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Australian Geographer, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 5–19, 2000 Community, Place and Cyberspace D.J. WALMSLEY, University of New England, Australia It is over 30 years since the concept of community without propinquity was rst proposed. According to this concept, communities might be spatially far- ung, but nevertheless close-knit, intimate and held together by shared interests and values, rather than by geographical proximity. Although the idea of community without propinquity has been heavily criticised, the advent of advanced telecommunications and the emergence of cyberspace mean that a reappraisal of the concept, and of the changing nature of community generally, is warranted. The paper undertakes such a reappraisal. A review of the literature on cyberspace reveals several reasons why the social effects of advanced telecommunications and the Internet might be less than is sometimes predicted. Setting this discussion in the context of other social science discourses on new urbanism, consumption rather than production as a basis for city life, postmodernism, and ‘the third way’ in politics, shows that place and local community are, and will continue to be, fundamental to the functioning of society. Cyberspace might have annihilated distance but not place. ABSTRACT Community without propinquity; cybercommunities; cyberspace; information technology; economy of signs; new urbanism; postmodernism; telecommunications; ‘the third way’. KEY WORDS The notion of community has been of interest to human geographers for many years. However, as in much of the rest of social science, the concept has been interpreted loosely, with a result that the term has a high level of use, but a low level of meaning. To some, a ‘community’ is speci cally: a relatively homogeneous human population, within a de ned area, experiencing little mobility, interacting and participating in a wide range of local affairs, and sharing an awareness of common life and personal bonds. (Dalton & Dalton 1975, p. 2) In other arenas, the term ‘community’ is used generally in an ideological sense to describe what should be rather than what is. Between these two extremes, the term has commonly been interpreted in one of three ways (Bell & Newby 1976): as a simple description of the boundaries of a settlement; to denote a local social system centred around interaction between people and institutions; and as ‘communion’, a particular kind of human association founded on personal ties and a sense of belonging (Urry 1995). Notwithstanding these differences in interpretation, there is a widespread realisation that the nature of community in contemporary society is changing. This observation was made strikingly by Webber (1963) over a quarter of a century ago. He observed that instead of individuals having their greatest involvement (sense of community) with 0004-9182 Print/1465-3311 On-line/00/010005-15 Ó 2000 Geographical Society of New South Wales Inc. 6 D. J. Walmsley those among whom they lived (neighbours, as de ned on the basis of nearness or propinquity), a situation was arising where, at least for professional and managerial groups, communities might be spatially far- ung, but nevertheless close-knit, intimate, and held together by shared interests and values (communities based on common interest rather than propinquity) (Walmsley 1988). Webber argued that such ‘communities without propinquity’ typi ed middle- and upper-class American society by the 1960s. Moreover, he predicted that, as af uence and mobility spread, so ‘community without propinquity’ would come to characterise society as a whole. From this perspective, it is interaction not place that is the essence of urban life (Webber 1964). Predictably, Webber’s views have attracted a good deal of attention, and some questioning. Criticism has centred on ve points (Walmsley 1988; Walmsley & Lewis 1993): (1) empirical evidence suggests that in many places communities are still based on propinquity; (2) urban redevelopment has shown the clear strength of links to local communities and the social problems that can result if those links are ruptured; (3) local areas and communities are increasingly important as political units; (4) the need for a sense of belonging to place and to a local community may be an innate human need; and (5) economic recession and increases in the real cost of travel mean that mobility has not increased to the extent that Webber anticipated. Given these criticisms, it is not surprising that alternative explanations of community change have emerged. For example, writing not much more than a decade after Webber, Wellman (1978) suggested that communities might be breaking up (into sub-cultures) rather than breaking down, a view congruent with more recent writing on local attachment to place in a postmodern world (see Walmsley & Weinand 1997). Despite these criticisms and alternatives, Hall (1997) has recently made a case for revisiting Webber’s work. In Hall’s view, Webber might simply have been ahead of his time. Implicit in calls for a re-evaluation of Webber is recognition of the importance of information technology (IT) and its potential for communicating at a distance. Certainly, the advent of advanced telecommunications poses a challenge for those social scientists interested in the changing nature of community, because we now live in an age characterised by the emergence of cyberspace (Kitchin 1998). This term denotes: a conceptual ‘spaceless place’ where words, human relationships, data, wealth, status and power are made manifest by people using computer-mediated communications technology. (Ogden 1994, p. 715) The advent of cyberspace has introduced what McLuhan once described as ‘life at hyperspeed’ (Matathia & Salzman 1998, p. 98), and has enabled contact to be maintained between geographically separated individuals and groups very easily and relatively cheaply. Economic aspects of cyberspace have received a great deal of attention (Castells 1996; Graham & Marvin 1996), often tied to the idea of globalisation, global markets, and a borderless world (Ohmae 1990). Social aspects of cyberspace—and the issue of what community might mean in the society of the future—have received much less attention. This is unfortunate, because changes to the nature of work, mobility and leisure, coupled with advances in telecommunications, potentially enhance the prospects for social interaction and thus rede nition of ‘community’. This paper therefore seeks to meet Hall’s challenge for a re-evaluation of ‘community without Community, Place and Cyberspace 7 propinquity’. It aims to do so by outlining the possible social impact of cyberspace. In doing so, it puts forward the view that the social effects of cyberspace might be less than is sometimes predicted. The paper also argues that any consideration of the social impact of cyberspace needs to be set in the wider context of other academic discourses, notably those relating to ‘new urbanism’, consumption, postmodernism, and the emergence of a ‘third way’ in politics. The paper shows that resistance to the homogenising global forces inherent in advanced telecommunications adds weight to the proposition that local communities will have continued signi cance. Cyberspace and its impact Essentially, cyberspace refers to computer-mediated communications systems and virtual reality technologies. As such, it is ‘probably one of the most universally over-hyped terms of the latter part of the twentieth century’ (Kitchin 1998, p. ix). Many see cyberspace, IT, and telecommunications generally as having the potential to change fundamentally the nature of economy, society, politics and geography. Others are more sceptical. Before looking at the sceptics, it is appropriate to examine the argument that massive social change is imminent. Among those commentators who see vast social changes resulting from rapid technological change, cyberspace is seen to be undermining or modifying the urban fabric and urban lifestyle for three main reasons: cyberspace is altering the space–time continuum; cyberspace is changing the basis for communication; and cyberspace is blurring the distinction between ‘the real’ and ‘the virtual’. From this perspective, the three critical components of virtual reality are that it is inclusive, it is interactive, and interaction takes place in real time (Kitchin 1998, p. 8). In this sense, cyberspace is attractive because it can be liberating. It can be thought of as providing an opportunity for some people to move from ‘the here and now’ into a world with far fewer constraints. Proof of the impact of cyberspace is seen in the fact that there are some 2000 ‘virtual cities’ extant in cyberspace (Nieuwenhuizen 1997), and the fact that, by 1996, GeoCities (cyberspace communities created by Beverly Hills Internet’s WWW) had attracted over 820 000 ‘residents’ (Matathia & Salzman 1998, p. 156). Notwithstanding the attraction of such new ‘settlements’, many argue that cyberspace is primarily important in altering the way of life in existing settlements. In this context, it has become accepted orthodoxy that telecommunications networks can to some degree substitute for travel. Thus, ‘a range of telebased services are seen simply to displace the need for physical movement between home and work, while urban functions will no longer have a physical presence as services are delivered in electronic form’, thereby causing the ‘dematerialisation’ of cities (Graham & Marvin 1996, pp. 243, 254). In other words, physical cities become unnecessary at the same time as virtual cities become attractive. In part, the phenomenon of ‘cybercommunities’ has also been facilitated by the way that growing leisure time has potentially increased the opportunity for social relations, and thus has provided increasing chances for excursions into cyberspace. One of the central paradoxes of contemporary society is therefore that ‘people are able to “travel” so fast electronically that they do not actually need to move at all’ (Graham & Marvin 1996, p. 255). Clearly, given the apparent enthusiasm for ‘cybercommunities’, there is an urgent need to study the impact of IT, telecommunications and cyberspace on society. Graham and Marvin (1996) have distinguished four different approaches to such study. First, there is the point of view best described as technological determinism. This is the 8 D. J. Walmsley notion that technology shapes destiny so that ‘ultimately, how we live, where we live and near whom we live depend on the underlying forces inherent in technological evolution and subsequent economic change’ (Pascal 1987, p. 597). Second comes an approach based on a blend of futurism and utopianism. This highlights the space–time convergence inherent in advanced telecommunications, noting particularly the way that this can liberate people from location. Tof er’s (1981) ‘third wave’ is an example of this approach which tends to emphasise electronic cottages and telecommuting. The third approach is, in some senses, the opposite argument, and can therefore be labelled dystopianism. According to this perspective, telecommunications are not separate from society. Rather they are part and parcel of contemporary capitalism. Therefore, any attempt to understand cyberspace needs to look at the broader political economy of advanced industrial society, thereby bringing to light the fact that telecommunications are not neutral, but rather bene t different groups in society differentially, leading eventually to the demise of ‘the civic’ and the rise of ‘the private’ (Graham & Marvin 1996, p. 100). One of the best know ‘dystopic’ views is Orwell’s (1949) Nineteen eighty-four. Finally, there is what is commonly called the social construction of technology approach. This approach recognises that telecommunications are part and parcel of society but, unlike the dystopians, advocates of this approach put the emphasis on how society can shape the way telecommunications are developed. In this sense, technological development is seen as a social process, not a predetermined one. The impact of telecommunications is seen to stem from a myriad individual human decisions, and the power of human agency is therefore very important (Graham & Marvin 1996, p. 106). Despite this variety of views, there is no common agreement on which approach is most appropriate. In this sort of intellectual vacuum, the power of value-based argument is great. Thus, if commentators are inclined to the view that telecommunications are liberating, it is easy to mount such a case. Advocates of IT can see cyberspace as supporting new forms of social relations, like television and radio in earlier times, producing a different sort of society from that which presently exists (Jones 1995). This change can be envisaged because, in cyberspace: identity—once described as rational, stable, centred and autonomous—becomes unstable, multiple, diffuse, uid, and manipulable because the disembodied nature of communication and relative autonomy allows you to be accepted on the basis of your words, not your appearance or accent. (Kitchin 1998, p. 11) Put simply, some claim that on-line communities are set up so that they are free from real-world constraints, and thus able to serve as arenas for new types of social relationships (Rheingold 1994; Featherstone & Burrows 1995). Fewer gatekeepers means more freedom, according to this argument. Enthusiasm for cybercommunities has been particularly evident in Australia, although it is not clear whether this has anything to do directly with overcoming the nation’s inherent tyranny of distance. For example, Spender (1995) has written approvingly of new communities on the net, and of the new human values that are being forged. Elsewhere, overseas, Negroponte (1995, p. 7) has propounded a rather extreme view that socialising in digital neighbourhoods will make physical space irrelevant. More generally, there is a signi cant literature suggesting that telecommunications do not merely shrink distance, so much as render the concept of ‘friction of distance’ entirely meaningless (Gillespie & Williams 1988). This, of course, brings into question the very basis of the ‘geography’ that many people take for granted. O’Brien (1992) has Community, Place and Cyberspace 9 written about ‘the end of geography’. Others have hinted at ‘the end of the city’. After all, the function of the city is to overcome time with space by making communications easier through minimising space constraints in order to overcome time constraints (the close packing of interacting units). In contrast, the function of telecommunications is to overcome space with time by making communications easier through minimising time constraints in order to overcome space constraints (the electronic networking of interacting units) (Graham & Marvin 1996, p. 115). One rather striking example of the inroads being made by telecommunications is the appearance of cyberspace funerals where relatives can watch and participate without the trouble of travel (Nieuwenhuizen 1997, p. 57). There are certainly some sections of society where cybercommunities hold out the tantalising prospect of improvements to lifestyles. Two of the most often cited are shopping for the disabled and housebound, and socialising for youth. In the case of the former, access to electronic shopping is thought to provide those who have mobility problems with a level of retail access that is greater than at present (Graham & Marvin 1996). In the case of youth, cyberspace is thought to enable individuals or groups to carve out a new territorial domain by providing a means of organising forms of socialising, such as raves, frowned upon by authority gures (Gibson 1999; Hil & Bessant 1999). However, it is important to note that neither of these examples involves anything that is fundamentally new. Shoppers have had mail-order retailing for a considerable time, and youth have commonly used the electronic media, such as television and radio, for ‘their social atlas and role models’ (Latham 1998, p. 276). Cautionary notes on cybercommunities The possibility that cyberspace might simply be facilitating trends that have been around for a time suggests that we need caution in interpreting the impact of telecommunications and cyberspace, lest we become servants to enthusiasm. In this regard, there are 12 reasons why cybercommunities might produce less signi cant changes to contemporary social life than is sometimes suggested. The reasons are highly interrelated, and some of them stem from earlier criticisms of the concept of ‘community without propinquity’. Together, they show the need to view cyberspace critically, despite the tendency for IT-based initiatives to be applauded in many areas (for example, distance education, telecommuting, service delivery). The rst reason for caution lies in the fact that information is only as useful as the locale in which it is available. Cyberspace might provide abundant and almost universal information, but Kitchin (1998) cites the problems faced by a homosexual able to join cybercommunities of homosexuals, but living in a homophobic world. Similarly, no amount of information can overcome problems of material deprivation. The material basis of life cannot be overlooked, no matter how attractive cyberspace might be. Secondly, it needs to be remembered that IT does not annihilate markets and many location- xed phenomena. Despite cyberspace, there remains a need to be at a certain place at a certain time to access some of the activities associated with that place. For instance, many forms of business require negotiation and argument. Cyberspace has not annihilated the central business districts (CBDs) of the world. Firms still pay very high rents for CBD locations that serve as a base for electronic commerce and face-to-face contact. Thirdly, access to cyberspace is unequal. Fostering cyberspace might therefore be a way of promoting a more polarised society. An extreme example of this is to be seen in 10 D. J. Walmsley Graham and Marvin’s (1996, p. 130) claim that there is more telecommunications use in Tokyo than in the whole of Africa. More prosaically, information-rich and information-poor suburbs are emerging in many cities, leading to the prospect of electronic ghettos. This inequity in IT provision might exacerbate the tendency towards increasing levels of inequality (Walmsley & Weinand 1997) with dire consequences. To put things starkly, there are many areas of rural Australia where telecommunications cannot support high-speed links to the Internet and where, as a result, the idea of cyberspace is not very meaningful. Likewise, there are many people with little ability or inclination to use the Internet. Fourthly, it needs to be noted that a major use of telecommunications is to facilitate face-to-face meetings (Kitchin 1998, p. 90). In this sense, telecommunications complement travel for both social and business reasons. World cities thrive partly because of their accessibility by air. In this context, it is salutary to note what happened with earlier telecommunication innovations. The rst message sent by Samuel Morse on the telegraph was a question ‘What hath God wrought?’ (Nieuwenhuizen 1997, p. ix). This recognised that what was a great bene t to the American interior was also a great leap into the unknown. Similarly, Alexander Graham Bell’s rst words on the telephone were to his assistant: ‘Watson. Come here, I want you’ (Pool 1977, p. 12). Less modest sentiments tend to surround cyberspace. This is despite a caution from Kitchin (1998, p. 82) that: the vast majority of social spaces on the Internet bear a remarkable resemblance to real-world locales. As such, many on-line interactions are in fact situated in real-world protocols, undermining the potentially liberating effects of being on-line. Fifthly, one corollary to what has been said above is that cyberspace could encourage like to communicate with like. This, in turn, could encourage dysfunctionality in society: communities based upon interests and not localities might well reduce diversity and narrow spheres of in uence, as like will only be communicating with like. As such, rather than providing a better alternative to real-world communities cyberspace leads to dysfunctional on-line communities while simultaneously weakening communities in real space. (Kitchin 1998, p. 90) At the same time, it might be that the choice afforded by cyberspace will encourage individuals to identify with overlapping, and perhaps hierarchically structured, communities, thereby weakening their commitment to any one community (Guest & Lee 1983). In this way, increasing use of IT might destroy the ‘commonality’ that derives from the experiences that people have in common. This argument accords with the view that, for many, reading a newspaper is not something that is done critically and intelligently, but rather equivalent to splashing around in ‘a communal bathtub’ (Walker 1968, p. 71, quoted in Nieuwenhuizen 1997, p. 45). For many, media use serves mainly to provide information and ideas that can be used as a basis for general social interaction. In this regard Pay TV might detrimentally affect the role of previously free-to-air sport as a language of everyday discourse. Sixthly, cybercommunities can be very transitory. Maffesoli (1989), for example, has described on-line communities as ‘neo-tribes’ in so far as they are groups that form and re-form on the basis of temporary modes of identi cation. The transitory nature of much contemporary life is a point explored thoroughly by Harvey (1989) in his Community, Place and Cyberspace 11 examination of time–space compression and its role in capital turnaround. According to Harvey, there are ve effects of such compression: (1) accentuation of volatility and the ephemeral in such things as products, fashions, and values, and a pandering to passing consumer tastes; (2) an emphasis on instantaneity and disposability, encapsulated in the throw-away society; (3) encouragement of ‘short-termism’, exempli ed by a focus on contracts rather than commitments; (4) an emphasis on signs and images, together with the continual reinvention of images as earlier ones become jaded; and (5) hyper-reality and the replication of events and locales to make them ‘more real than the real’ (see Urry 1995, p. 177). Seventhly, coupled with the possibly transitory nature of cybercommunities is the risk of super ciality. McLaughlin et al. (1995) see on-line communities as pseudo-communities, in that they are built on super cial exchanges, little responsibility, and escapism. In simple terms, such communities can become ‘communities of limited liability’ where individuals join for ‘brief respites of participation for the sole purpose of being recharged by the power of the community’ (Matathia & Salzman 1998, p. 98), before withdrawing to pursue non-community-oriented ends. Community participation can thus become a pragmatic and self-interested activity. The eighth cautionary note to be borne in mind when contemplating the potential signi cance of cybercommunities is one of scale. IT might facilitate the emergence of ‘mega-communities’ resulting from the view of ‘the world as one place’ (Graham & Marvin 1996, p. 177). Linked together on a global scale by shared interests—in many senses, a very large-scale ‘community without propinquity’—such mega-communities run the risk of weakening interpersonal relationships by attenuating them. Inhabitants of this mega-community interact with an in nitely larger number of people than their forebears in more de ned communities did. Yet almost all of the relationships they experience are essentially conditional, rather than absolute. Relationships between human beings are increasingly dominated by choice, and much less by obligation. Individuals are more anonymous within their surroundings, and thus are less constrained by the ties of social obligation … People who can readily relocate to another social environment are less likely to worry about the consequences of their activities in their current environment. (Tanner 1999, pp. 46–7) In short, mega-communities might be unstable and plagued by the tyranny of choice. If an individual can surf the Internet, why worry about any particular issue? Ninthly, there exists the possibility that the global reach of cyberspace creates a reciprocal need for a rm link to locality, possibly even a home base (Norberg-Schultz 1971). The so-called ‘conquest’ of terrestrial space may have been accomplished technologically and economically but it has not yet been accomplished at a human level because it seems, at least experientially, that people become bound to their locality and have their quality of life reduced when this ‘bonding’ is broken. (Seamon 1979, p. 9, quoted in Walmsley 1988, p. 63) 12 D. J. Walmsley Tenthly, cyberspace might be characterised by an unacceptable lack of human contact. The drudgery of the at screen has been widely noted in telecommuting, as have the isolating possibilities of working from home. Nieuwenhuizen (1997, p. 33) has been particularly forceful in addressing this point: It is already possible to do basic shopping and banking via the telephone and predictions are that in the cyber-community of the future there will be fewer and fewer reasons to leave home. We may substitute cyberchat for the real thing; virtual shopping for the real variety; and we may visit a cybercafe and stare at a blinking screen instead of enjoying coffee with a friend. We are promised increased opportunities to work from home and study from home, but what if these merely lead to a further winding back of human contact? To many people, shopping is very much a social activity that takes them away from home to locations where they can see other people and be seen. Looking and socialising might be every bit as important as buying. The eleventh possible limitation of cybercommunities relates to a lack of privacy. The same IT that liberates also produces the smart card and the surveillance system. Electronic banking runs the risk of producing an individual pro le hitherto unavailable. Life in cyberspace generates electronic trails just as inevitably as soft ground retains footprints (Mitchell 1995). Targeted marketing is becoming increasingly important, as too is targeted political campaigning. Perhaps this is a sign of society becoming increasingly fragmented? We will certainly be ‘fooling ourselves if we think that the separately wired castles the superhighway promises will offer us anything like the privacy we like to think we can have behind a high fence on a suburban quarter acre block’ (Nieuwenhuizen 1997, p. 59). Finally, only the most primitive of technological determinists can overlook the fact that we need organisational change in society to take full bene t of IT. This is because it is organisational innovations that have ensured that ‘new technologies have been economically successful and culturally emblematic of the modern world’ (Urry 1995, p. 142). To take a simple example, railways did not foster widespread travel until Thomas Cook invented a system of vouchers. In this context, it is worth noting that the world is still a richly textured set of places. IT, telecommunications and cyberspace might be thought to have massive homogenising in uences, but this is a view that needs to be considered very critically. Globalisation, another over-hyped word closely linked to cyberspace, is not an ‘international steamroller’ that overpowers individual nationstates and businesses. The ‘local’ is still vitally important even in the world of business. Concepts like ‘the global car’ have proved largely illusory ‘because differences in market place, tastes, needs and preferences have turned out to be more pervasive and less susceptible to change than anticipated’ (Linge & Walmsley 1995, pp. 2–3). Commodi cation is by no means the monolithically evil force it is sometimes portrayed to be. Pure examples of ‘Coca-colonisation’ and ‘McDonaldisation’ are very rare, because big corporations often show more sensitivity to local conditions than is commonly realised (Jackson 1999). Additionally, consumption of international commodities can often re ect reasons other than the homogenisation of society, as with Punjabi youth in London using Coca-Cola and McDonalds as a means of distancing themselves from a parental culture that might be oppressive (Gillespie 1995, quoted in Jackson 1999). In short, there are many reasons why cybercommunities might not have the impact that some of their advocates suggest. Care therefore needs to be taken in exploring the changing nature of ‘community’ in contemporary society. In addition to the cautionary Community, Place and Cyberspace 13 points made in this section, any serious study of community should also take stock of work on new urbanism, consumption rather than production as a basis for society, postmodernism, and arguments proposing a ‘third way’ in politics, because discussion of each of these issues lends support to the view that cyberspace might have less of an impact than is sometimes believed. New urbanism Any discussion of the changing nature of community needs to recognise that the sorts of changes identi ed by Webber in his account of ‘community without propinquity’ triggered counter-arguments about the nature of society in the late twentieth century. Instead of accepting Webber’s (1963, 1964) prediction of increasing mobility, some commentators, particularly in the eld of town planning, have questioned what society ideally should be like. Although interpretations vary, this body of work has generally been labelled ‘new urbanism’ (Bressi 1994; Duany & Plater-Zyberk 1994; Katz 1994). In the Australian context, the main features have been set out by de Villiers (1997). Basically, ‘new urbanism’ is a movement in planning designed to enhance localism in urban life. It emphasises association, and therefore density rather than sprawl; it emphasises local geographical areas as bases for community, and therefore gives priority to pedestrians over cars as a way of encouraging street life; it emphasises ‘walkability’, and therefore promotes mixed land uses rather than homogeneous zoning; and it attempts to foster friendliness, and therefore emphasises public rather than private space. In some senses, then, ‘new urbanism’ is a movement that can be seen as a way of contesting some of the centrifugal forces inherent in cyberspatial technologies. Essentially, new urbanism involves the opposite of ‘community without propinquity’. It puts the emphasis in urban life squarely on ‘geographic, place-based community, where people have what matters to them most: personal contact made possible through friendlier streets and walkability and variety and personalism’ (Matathia & Salzman 1998, p. 154). ‘New urbanism’ represents an attempt to plan the world in a particular way. It is as yet too early to judge the degree of success attaching to the initiative. However, its very existence highlights opposition to many of the traits that characterise cybercommunities. The discourse of ‘new urbanism’ is therefore evidence of resistance to the totalising impact sometimes attributed to IT, telecommunications, and cyberspace. The shift from production to consumption Another discourse that needs to be factored into any consideration of the changing nature of community is that surrounding the possibility that contemporary cities are shifting from being centres of production to being centres of consumption. Zukin (1992), for instance, has been prominent in promoting the view that the city of the future will change ‘as consumption of space is abstracted from the logic of industrial production’ (Graham & Marvin 1996, p. 157). There is certainly increasing evidence that places in cities are being restructured as centres for consumption, in the sense that they provide the context within which goods and services are compared, evaluated, purchased and used (Urry 1995, p. 1). Because places themselves can be ‘consumed’, there develops an ‘economy of signs’ geared to the economic and cultural transformation of different places into consumable items (Lash & Urry 1994). Also, because places can be ‘consumed’, the sense or character of a place becomes important. Such ‘sense of place’ is not, of course, something that is given; rather it is something that is 14 D. J. Walmsley culturally constructed. What is very much at issue, therefore, is the image of the place. Often image-making is linked to a place’s signi cance in terms of arts, tourism and leisure. Despite cyberspace and ‘virtual reality’, domestic and international tourism continues to grow. Increasingly, the consumption of places and the consumption of goods are interdependent. For example, in Urry’s (1995, p. 28) view, images of places are routinely used in the symbolic location of products and services (for example, advertising with a rural idyll or beachside lifestyle as a backdrop); living in or visiting certain places often involves certain types of consumption (for example, local food, tickets to local attractions); and certain types of product can only be obtained by visiting a particular place (for example, studio-based artwork). Locality is, in short, very important. However, understanding the signi cance of locality is by no means straightforward. Locality is very much an outcome from social and spatial processes that happen to produce ‘particular combinations of social relations with a given geographically delimited area’ (Urry 1995, p. 63). The nature of these processes is not of concern here. The critical point in this analysis is that place, and the communities associated with places, are still vitally important in contemporary life. Discussions of the shift from production to consumption, and of the critical importance of locality in contemporary life, have often concentrated on the striking and the spectacular, hence the literature on ‘spectacles’ in the cities of today. Sometimes these spectacles can take the form of events that are held only at intervals, thus attracting great interest. An obvious example of such ‘hallmark events’ is the Olympic Games. More frequent ‘hallmarks’ might be annual grand prix (Hall 1992, pp. 197–201). Aside from ‘hallmarks’, there are spectacles that are enduring, and yet overtly contrived. The most striking here are those places ‘where styles and objects from all countries are merged and where the fake substitutes for the real and in the process becomes more real than the real’ (Kitchin 1998, p. 17). These ‘hyper-real’ places are exempli ed by Disneyland and Las Vegas. As with ‘hallmarks’, there are, of course, lower-order examples of the same phenomenon. London’s Covent Garden is a case in point: although relatively small-scale, it now has buildings that are pastiches of their former selves (Castells & Hall 1995). Postmodernism The possibility of places capitalising on perceived difference to promote themselves raises the issue of postmodernism, because there is a school of thought within postmodern writing in social science that holds that increasing differentiation might characterise society in the future. In simple terms, postmodernism is against universal truths, what are sometimes called ‘totalising metanarratives’. The central tenet is that there can be no overarching theory of how society works, because society differs from place to place. Moreover, ‘reality’ is very much a social construction, re ecting the characteristics of the individuals making the constructions. In postmodernism, the emphasis is therefore on heterogeneity, particularity, and uniqueness (Gregory 1989, p. 70). Place is seen not just as the location where social processes are acted out. Instead, place in uences the way in which those processes are actually constituted (Soja 1989). Postmodernism argues that explanation must be contextual rather than nomological, that is to say, events must be explained by the context in which they occur, rather than by reference to universal laws or principles. Of course, an emphasis on social construction runs the risk of discussion becoming enmeshed in relativism. Moreover, focusing on relative social constructions might overlook the critically important material conditions that Community, Place and Cyberspace 15 greatly in uence well-being. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that some writers see postmodernism as the product of the latest in a series of major changes to the organisation of society that began with the Renaissance and the emergence of a form of social organisation that fostered individuality at the expense of community allegiance (Tuan 1982). In many ways ‘the advent of a cyberspatial age con rms the end of the modernist period and our entry into a postmodern world’ (Kitchin 1998, p. x). It therefore holds out the prospect of fundamental changes to the nature of community (Poster 1995). Even the sceptics who suggest that the phenomena studied in postmodernism result from a natural evolution in technology rather than a radical recon guration accept that signi cant cultural repercussions are likely (Kitchin 1998, p. 97). Many of these repercussions centre around the signi cance of place and local community. McGrew (1992), Beauregard (1995) and King (1995) have all argued that IT, cyberspace and globalisation might bring with them opposition to the homogenising forces supposedly inherent in these phenomena. In particular, King (1995) highlighted ve polarities: universalism–particularism, homogenisation–differentiation, integration–fragmentation, centralisation–decentralisation, and juxtaposition–syncretisation. Just as cyberspace universalises, so it also relativises place and focuses attention on differences and uniqueness. Just as cyberspace homogenises, so it encourages local groups to interpret things in different ways. Just as cyberspace encourages large and enormously powerful corporations, so it also fosters the fragmentation of nations along, for example, ethnic lines. Just as cyberspace leads to a concentration of power, so it can also facilitate resistance by enabling small groups to access large audiences. And just as cyberspace encourages time–space convergence, so it can also highlight local social and cultural traits (Walmsley & Weinand 1997, p. 84). In short, resistance to change can bring with it a renewed emphasis on local communities. In the past, as geographical mobility increased and was democratised, so extensive distinctions of taste were established between different places (Urry 1995, p. 130). The same might happen with cyberspace. Indeed, place might become increasingly more signi cant. Thompson (1967) has shown how industrial capitalism ushered in changes which saw society oriented to tasks instead of to time. Postmodernism might bring with it an orientation to place. This might be linked to the emergence of a ‘self-service society’ (Gershuny & Miles 1983). More and more ‘we entertain ourselves, drive ourselves, feed ourselves, do up our houses, often using highly sophisticated material goods’ (Urry 1995, p. 116). The locus and focus of such self-service is invariably the place where we live. It is from this base that we interact with the world. Place, in simple terms, is the ultimate positional good (Hirsch 1978). Its signi cance transcends any ‘mobility’ brought by the Internet. Communities associated with places might be expected to persist despite the existence of cyberspace. The political arena It is not only social scientists with their arcane vocabulary who are interested in the way in which cyberspace and telecommunications might be changing the nature of community. The issue is very much on the agenda in Australian politics, often associated with calls for what is increasingly known as ‘the third way’ in politics, a path located between market forces on the one hand and state planning on the other hand (Latham 1998; Tanner 1999). Some take the view that cyberspace poses major challenges to the democratic process as we know it. At the federal or state level, these issues are not of 16 D. J. Walmsley concern in this paper; emphasis is instead on the community level. Here we need to remember that the in uence of cyberspace is not working in isolation from other in uences. ‘The diversi cation of work and social values has also loosened the glue of social cohesiveness’ (Latham 1998, p. xxi). There is, however, little doubt that developments in telecommunications have changed the nature of society. The impact of television and IT generally probably lies behind a loss of civic engagement, possibly exacerbated by the entry of increasing numbers of women into the paid labour force. For example, Latham (1998, p. 275) quotes gures to show that, in the USA, the generation born in the 1920s belonged to twice as many civic associations as those born in the 1960s. Others fear that cyberspace might replace real-world, face-to-face interactions with on-line communication, thereby further diminishing the public sphere of life (Lajoie 1996). The potential tension between the private and the public was recognised by Latham (1998, p. xxiv) in his description of the new political landscape: The political divide is now best conceptualised as a four-plane matrix, split by the struggle between capital and labour; economic nationalism and economic internationalism; the information rich and the information poor; and the realignment of social relations between individualism and the community. In other words, the tension between individual and community might be every bit as important as more conventional class-based tensions. Coming at a time when society runs the risk of becoming more polarised than before, this concern for the demise of the public is worrying. One of the main concerns is the marginalisation of certain groups. Tanner (1999, p. 43) has pointed out that: enormous advances in transport and communications have been tremendously liberating. Yet greater freedom for all has been accompanied by greater isolation and loneliness for many. To many, widespread social exclusion in our society is as serious a problem as material poverty (Giddens 1994, p. 90). This does not, of course, mean that we can ignore material conditions. This would be unwise, because social and political marginalisation and material poverty might go together. In rural Australia, some of the hardest economic times are faced by socially isolated communities with poor IT links and limited political power. The danger of ignoring the material basis of life in any discussion of cybercommunities was portrayed starkly by Dyrkton (1996, p. 56): ‘In Jamaica the breeze of the computer fan empties itself into an abyss of unrelenting everyday life.’ Social marginalisation runs the risk of downgrading the social capital in many communities (Putnam 1993). This in itself might be one good reason to be wary about the impact of cyberspace, given the transitory and super cial nature of the communities that develop in cyberspace. It might be that society needs to question whether it should encourage adoption of the highest available technology, irrespective of any adverse social consequences (Jones 1995, p. 215). Conclusion This paper has examined the impact that cyberspace might be having on communities. In particular, it has argued that there are many reasons for doubting what seem to be exaggerated claims about the liberating effects of cyberspace. Some of these cautionary notes become apparent from a close reading of the literature on IT, Community, Place and Cyberspace 17 telecommunications and cyberspace. Other cautionary notes derive from associated discourses relating to ‘new urbanism’, the centrality of consumption in contemporary society, postmodernism, and political writings that might be grouped together under the emerging descriptor ‘the third way’. The fundamental message of this paper is that place and local community are, and will continue to be, fundamental to the functioning of society. Place-based communities should not therefore be threatened by developments in cyberspace. Cyberspace might have annihilated distance, but not place (Walmsley & Weinand 1997, p. 84). ‘Geography’, in the simple sense of place-to-place differences, is becoming more, not less, important. 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