Community Intranets
The community intranets are local repositories that store relevant and pertinent content for the territory where they are located. We can imagine them as local networks in contexts with little or no access to other connectivity infrastructures, but also in communities with Internet access that use it as a captive portal to privilege their own and plural contents.
This research-action process is part of the path shared with various communities and sister organizations in Mexico and Abya Yala, towards the strengthening of communication processes and connectivity of peoples. From this framework of reflections and experiences, we imagine a new way of communication and connectivity.n proprietary content system that allows us to safeguard, access and exchange the contents that are cultivated from different territories.
In this sense, we find in the intranets a tool for the system of own contents that gives continuity to the community communication cycleThe sowing, which follows that of the sowing, towards the permanence of life.
Cycle of community communication
The landas the moment to sow our questions, concerns and reflections in our territory.
It is community research where the community itself is the key actor.
The wateras the process of harvesting our responses through community processes.
It is the process of content production from the care and strengthening of community relations.
The firewhere we gather to prepare and store what is grown in the harvest for safekeeping and sharing.
It is the process of thinking about how the contents will be stored, safeguarded, systematized and categorized for sharing.
The airas well as the different media we create to share and transmit the contents we harvest in the territory.
Infrastructures and articulation of community processes are needed to allow content to be shared and distributed according to community values.
The cycle is complete when the harvested contents are shared with the community, and return as seeds to be sown with new questions that will continue the community communication process.
Methodology
In the guide What if we rethink technologies for communication? Methodological proposals for designing and implementing community communication projects (2020). we share two methodological proposals that allow communities, based on their principles, needs, dreams and priorities, to identify useful technologies and develop participatory and sustainable communication projects, according to their organizational forms.
Click on each infographic to view and download.
Participatory methodology for the creation of communication projects.
This methodology develops a process of collective reflection for the design and implementation of communication strategies based on the territory of life, identity, needs and dreams of each community or collective.
Participatory design of a community intranet
This methodology identifies the potential of an intranet in terms of the communication and information needs of the community and how it can be articulated with a broader strategy. It allows to collectively design an interface and categorize contents, as well as a work plan for its sustainability.
Technical Documentation
We start from the possibility of dreaming and rethinking communication and connectivity from the territory to transform technologies, to appropriate and use them based on community principles. Based on an analysis and systematization of the road we have traveled, we shared the technical requirements We envision the operation of community intranets, both in each of the territories and in the network of networks that we envision for the exchange of content between communities.
What we have learned so far has been the result of a constant exchange of experiences and collaborations with similar processes in different territories. We are working on the construction of a website to share lessons learned about the organizational, technical and sustainability processes for the planning, installation and operation of a community intranet. With this web page we seek to continue the dialogue of experiences and possibilities, as well as to accompany those who are about to start a path towards a local content network.
History of the Process
Click below to learn about the processes we accompany, their stories, experiences, achievements and challenges in the construction of community intranets.
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