Doug Schuler
The Evergreen State College

Cities are providing the physical environment for an increasing number of the world's citizens. They are also becoming the locus for a variety of "virtual", networked digitally-based economic, political, and cultural activities and digital cities, the focus of this meeting, represent a new manifestation of this phenomenon. Digital cities, like their physical analogies, "real" cities, are only so much infrastructure unless animated with human social presence. My talk will focus on this social presence, particularly the type of social presence typified by the idea of "citizen," for it is primarily through the work of this social entity that social problems get addressed and social "progress" is furthered. I will explore in my talk the characteristics of "citizens" as distinguished from other social entities and how digital city technology, policy, and use can support or undermine citizen activity and effects.

Doug Schuler has been working at the intersection of technology and society for 20 years. Doug believes that positive social change is possible and that technology could play a role in promoting it. He is a co-founder of the Seattle Community Network and the author of New Community Networks: Wired for Change (http://www.scn.org/ncn). Doug is a member of the Faculty (part time studies) at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington where he just completed co-teaching a year-long software development program in which student teams developed web applications for twelve communities in the US, Russia, Nigeria, and elsewhere. He is also a consultant and the program director for the Public Sphere Project for Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR). In addition to several writing projects, Doug is organizing a conference for May, 2002 in Seattle, "Shaping the Network Society: Patterns for Participation, Action, and Change." (http://www.cpsr.org/conferences/diac02/)

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