The Practice of Civic Tech: Tensions in the Adoption and Use of Technologies in Community-Based Organizations

• In Event: Civic Tech and the Politics of Technology

Abstract

This article reports on a qualitative study of Community Based Organizations’ use of Information Communication Technologies (ICT). As ICTs in the civic sector, otherwise known as civic tech, gets adopted with greater regularity in large and small organizations, there is need to understand how these technologies shape and challenge the nature of civic work. Based on a nine-month ethnographic study of one organization in Boston and additional interviews with fourteen other organizations throughout the United States, the study identifies four tensions in the daily practice of civic technology, including 1) function vs. representation, 2) amplification vs. transformation, 3) grassroots vs. grasstops, and 4) youth vs. adults. These four tensions provide a conceptual picture of a civic tech landscape that is much more complicated than a suite of tools to help organizations become more efficient. The article concludes with recommendations for practitioners and researchers.

Authors

• Eric Gordon, Emerson College

• Rogelio Alejandro Lopez, U of Southern California