Community Informatics for Electronic Democracy: Social Shaping of the Digital City in Antwerp (DMA)

Abstract

People living together in harmonious communities is the primary goal of most modern societies. The way these communities are built depends on the ideas, values and ideals of the society in which it is carried out. Campfens discerns two perspectives: “From a humanitarian perspective, it may be seen as a search for community, mutual aid, social support, and human liberation in an alienating, oppressive, competitive, and individualistic society. In its more pragmatic institutional sense, it may be viewed as a means for mobilizing communities to join state or institutional initiatives that are aimed at alleviating poverty, solving social problems, strengthening families, fostering democracy, and achieving modernization and socioeconomic development” (1997: 25). Yet any community is only viable when all members can communicate with each other. Nowadays, the possible ways of communication have expanded enormously, especially since the convergence of informatics and telecommunication into information and communication technologies (ICT) offers a powerful tool.