When the web supports communities of place: The “Social Street” case in Italy

In this paper we present a user study based on a series of questionnaire-based surveys that we aimed at understanding the role of general social media, like popular social networking sites, in promoting the creation and evolution of network communities of place, specifically in the urban domain. Analyzing hundreds of responses collected in this study (ranging from 129 to 933, the exact number depending on the items of interest) we report findings regarding a novel “attitude to exchange” score, the correlations with other items and scores of interest, among which validated scores for the concept of “sense of community”, bonding “social capital” and “trust”, and the discriminating and facilitating factors affecting this attitude. We then relate the findings to the design of a new class of social media, which we dub “convivial tools”, which could exhibit stronger collaboration-oriented functionalities and have a positive impact on the welfare of local communities and the aspirations of their members.