“We Were On the Outside Looking In” MyKnet.org: A First Nations Online Social Network in Northern Ontario
In this article we provide a preliminary account of MyKnet.org, a system of personal homepages for remote First Nations users in Northwestern Ontario, Canada. This free of charge, free of advertisements, locally-supported online social network serves over 40 remote First Nations communities and prov...
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| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.89.6569 http://www3.fis.utoronto.ca/research/iprp/cracin/publications/pdfs/workshop 5/Bell_Budka_Fiser_We_Were_On_the_Outside.pdf |
| Summary: | In this article we provide a preliminary account of MyKnet.org, a system of personal homepages for remote First Nations users in Northwestern Ontario, Canada. This free of charge, free of advertisements, locally-supported online social network serves over 40 remote First Nations communities and provides a unique perspective on online social networking. MyKnet.org is comprised of over 30,000 homepages, notable since half of the region’s population of 25,000 is under the age of 25. Through ethnographic methods, seeking to stay as close to the lived experience and cultural practices of MyKnet.org users as possible, we draw upon encounters with a range of developers and users of this network to understand how this community-developed and communitycontrolled form of communication supports activities in the remote First Nations. Our focus is on the importance of the locality of the network: its development within a regional First Nations computerization movement, its strong community-focus, and the central role users play in shaping the form/content of the homepages. Unlike commercial online networks, MyKnet.org is explicitly community-based, not-for-profit, and community-driven, thus playing an important role in local inter- and intra-community interaction in a region that has lacked basic telecommunications infrastructure well into the millennium. |
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