Wednesday, October 14, 2020 | 8:30am - 10:00am | ZOOM

Abstract

NetLab’s four East York studies in Toronto have traversed from the Community Question—how have structural shifts in society affected personal networks—to the Network Question—how have information and communication technologies (ICTs) affected  the nature of these networks? Where doom-pundits had asserted that community has withered, the first two studies found community flourishing as personal networks rather than as neighborhoods, with different types of network members providing specialized support. Where recent doom-pundits warn that ICTs can weaken community, the third and fourth studies show that ICTs complement in-person contact and help networks to persist near and far. Many East Yorkers are networked individuals, using ICTs to juggle and proliferate relationships in multiple, fragmentary, far-flung networks; while others use ICTs to maintain their presence in a small number of bounded groups.