World Telecommunication Day 1999 |
The extraordinary variety among the thousands of on-line communities using the Internet seems limited only by the diversity of human behavior. If there is a common link, it is a desire to bring people together through a shared interest, to connect strangers around the world and people living in the same neighborhood who might otherwise never meet.
Haydon Bridge, Northumberland in the north of England, seems an unlikely place to find a thriving Internet community. A tiny village of just 850 homes near Hadrian's Wall - which marks the Romans' 2,000-year-old attempt to keep the Scots at bay - it looks like the kind of place where it would be quicker to knock on a neighbor's door rather than dial into the Net and send an e-mail. But Haydon's community extends far beyond its parish boundaries.
As is typical of many rural areas in Britain, jobs, transport and shopping facilities are in, says Stan Mitchell, editor of Haydon's on-line newsletter and a retired communications engineer. Young people tend to leave the village to live in other parts of Britain or abroad. To help the émigrés keep up with happenings at home, older relatives would mail them the print version of Haydon's eight-page newsletter, distributed free in the parish. This gave Mr. Mitchell the idea of using the Internet to extend the community's reach to almost any place in the world where its children might travel.
Now a three-year-old institution, the Haydon Bridge Web site provides the newsletter, a chat room, information for local people and tourists, and a guide to the genealogy of Haydon inhabitants.
The village Internet user is ''not Mister Average in the Haydon Bridge area,'' Mr. Mitchell says. Most residents are elderly and, out of a population of 2,200, he estimates that only about 30 households are on-line. Locals tend to get their news from day-to-day village life and the print paper. In contrast, on-line readers often harbor cherished memories from their childhood and can be ''more vociferous'' about local issues, such as a recent controversial replacement of a historic church. ''They remember the nice quiet old English village,'' Mr. Mitchell says.
Across the pond
New York's Harlem could not be more different, and the role of its community Web site is to help the area's young people realize their full potential while encouraging an active interest in their local community.
The HarlemLive magazine/Web site is the brainchild of Richard Calton, a former public school teacher who left the profession to help schools set up their own Web sites. Mr. Calton soon realized that the immediacy and multimedia glamour of Internet publishing could inspire students to take up journalism and computing, as well as getting them more involved in their neighborhoods.
Students come to the HarlemLive project through school or word of mouth, and Mr. Calton asks only that they are motivated and ready to commit their time.
Tameeka Mitchem, 17, has been a reporter for the site since April and is taking public speaking classes through the project to support her ambition to become a features journalist. A typical HarlemLive assignment involves talking to grass-roots organizations and community leaders or interviewing local people on issues of the day.
Ms. Mitchem says that, unlike the mainstream media's ''very narrow'' coverage of the area, HarlemLive gives residents a voice on local issues, such as the raising of school exam standards, as well as national concerns like gun controls. ''African-Americans are intelligent people with a point of view that needs to be heard,'' she says.
Students also have a role in ''cross-pollination'' between local groups that otherwise would be working in isolation, says Mr. Calton. It is common in the HarlemLive office that young people meet for the first time, only to find they live just doors away from each other.
Angel Colon, 15, has been involved since HarlemLive's launch three years ago. His early interest in computers landed him the job of updating content on the site. He's since discovered an enthusiasm for journalism and, with the combination of publishing responsibilities and deadlines, HarlemLive ''feels like a job,'' he says, but a job he enjoys.
The project's supervisors allocate stories and encourage students to stretch themselves by producing a range of work, from news to reviews of local arts and performance to creative written work. The experience has paid off in real achievements and raised expectations, says Mr. Calton. Of HarlemLive's initial graduates, some have gone on to college and others have well-paid technical support jobs in local schools.
''People think it's all negative for a lot of poor communities,'' says Ms. Mitchem. ''But there are a lot of good things that can come out, and HarlemLive is one of them.''
Sheridan Nye