Social Media, Virtual Community, and Real-time/Real-space Conversation

by hans peter meyer

Facebook recently announced the next social medium:

face to face, real-time/real-space conversation.

(from a posting on Twitter)

I usually write about real-space community and the things that make it tick: land and any or all of the many things related to how we use and/or conserve land, the relationships that are built through our various place-based involvements, how we strengthen (or weaken) the experience of this desirable but vague notion of "community." A recent conference, however, is pulling my thinking in a seemingly unrelated direction: the tension between narratives from real-time/real-space, and those emerging in virtual space.

In May of this year, about 55 "media makers" gathered for the 10th annual Media that MattersHollyhock Leadership Institute on Cortes Island. A productive tension broke out early in conference: a faceoff between "old media" folks (most participants are documentary film-makers) and "new media" people. The latter were digital to the bone. Irreverent. Making it up as they go. The film-making crew: crafters of story, used to tightly connected collaborations, focused on a unifying goal: a story that hangs together. When faced with the seeming Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)-driven cacophony that the new media generates, they asked, "Whither the narrative?" (MTM) conference at the

A lot of what happens today in real-time, feet-on-the-dirt small towns looks a bit like this faceoff: We have an attachment to a story of who and how we are in "our" place that is being shaken by the kinds of things happening around it. Rapid growth or the death of a primary industry: these change the texture of rural and small town living. A 15 minute wait to cross a bridge becomes a sure sign that we're on our way to the hell of big city living, and many scramble for old-mode fixes (like a big shiny new bridge or highway) as if it'll resuscitate a story of place that isn't doing so well anymore.

That was one of the keys to Mike Littrell's presentation at MTM: What is your story? Where is breaking, not working anymore? What can you learn from the broken place, to become stronger?

In our small places, the locales that are near and dear to our hearts, we need to "tend to the story." Specifically, we need to be aware of where it's not working anymore, and we need to open up to new stories and new ways of telling the story that will sustain the deeper meaning of who and how we are in place by mending the broken place. Ironically, in the crazy-quilt ADD world of new media I'm finding ways of story-telling and connecting that are, in some real-spaces, mending the narrative and creating shared meaning between folks who live on the same street, not just at on the same Facebook group.

MTM was rich with these examples. Here's a handful: Rebecca Moore's work through the Google Earth Outreach program: supporting "nonprofits, communities and indigenous peoples around the world in applying Google's mapping tools to the world's pressing problems..." Another example of "virtual space meets real-space" the stuff Irwin Oostindie is doing through W2 in Vancouver's downtown eastside: "breaking the digital divide in the inner-city." Mike Sheehan is engaging youth in real-space/real-time about "diversity, inclusion and solutions for healthy living" using place, rap music, video, etc. Kevin W. Kelley is integrating a wide range of media to connect with real-time/real-space: "where we came from, where we are and where we might go."

Does this sound too far "out there?" If you're under 25, maybe not? If you've got kids younger than that, and you're paying any attention to the way they're connecting and creating relationships, you know you've got an inside track. If you're not paying attention to your kids and how they're constructing their reality – PAY ATTENTION NOW. Take advantage of what they can teach you. And, engage in the real-time/real-space conversation with them. This, as the Facebook announcement indicates, is where real meaning in this life starts.

My experience with social media gets closer and closer to how I experience and understand my life. Yes, it's cacophonous. But I'm seeing the patterns, the story-lines emerging. Yes, I miss the days when my story was fairly simple: work, marriage, family, rural community. None of these stories is what I thought it was going to be. There are several "broken places." Each of which has given me the opportunity to get deeper, to really notice the juice that flows through me and through my relationships with others and the world I live in. There's no question of reviving the old stories; there is only the question of whether I can connect with the juice, learn something, connect with others, and keep creating.

Most of my story unfolds, breaks, and mends in the particular real-time/real-space of the Comox Valley. It's been home for most of my almost-50 years. At times my family, the dearest thing in my life, has been dispersed. Kids in Vancouver, Fort McMurray, Victoria, even just down the road. My Mom in Kamloops. Texting, Facebook, "bookmarking" through Stumbleupon and Delicious, photos on Flickr, Youtube videos – these allow me to maintain real-time connection with my family. Through myriad "small pieces, loosely joined," they tell the story of my family. It's a cumulative, mosaical approach to narrative. It's only when I stand back, when a week or a year have gone by, that I can see it.

The same thing is happening in our communities. Talking to pollster Angus McCallister* and sustainability guy Mark Holland I hear about "cultural precincts" and "communities of interest connected through activities." Yes, these are to some extent place-based communities. But they are also not bound by space. Increasingly, they take shape and connect through social media like twitter, Facebook, text messaging – not to mention an old stand-bys like telephone. For those of us working with community and transition issues the new social media can be very effective tools. There is a growing conversation on LinkedIn about non-profit groups using social media for a wide range of purposes. Fire departments and emergency services are increasingly turning to twitter as an alternative to 911. The Real Estate Foundation recently created a Facebook group. And then there are the examples of the Obama campaign and current events in Iran.

Social media can help people connect around common activities, interests, and issues. It can create positive change in our communities. Or, it can be used to organize against changes that a community of interest sees as threatening quality of life. These are not alternatives to real-time, real-space conversations and actions; but they can enrich those interactions. For stewardship groups, local governments, and others in the broadly-defined land-use practitioner community they enable incredible opportunities for learning and expanding the effectiveness of sustainable, quality of life knowledge and practices.

And here's where old school meets new school: us "old-schoolers" have the wisdom of experience, of knowing that no story ever runs they way we think it should. Whatever your story, whatever your narrative about your community, it will be "broken." Economic changes (growth as well as decline), development, population shifts – these transitions mark the "breaking" of the narrative that residents have created and become accustomed to. If we are mindful, our communities and neighbourhoods can become richer through the transition: it affords us an opportunity to think about where we want to go. This is the kind of work that people like Carole Stark and the Chinook Institute are doing with communities in the Kootenays. In a conversation with CIT (and posted as part of an article on sustainability) she talked about this "scenario planning" activity. Faced with challenges, a community begins to imagine the various "scenarios" or "stories" for the future. Our gift, as long-time residents and "old-schoolers" is that we, with patience, can bring a sense of perspective and "where-we've-come-from" to the fragmented, willy-nillyness of today's frenetic story-making, whether it happens in virtual space or real-space.

How our communities are changing or how our communications media (and hence, our kids and our families) are changing is frightening for many. Most of us have enjoyed a fairly smooth story. But the bumpy, broken story is more "normal" for us as humans. War, famine, disease, industrialization, education, economic opportunity/colonialism, development, even conservation – these have always changed how we live, where we live, who we see ourselves to be. The new media don't change this. Neither does clear-cutting the neighbourhood forest. What matters is what we do with these changes or threats of change. Ultimately, we are left with the starting point of all change, all social media: the real-time/real-space conversations between you and me out of which all "community" and meaning is born.

In the meantime, jump into the change. Play with it. Imagine the conversations and the communities you want to have. Follow some organizations worth watching on twitter. Join Facebook groups related to your concerns. And, keep your ears and eyes open for new ways that others are re-animating the conversations about community in and around you. Me, I've got a little project that may use some of the things I heard Rebecca and Irwin and the two Mike's talking about at MTM. Watch this space... (And thanks to: Sarah and Naomi at MTM for prompting me to keep thinking and writing on this; and to Kris Krüg, Leif Utne, Darren Barefoot, and Julie Szabo for their insights into social media 101.)

*Editor's note: The CIT Information Resource will feature an interview with Angus McCallister in an upcoming posting.

A version of this article was in The Island Word, June 2009. It was also published online at Development-Issues: Land, Community, Sustainability. A number of comments have been made on that site.



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