Sociocultural Animation

The emergence of global computer networks and the widespread availability of advanced information communication technology (ICT) since the mid-nineties has given rise to the hope that the traditional disadvantages faced by regional economies and regional communities could be alleviated easily and swiftly. Yet, the experience of both researchers and practitioners in community informatics and community development tells a different tale. Although the potential of ICT is in fact realised in some situations and locations, and does provide a means to ensure sustainability in some regional communities, elsewhere it has not achieved change for the promised better. Too many communities are still faced by a centralised structure in the context of commerce, service provision or governance and by various degrees of digital divides between the connected and disconnected, between the media literate and illiterate, between young and old, between consumers and producers, and between urban and rural.