Peter van den Besselaar: Electronic Infrastructures And Social Networks
University of Amsterdam
Department of Social Science Informatics
Electronic Infrastructures And Social Networks:
A Social Analysis Of Citizens And City Life In The Amsterdam Digital City
Introduction
Early 1994, the Amsterdam Digital City started as a grass root initiative to increase the communication between citizens and local politicians and to improve the dissemination of political information among the citizens of Amsterdam. The organizers, funded by the local and national authorities, created a text based system, accessible through internet and modem. Also terminals in public places, like libraries and cultural centers, were installed to improve the accessibility of the system. In those days, the number of Dutch people with internet connections and modems was very low. This all happened shortly before the local elections in 1994 in Amsterdam, and was intended to end after the elections.
However, it proved to be an eminent success, and it actually stimulated the interest for internet in the Netherlands enormously. The number of registered users increased from the very beginning: in the first ten weeks, some 1300 inhabitants were registered, and over 100000 visits took place! At this moment, the number of inhabitants is about 50000, in average good for one visit per week. Additionally, every day some 2000 non-registered visitors enter the Digital City.
From a grass root and subsidized initiative, the Amsterdam Digital City evolved into a non-subsidized (not for profit) organization, currently employing more than 20 persons. the main objectives are:
The Digital City then earns its income mainly through the two latter objectives: By advising other organizations, by providing disk-space, by providing WWW services, and by providing ‘shops’ and possibilities for advertisements in the digital city.
Some information on the Digital City
The current (third) system of the Digital City is a WWW based system, in which the city metaphor has been implemented in a relatively literal way. The city consists of a large number of squares, each with its own thematic character. The squares attract people interested in specific themes, who can meet, find information and exchange ideas. The space on the squares can be rented by institutional (profit and non-profit) information providers. E.g., the ‘Europe Square’ houses the Dutch Office of the European Commission, and other organizations related to the European Union. They provide information to the public, and political debate around European issues is organized. Some 32 squares exist with cultural, recreational, technological and civic/political themes.
The squares are the location for the commercial information suppliers, but also for non for profit institutions. They all pay for their ‘shop’ in the Digital City.
Around the squares, the houses (Web-pages) of the inhabitants are located.
Houses also provide information and are places for interaction. Some very interesting houses exist, like a house which provides links to homepages of many media (journals, magazines, movies, etc.) over the whole world.
The main difference between the shops and houses is, that the latter are free. On the other hand, one is not allowed to provide commercial information in one’s house.
Because the number of inhabitants increases faster than the number of squares, there is a shortage of space for houses. All kind of measures have been tried out to solve the problem, like building ‘flats’. By now, it is also allowed to build WWW pages in the digital city that are not properly located in the ‘city structure’. Some 6500 inhabitants have their own ‘house’, and of these some 1500 are properly located, that is, have a proper ‘door’.
The Digital City offers other facilities like the ‘metro’ (underground), a complex text based MUD. Other facilities are the weekly journal, various cafés and kiosks, email, and discussion groups. One finds also many bill-boards for advertisement.
Recently, the Digital City expanded its system with 3D virtual reality.
Dam Square has been built as a 3D model, and citizens are asked to extend the 3D virtual space with other parts of Amsterdam. As a consequence, the Digital City now has three interfaces, a text-based one, a WWW-based interface, and a VR-based interface.
Digital communities and community networks
The Digital City is often seen as a community of communities, that are all active around specific topics located at specific squares: Women’s square, Book square, Sport square, Local authorities square, and so on. In the early beginnings, a survey was organized among citizens, and recently we organized a second, more extensive, survey. The survey is a cooperation between the Digital City and the University of Amsterdam, and we hope to replicate it on a regular basis. This may result in a growing amount of knowledge about citizens and city life in Digital Cities. In the panel discussion I’ll present some f the results of the last survey, which may learn us something about social relations and processes in digital environments.
The dynamics of social networks is, in my view, dependent on various factors like resources, infrastructures, media, and codes. The Digital
City and other community networks add an additional layer of communication on the existing ones. However, due to the dynamic changes in society, old communication channels are disappearing, and it is often thought that this results in an erosion of existing communities. In what way can new means of communication and interaction result in new, restructured, and sustainable communities?
Traditional communities are locally organized networks of people, performing many different functions needed for the reproduction of the community. How does this work in modern communities? Do modern means of communication create new sustainable communities, less based on real space and more on information space?
It will be illustrated that different dynamics seem to take place at the same moment. Existing communities, especially thematic ones, use the network technology, and in our case the Digital City, to improve their communication and information exchange. Here, the Digital City is a resource and a media. However, although the mutual interaction within the Digital City increases, it is less clear whether new (thematic) groups emerge as an effect of interaction within the Digital City.
For the majority of the digital citizens, the Digital City does not seem to be part of their ‘normal’ activities. This can be concluded from what seems to be the most popular functions of the Digital City, and the most popular squares (i.e., topics) in the Digital City, and from the valuation of the various functions. For example, the most popular places are the ones that have recreational functions, where the more ‘civic’ places are among the less popular ones. Also, there does not seem a relation between characteristics of the digital citizens on the one hand, and their use of the Digital City, and their valuation of the various functions on the other hand. This indicates, in our view, that tools like the Digital City and not yet a resource integrated in peoples everyday life.
Finally, the social structure of the Digital City is very much different from the social structure of the Amsterdam population and of the Dutch population. Even stronger, the differences are increasing and not decreasing. This could be a consequence of the early phase of the diffusion of this kind of systems. If that is true, the current population represents only the early adopters. On the other hand, it may also indicate that within the media landscape the digital communities are the garden cities, not accessible for the socially and culturally deprived citizens.
References:
Amsterdam Digital City http-address: http://www.dds.nl
Beckers, D., Digital communities: use and users of the digital city. University of Amsterdam, forthcoming
Beckers, D., Results of the second Digital City Questionnaire. Address of the Dutch version of the results of the questionnaire: http://swi.psy.uva.nl/studenten/beckers/DDS/results/ddsinlr.html
Francissen, L., & K. Brants, Virtual going places, square hopping in Amsterdam’s digital city. (forthcoming)