Factors Affecting the Adoption of Internet Technologies for Community Practise in a Regional Area

This thesis addresses factors that affect the adoption of the Internet and computers in spatial communities for community practice. The application of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) in spatial or geo-communities is a field of study within an emerging discipline of Community Informatics (CI). An area of investigation in CI, is a consideration of the models of technology diffusion and research methodologies that may have application and this is a major focus of this thesis.

A participative action research (PAR)methodology was used in this thesis to investigate the adoption of Internet technologies in Rockhampton, a regional community in Queensland, Australia. The research was conducted with the aim of not only addressing specific Internet technology issues in this community but to explore how the use of a CI approach could enhance community participation in regions in a more general sense.

The thesis assumes that it is possible for spatial communities and the organisations that service them to develop the interest and cohesion needed to balance amoral familism which can emerge as a fragmenting construct in an individualistic liberal society. It also assumes that Internet technologies can assist this process by adding richness to existing forms of community communication through asynchronicity, increased visuality, reduced social presence and providing the means for large scale repetitive 'many to many' communications within and across local sub-communities of interest. These assumptions have been based on the emerging literature of experience in the area of Community Informatics.

The PAR methodology used in this thesis incorporates a mixture of quantitative and qualitative approaches to explore the plurality of realism in Community Informatics. This supports the proposition that 'calculative rationality ‘within unitary organisational design can contravene societal interests. Using the PAR methodology, it was found that current models of adoption that assume a continuous adoption pattern were not adequate in that they did not adequately recognise contextual and temporal issues. The research also demonstrated that the context of skill enhancement in the adoption of Internet technologies for community participation is at least as important as the skills themselves. The research also supports the proposition that the provision of Internet access alone in the absence of creating a demand for increased community communication is not likely to facilitate regional communities in strengthening their capacity to meet the challenges that the technology itself brings to their communities.

The research found that factors that affect a collaborative approach in establishing a Community Informatics approach in a regional community are considerably Influenced by the existing base level of use, the level of interest in community practice and understanding the linkage between Internet technologies and community practice. As well as this, internal politics and culture in the service provider organisations were found to affect the adoption of a CI approach in this community.

Based on the outcomes of this research, it is proposed that the establishment of a Community Informatics approach to maximising the value of Internet technologies in geo-communities requires:-

• More than the provision of infrastructural access to ICT alone, as by itself this approach tends to commodify information in a techno-economic framework.
• A collaborative leadership amongst service providers that have broad based responsibility for community participation.
• Service provider agencies to address issues of segmented 'calculative rationality' with in their structures that mitigate against achieving corporate goals in relation to community.
• The involvement of sections within the community that have time and who are not constrained by the effects of technological determinism that can embed a moral familism in community.

Finally, this research concludes that in order to maximise the benefits of ICT for community practice in regional areas, an approach involving the public, private and community sectors in a new relationship is required. This relationship needs to inculcate pluralist approaches in management structures of the parties and to value social capital and community governance along with economic and physical capital as output measures.