Untitled - socium.ge

The US community technology movement 331people who have been difficult to attract to the computer-using world” (citedin Lazarus and Mora, 2000: 28).Given the networking that community technology facilitates – both physically,at CTCs, and virtually – it seems reasonable to assume that CTCs arepromoting the creation of weak ties among participants. Weak ties are connectionsbetween acquaintances rather than family members or good friends.Weak-tie theory argues that weak ties are more helpful in the labor market thanare strong ties (Granovetter, 1973). According to Civille (1995: 181): “electronicmail appears to significantly reduce the costs of acquiring and maintainingnew acquaintances beyond community boundaries, an ability thatthose with discretionary time and money tend to take for granted.” It is important,then, that some groups that are on the wrong side of the digital divide –for example, African Americans and Latinos – are using public computercenters more than other groups for job-related purposes.CTCs are performing critical functions that help bridge the digital divide.These include providing disadvantaged workers with the skills necessary towork in the IT economy, exposing youth to IT careers and opportunities, andextending the work of traditional CBOs to address issues of social andeconomic justice.The high cost of evaluation, coupled with the newness of these programs,have kept CTCs from doing much evaluation of their own. When asked whatthey see happening in the programs in which they work, staff members arelikely to tell stories rather than to produce numbers. These stories are aboutconnecting people who previously did not know each other; helping peoplestay in touch with faraway friends and relatives; watching people learn how touse new technology and create things with it. Ana Sisnett of the AustinFreeNet has observed:Age groups working together that did not work together before. For a while antagonistically– looking at each other suspiciously, but then over time they get familiarwith each other and they’re able to collaborate and help each other out, even ifit’s something as simple as helping to reload a page, you know? And I’ve seenpeople find out as they talk about what their interests are, as they do searches. Forexample, in a class – “Oh, I didn’t know that” – and then they might end up walkingout of class talking to each other about something.Roxanne Epperson, the director of the New Beginnings Learning Center(NBLC) points to other evidence of success.Kids won’t leave. At 5:30 when it’s time for them to go, you have to make sure thereare none hidden in the basement. They hide under the desks . . . I don’t know howtheir little bodies can fold up, but down in the library there’s an opening under oneof the shelves, they’re all up under there. So that tells me we’re doing somethingright, you know?