Larry Stillman of Monash University wrote the original drafts on community informatics for Wikipedia. He just posted this comment to the “ciresearchers” listserv:
“From my perspective, SI [social informatics] is more the academic study of social uses of technology, but CI [community informatics] is much more an activist approach of ICTs for social change and development. CI puts much more emphasis on integrating understandings from social change related fields: SI is coming much more out of academic IS and sociology, psychology, librarianship, archives etc. SI of itself isn’t about social engagement though it may be assumed that it is; but CI has been developing explicit theory and practice (for better or worse). The two are different, though in part overlapping.”
Stillman and Henry Linger explored the relationships among SI-CI and information systems in a recent (2009) article:
Abstract – The Information Society 25(4)
Community Informatics and Information Systems: Can they be Better Connected?
Larry Stillman and Henry Linger
There is an ongoing debate in Community Informatics about the need for a stronger conceptual and theoretical base in order to give the field disciplinary cohesion and direction. By investigating the body of reflective thinking in Information Systems, researchers in Community Informatics can develop a more rigorous theoretical context for their work. Information Systems can be considered as a fragmented adhocracy that allows many intellectual communities to co-exist under its umbrella. A sympathetic reading of Information Systems offers an opportunity to Community Informatics, in spite of its different orientation, to address both social and technological issues in its theoretical framework. This framework would be based on a common language that expresses a shared ontology and epistemology with Information Systems. Such a framework then allows Community Informatics to fully address its information systems problem solving agenda as well as its community problem solving activities. Strengthening this dual agenda will allow Community Informatics to work effectively with both the technical and social design and implementation problems. But it also provides Community Informatics with an opportunity to contribute to a discourse within Information Systems in order to broaden the traditional Information Systems concept of organisation and social action.
Larry Stillman and Henry Linger
There is an ongoing debate in Community Informatics about the need for a stronger conceptual and theoretical base in order to give the field disciplinary cohesion and direction. By investigating the body of reflective thinking in Information Systems, researchers in Community Informatics can develop a more rigorous theoretical context for their work. Information Systems can be considered as a fragmented adhocracy that allows many intellectual communities to co-exist under its umbrella. A sympathetic reading of Information Systems offers an opportunity to Community Informatics, in spite of its different orientation, to address both social and technological issues in its theoretical framework. This framework would be based on a common language that expresses a shared ontology and epistemology with Information Systems. Such a framework then allows Community Informatics to fully address its information systems problem solving agenda as well as its community problem solving activities. Strengthening this dual agenda will allow Community Informatics to work effectively with both the technical and social design and implementation problems. But it also provides Community Informatics with an opportunity to contribute to a discourse within Information Systems in order to broaden the traditional Information Systems concept of organisation and social action.
