindsets, from world affairs to personal relationships," he wrote. "If a wife's mindset is that she has a philandering husband, she receives all information as fitting into this picture. It defines what she hears beyond words and her reaction to it. If a wife's mindset is that she has a loving husband, she receives the same information with a different meaning. That's at a micro level.
"At the macro level," he continued, "there are those whose mindset is that the world is in a period of a 'clash of civilizations,' and they see everything within this framework. Others, including me, see the world through a mindset of a long period of economic determinism, a 'look to the economics.'"
So if social capital is as important for the health and vitality of communities as sociologists and economists now tell us, then local government, as representatives and servants of the community, certainly have a role to play in reversing community deterioration.
It's easy to focus on new technological developments, such as Wi-Fi and mobile applications. The possibilities for this anytime, anywhere connectivity continues to fundamentally transform government in the 21st century.
However, we are very likely to miss the boat if government looks at these initiatives just from the efficiency, service and economic development viewpoints.
To government's credit, many municipal Wi-Fi projects have a digital inclusion component -- a definite move toward addressing community issues. Yet at times, this seems like an ad hoc element that develops as the projects unfold.
The missing piece includes a fuller understanding of the evolving nature of communities, the part the Internet is starting to play in the dynamics, and the role that government can have in fostering the health and vitality of regions by harnessing social networks in new and innovative ways.
In so much that governments seek to do -- whether public safety, preparing and responding to disasters, encouraging economic development or delivering better service to citizens -- those measures will keep falling short if social capital and community spirit continues to wane.
For this reason, when we talk about digital communities, it's vital to recognize that the key word is community and that this is the lens -- the mindset -- through which we must view innovations and development. Only then does the real potential of the digital age begin to emerge.
