Collaborative Local Content Creation through edgeX: An Evaluation

Building on our presentation at AoIR 2007, this paper describes the further development of the Emergent Digital Grassroots eXpo (edgeX.org.au) project – a research and application project centred on mapping grassroots and amateur content creation, community engagement with new media, and strengthening local identity. Developed in conjunction with the City Council of Ipswich, a city of some 150,000 residents in regional Queensland, the edgeX project provides a site for local residents to upload creative content, to participate in competitions, to comment on each other’s work, and to develop new skills. Research goals associated with edgeX arise from a broader project of mapping the creative industries and their role in the knowledge economy, and a growing understanding of the significant part userled content creation plays in these processes, especially including the role of amateur creatives. (See Bruns and Humphreys, 2007, for a full description of the intentions which have influenced site development.) The project addresses Ipswich City Council objectives relating to cultural development and community building through its examination of new forms of community engagement around grassroots content development and broadband participation. Widespread concerns about declining forms of community and participation (Putnam, 1996, 2000) have been debated by researchers who argue that such assessments are misguided, ‘measuring old forms of community and participation, while new forms of communication and organization underneath ... [the] radar are connecting people’ (Wellman et al., 2002), particularly online forms such as email, chat, blogs, wikis, online games, and other participatory environments (Kraut et al., 1998; Bruns, 2005, 2008; Nguyen, 2003; Humphreys, 2005; Jenkins, 2006). Results from studies of Internet consumption indicate that ‘the observed decline (in traditional forms of community participation) has not led to social isolation, but to community becoming embedded in social networks rather than groups, and a movement of community relationships from easily observed public spaces to less accessible private homes’ (Wellman et al., 2002; Wellman, 1999, 2001; Wuthnow, 1991, 1998; Guest & Wierzbicki, 1999; Lin, 2001). It has been argued that “as the Internet is incorporated into the routine practices of everyday life, social capital is becoming augmented and more geographically dispersed” (Wellman et al., 2002). Community engagement can be enhanced