Grass roots campaigning as Elective Sociality (or Maffesoli meets ‘social software’): Lessons from the BBC iCan project - Stokes Jones, Lodestar

Am excited to be listening to this paper ... Lee Bryant had spoken of how he used social tagging for the BBC at Reboot7. .

Pre-history of the project :
- record low turnout in 2001 British elections
- quantitative research showed - apathy among voters widespread

The original brief : develop a unique interactive community in which people can make a difference in civic life. To participate in democracy.
Focus : Biased towards the local, and biased towards action.
Why research : belief that the site's success would depend on how well it met campaigner's needs.
Research focus : defining iCan's space - grassroots campaigners.
Methodology : indepth incontext interviews and capaign office tours, gathering oral histories of specific campaigns, etc
Deliverables : results expressed processes, priorities and needs of campaigners.

The Questions for the iCan system conceptual model : what is the journey between being a passive user and an active user ? A : iCan is the journey - using online journals and blogs among other things.

Conflicts : need for concept testing - unsung moments needed to be supported on the site - needed communications tools, a campaign blogging tool. Designed a prototype to be tested among target audience - 5 campaigners and 5 sympathisers - asked them a battery of questions and user journeys. Result - its too ambitious, it looks more difficult than campagining actually is. Only one thought the website would encourage them to start a campaign. The bias towards 'comprehensiveness' needed to be re-thought.One of the big learnings was that what they ended up with was a one-stop shop -- and that was overwhelming.

The problem - research had perhaps ignored this - "experiencing the other is the basis of community" Michel Maffesoli. Campaigners were getting something out of the community, far beyond the primary objective of campaigning. They threw back to elective sociality - unite and divide based on community affinities, which is voluntary, affect-based, about strong ties and based on local ties.iCan protocols then supported this model.

What a story !

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