Community Informatics in Argentina: Act II

SUSANA FINQUELIEVICH; ALEJANDRA JARA

Seattle

Simposio; A Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility Symposium; 2000

University of Washington HUB

From silence to Top Web Ring The informational revolution has generated deep changes in the management schemes of economic units, as well as in every level of governmental administration. In Argentina, local governments have begun to use informatics to optimize their work and built better links with citizens only in the second half of the Nineties. This was Community Informatics Act I, described in a previous work[1]. But the curtain has opened on ACT II, in a crowded theatre: the number of  Argentina Internet users has risen to a million, and the new government strives to include the country in the Information Society. The telecommunications revolution has generated new forms of social relations and organization, as well as innovative action ways for civil society organizations. Argentina is living a genuine Internet boom. This paper analyzes how civil society organizations (CSO) use ICT, and the impacts these uses have on the intra and inter-institutional articulation schemes, though presentation of study cases. It describes the results of an empiric exploratory research based on a fieldwork, which included electronic surveys among community organizations By late 1999, the Top WebRing en Internet, the ranking of websites oriented to different regions in the world, was headed by an Argentine initiative: 100 webmasters had put together their efforts and built the Circuit of Argentine Cities (http://www.argenguide.com.ar) which uses the Web to disseminate community news, promote local micro-enterprises, publicize touristic attractions, and offer a discussion space for communities´ members. The members of a women’s movement use a discussion list (araca@ccc.uba.ar) to seek support for a national campaign oriented to exert pressure on the newly-elected National government to elect correctly the civil servants who will work in the areas related to public policies for women. The Umbrella Club ´s website connected and helped unemployed individuals who wished to put together capital, technology or organizational expertise to create micro-enterprises. A non-profit organization oriented to community help to low-income inhabitants (http://www.redsolidaria.org.ar) has received and administrated nearly 100.000 help demands, and uses its website and telephone communications as links with its beneficiaries. The neighbors of various Buenos Aires neighborhoods crate an electronic network to fight urban violence. These experiences, current in developed countries, but miraculously innovative in Latin America, are only a few of the current cases in which organized citizens use ICT to achieve their own community goals. . The use of computer-mediated communication by community organizations has not been completely explored in Argentina. Will COs be capable to built their own information / strategic articulation networks? Will ECN allow an evolutive jump in social interaction forms, as well as in the organizations´ use of technological, human and financial resources? Will they facilitate the emergence of a social dialogue, capable of socialize and share experiences and know-how, in a process of strengthening civil society? This paper describes the results of an empirical exploratory research, based on a fieldwork developed mainly through electronic surveys. It does not develop theoretical concepts: our intention is to provide the elements for the construction of a theory on social uses of the Internet. Our target were civic society organizations (CSO) in Argentina, which are present in the World Wide Web, either because they have their own website, or use an electronic address for working. We developed a semi-structured questionnaire, send through e-mail and accessible in Internet. After some tests, the massive survey was finally implemented in August 1999. In a sample of 378 cases, we obtained favorable answers from 23,8 % (90 cases). The results were analyzed using the SPSS statistical package[2]. The data obtained facilitate the identification of tendencies on the effects generated by ICTs use on social organizations. We hope that our “kitchen” will contribute the ingredients to the collective construction of a theory on electronic community networks.   [1] Susana Finquelievich: “Community Informatics: The Slow Argentinean Way”, Conference on Community Informatics, Ballarat, Australia, September 1999. [2] We were gratly helped by Sociologist Maria de los Angeles Sola Alvarez, who participated in the construction of the sample, the survey, and generously contributed with her ample knowledge on the Argentine associative sector.