ICT4RD Ricard Espelt Research

1. The rural Catalan communities facing the
Information and Knowledge Society new
scenario, the case of ‘La
Conca de Barberà’.
ICT4RD
@ricardespelt

2. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
From rural life to virtual community?

3. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
From rural life to virtual community
Rheingold
+ strength
+ expansion
Rheingold, R. (1993) “Virtual communities”, Reading MA: Addison-Wesley (p.5)

4. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
From rural life to virtual community
Bateman & Lyon
resilience

5. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
From rural life to virtual community
Feenberg&Bakardjieva
Socializing forms
+
Quick and direct interaction spaces
Feenberg,A.&Bakardjieva,M. (2004). Virtual Community: No'Killer Implication.
New Media&Society

6. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
From rural life to virtual community
Woolgar
New socializing forms
+
Specifying reality and virtuality
Woolgar, S. (2002) Sociedad virtual? Tecnología, "cibérbole", realidad. UOC Ed., Barcelona.

7. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
From rural life to virtual community
Preece
Interaction among community members
thanks to technology platforms
Preece, J. (2000) Online Communities: Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability

8. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
From rural life to virtual community
Porter
Integration between
online and offline activity
Porter, M. (2001) Strategy and the Internet Harvard Business Review, Vol.79.

9. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
From rural life to virtual community
Wellman
Getting over traditional geographic gaps
Wellman, B.; Qaun-Haase, A.; Boase, J.; Chen, W. ;Hampton, K.; Isla de Díaz,I. & Miyata, K.(2003)
The Social Affordances of the Internet for Networked Individualism. Journal of computer
Mediated Comunication , Vol. 8 (3).

10. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
From rural life to virtual community
Hine
ICT significance: Before its use vs.
the moment of application
Hine, C. (2002) Etnografía virtual (2000) Traducció Ed. UOC, 2004.

11. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
Relation between producer and community consumers through launched product

12. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
Product relations around offline and online consumer community

13. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
Possible values in the relation between ITC and product

14. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
(1) (2)
TIC scheme to structure a producer community to be launched online (1)
TIC scheme to structure an online consumer community (2)

15. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
Conca de Barberà
ICT4RD Results
3 out of 4 Using ICT
ICT - Scale of Use
Email (94%)
Website (77%)
Social Networks (46%)
E-Commerce (20%)

16. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
Conca de Barberà
ICT4RD Results
Website Languages
Catalan (96%)
Spanish (78%)
English (63%)
French (7%)

17. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
Conca de Barberà
ICT4RD Results
E-Commerce Use
before 2010 (43%) | after 2010 (57%)
Reasons for E-commerce
More Information about Product (70%)
Enlarging Sales (45%)
Increasing Reputation (35%)
Customer Satisfaction (25%)

18. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
Conca de Barberà
ICT4RD Results
ICT can increase consumers
Yes (63%) | No (11%) | Don’t know (26%)
ICT and consumer collaboration help to explore
new product lines or markets
Yes (37%) | No (32%) | Don’t know (31%)

19. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
Conca de Barberà
ICT4RD Results
ICT reduces marketing costs
Yes (40%) | No (34%) | NS (26%)
ICT changes marketing process
Yes (34%) | No (34%) | NS (32%)
ICT improves innovation around the product
Yes (43%) | No (26%) | NS (31%)

20. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
Conca de Barberà
ICT4RD Results
Website improves product information
Yes (85%) | No (8%) | NS (7%)
Social networks improve product information
Yes (75%) | No (25%)
Presence on Social Networks
Yes (49%) | No (51%)
Social networks based on usage
Facebook (40%) | Twitter (11%) | YouTube (6%)
Interaction on Social Networks
Yes (44%) | No (56%)

21. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
Conca de Barberà
Findings Summary: ICT4RD Results
• Horizontal participation processes.
• Transition from email to social networking.
• Embryonic stage.
• Faster use by individual farmers than rural communities.
• Intermediary role Leadership still on.
• Competitive advantages for small producers in particular. (Flexibility
and low cost).
• Best examples - Adding producer family members.
• More economic efforts in new media than traditional in ones.
• New conception between rural and urban world: more proximity.
• Beating geographical gaps.
• Non Indicator Use.

22. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
4 lines to explore:
Health + Learning + Disintermediation + Cooperation

23. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
Increasing people interest for the products they consume.
(My Farm)
+ info

24. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
Linking production and learning
(Fresh Roots Urban Farm Society)
+ info

25. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
Linking consumers and selers
(Farmbook)
+ info

26. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
Controling Business
(The People’s Supermarket)
+ info

27. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
More interesting concepts to evaluate:
•Social farming (l’Olivera / La Fageda)
•More dialogue and less seduction (Outlook 2012 - Creafutur)
•Crowdmarketing / Crowdcreation – La Catània
•Crowdcuration
•Crowdbuying
•Transition Towns Network
•Open Source Ecology
•JAK Medlemsbank / Coop57

28. ICT4RD | Ricard Espelt
ICT4RD – La Conca de Barberà
ICT4RD Blog
@ricardespelt
Ricard Espelt
ICT4RD Researcher IN3-UOC