What does a Community Communication system look like?

As I embark upon new work here in Lowell, MA, I am beginning to think through in a broader sense what a community communication systems looks like. What are its defining features? I have come up with some preliminary thoughts which I hope will expand and develop as I add new knowledge and thoughts into my day-to-day work.

So here is what I have thus far, a COMMUNITY COMMUNICATIONS system:

=> preserves and promotes our cultural heritage
=> is accountable to the people it serves
=> is open to all to participate
=> engages its citizens in important dialogues and debates (civic engagement)
=> supports and develops the social and economic life of its citizens
=> resists commercialization and explointation of public ICT resources
=> is flexible and broad in order to provide the right tool for the right situation
=> builds the communication skills (both the message making and tool weilding varieties) of tis community
=> insists on a culture of sharing and public exchange
=> champiions free and creative expression

What are other markers? It is easy to see how such a system differs from mass mediated and commercial communication systems, but how does it differ from our current “public” communication systems? I’m interested in what others have to offer.

It’s not about the technology, It’s about the people

In the euphoria of new gadgets and high-tech seduction, it is easy to forget that the purpose of any new technology is to expand our humaness. To augment our own human capabilities in order to realize ourselves and our communities more fully.

Communnication tools that isolate, alienate, separate and segregate fail to realize the potential that exists in all of these rapidly developing tools and mechanisms to decentralize control to leverage the power of p2p and distributed networks towards richer lives, stronger communities, and a better world is hard and mindful work.

A magnificent human being who understood this and spread the work of the transformative power of communication died yesterday. Dirk Koning of the Grand Rapids Community Media Center will be missed.