Building New Media Bridges across Ethnicity en route to Increased Civic Engagement

• In Event: Building Bridges across Ethnic Boundaries: Reflections on Interethnic Communication and Community Building

Abstract

Many community websites have been developed with the goal of enriching and/or increasing civic engagement. Cities and towns around the world are becoming more ethnically diverse. Yet, few have taken up the challenge of designing a site to serve as a bridge between ethnic groups that share residential spaces. The Alhambra Project has taken up this challenge, being guided by the approach developed in the Metamorphosis Project. It brings together the expertise required to develop a citizen/professional or networked website. We will report on our strategy of development and on the multilingual website as it has taken shape.

Authors

• Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach, University of Southern California

• Michael Parks, University of Southern California

• Daniela Gerson, University of Southern California

• Nien-Tsu Chen, Univ of Southern California

• Katherine Ognyanova, Univ of Southern California