Community intermediary organizations, community media and networking, and the Internet

Across Canada, thousands of community "intermediary" organizations act as links between the various levels of government and Canadians, often people experiencing poverty, health problems, social isolation and other forms of disadvantage. Community intermediary organizations produce community media to publicize to the larger society the issues and events they believe are important, and they network with each other and with their community members to share information. This research explores the community media and networking activities of four of these organizations in four different Canadian provinces, and the role of the Internet in these activities. For our analysis we draw on fieldwork data including transcripts from interviews and focus groups as well as content analysis of texts produced by the organizations. Our research situates these organizations as actors within wider social movements and considers their community media and networking activities in this context. The research contributes understanding about how the Internet is used by this specific group of social movement actors - community intermediary organizations - and the challenges and opportunities for and barriers to using the Internet for their community media and networking activities.
International Communications Association (ICA) Annual Conference, May 24-28, 2007, San Francisco, California, USA