Rethinking “Internet for Everyone” & Social Networking
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As a new member of the CTC VISTA Project, I began my service full of fascination for the seemingly utopian quality of social networks made possible through open source content management systems (CMS). My enthusiasm for social networking software easily translated to my first large task at the Homeless Prenatal Program (HPP), a portal to be used primarily as a resource for case managers. In my initial vision, the portal would allow case managers to both access and alter content regarding best practices, downloadable forms and resource recommendations for clients. This case management portal, I assumed, would allow case managers to engage in a collective, participatory and accessible social network mediated through open source software on the internet. However, as my research and development for the portal commenced, I began to see there were problems with idealizing internet-based social networking.
The organization where I am serving, The Homeless Prenatal Program (HPP), is a non-profit organization in San Francisco that offers a wide range of social services to homeless and/or low-income families across the Bay Area. With a staff of over 40 people, HPP provides everything from housing assistance and childcare to technology classes. Case managers, the majority of whom are former HPP clients, coordinate these services and provide guidance for their clients. In addition to training the case managers in best practices and intake procedures, HPP provides case managers with training in basic work and computer skills. The case management portal is intended to be a training reinforcement tool for the case managers to learn and manage resources related to their clients. It is to be released initially in-house at HPP and then possibly for case managers citywide as an extension of the popular San Francisco resource for low-income people, Helping-SF (also produced by a former CTC VISTA member).
Recently, my supervisor from the technology center and I presented the Case Management Portal to fellow coworkers and were received with mostly confusion and hesitation. Why would case managers use this technology tool, they questioned, if they could barely navigate the internet? It is true, many of the people in the office have not been provided with the intensive technology training that I have taken for granted. Most of the staff members have little experience with computers outside of HPP and prefer to do their work initially by hand even at the expense of having to do more work later. My initial reaction to their hesitation was to convince the staff members of the necessity of joining the ‘digitized work world’, but eventually I understood that my expectations were naïve and driven by my technological background. More specifically, I came to understand that the push for technologically mediated social networks, networks that are often assumed to be democratizing, often provide usability and functionality for only a small minority.
This is not to suggest that open source CMSes are unsuccessful social networking tools in the non-profit world. Rather, I wish to acknowledge an alternate view to the tempting notion that OS CMSes cut across social inequalities and provide social dynamics across a wide range of socio-cultural and economic groupings. When I started at HPP, I had internalized the technologically driven view that open source CMSes are both building and strengthening social networks in a variety of settings, helping to blur the lines of gender, race, class and location. However, as I continue to work here I understand that my viewpoint was skewed. In his essay, ‘Second Thoughts: towards a critique of the digital divide’, computer-mediated communications theorist David Gunkel rightfully notes that much of the utopian rhetoric surrounding information technologies disregards the implications of social location on access and applicability of information technologies. Although conversations have developed around the commonly used term ‘the digital divide,’ there have been far fewer discussions surrounding social location in relation to CMSes as social networking tools.
Over the next year of service, I will be continuing the development of the Case Management Portal, but my process will be more closely aligned with what HPP needs organizationally and can handle technologically. Although OS CMSes are heralded as democratic online social networking tools, it is important to understand that they have been celebrated as accessible in a particular context. Namely, a context where computer and internet tools are taken as a given and where computer skills have been honed over years, not months or weeks. Rethinking the totalizing theory of OS CMSes as social networking tools is an important task for those of us doing community technology work, and that means accepting the responsibility of addressing the wide gaps in accessibility and usability in this open source revolution.
Brittney Fosbrook recently joined the CTC VISTA Project as a Technology Specialist for the Homeless Prenatal Program in San Francisco, CA. Originally from Anchorage, Alaska, Brittney spent the last four years at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Molecular Biology and Gender Studies. After her year of service with the CTC VISTA project, Brittney hopes to continue her work in feminist science studies.
