Non-profit civic associations are experimenting with information communications technologies (ICTs) in their work inside ‘global cities.’ The “info-sociational” concept is introduced in this paper as a heuristic and an approach for investigating ICT-linked organizational, participatory and spatial transformations in civic associations. The info-sociational approach is applied to four cases of civic environmental associations in two ‘Asian tiger’ cities-Hong Kong and Taipei-to compare their experiments with: urban map mash-ups; digital storytelling; participatory e-platforms; green new media; and networked activism. An info-sociational approach-besides providing a frame for comparatively analyzing digital practices amongst civic groups-arguably advances theory on the co-evolution of civic associations and ICTs.

The workers in civic associations may be thought of as the unsung heroes in today’s global city. According to this perhaps idealistic view they tirelessly fight for communities and against social or environmental injustices and corruption. Associations are picking-up where governments are failing in their tasks; and where corporations have forgotten the value of people and planet in pursuit of profits or monopoly powers. The core problem tackled in this paper can be summarized in the question: what transformations are affecting the important work of civic associations as information communications technologies (ICTs) continues to profoundly alter the very nature of civil society? The response to this question leads to an introduction of the concept of info-sociations (information-associations) as an exploratory heuristic for studying not just organizational transformations linked to ICT practices-but also related participatory and spatial transformations in civic associations.

The oft-noted shift from ‘government to governance’ (Rhodes, 1996) has been variously attributed to: globalization processes; increased multilateralism; the global spread of democracy; as well as hollowing-out and privatization of state functions (Swyngedouw, 2000). Governance has also been closely linked to the proliferation of ICTs (MacLean, 2004; Castells, 2008), as well as to the growth of civil society (Lipshutz, 1996). And just as the shift from ‘government to governance’ continues to serve an explanatory metaphor for both global and local transformations of the state and politics in the face of globalization-studying the complex shift ‘from associations to info-sociations’ can provide insights into the co-evolution of civic associations and ICTs.

Information-associations, or ‘info-sociations’ are meant to be inclusive of civic-cyber organizations, movements and counterpublics that use ICTs and operate at polycentric scales: from the local to the global level. Civic-cyber associations not only illustrate fluid, ‘permanently beta’ organizational dynamics (Neff & Stark, 2002; Bach & Stark, 2005, p.40), but also are intertwined in a networked politics that is profoundly altering questions about the nature of democracy-making them both a challenge to study and an area of needed research (Dean et al., 2006, xxii-xxiii, xv; Jensen et al., 2007, p.47). The info-sociational approach used in this paper treats civic associations as sites where the social ‘translates’ the technological via their specific practices (e.g. Callon, 1986; Bijker, 1995; Latour, 2005).[2]

An example of the intertwined nature of civil society and ICTs is evident in the practices of ‘WikiLeaks’-the Internet-based non-profit association that gained notoriety for its high profile whistleblowing and transparency e-campaigns in 2010.[3] Although undoubtedly unique, this example illustrates the global reach and power of relatively small non-profit associations when coupled with ICTs. As Lovink and Riemens (2010) suggest:

“Small player as it is, WikiLeaks, by virtue of its disclosures, appears to be on par with governments or big corporations (its next target)-at least in the domain of information gathering and publication.”

But rather than ‘going global’ to examine internationally-oriented info-sociations like WikiLeaks, or studying national level ICT-connected mobilizations-like the claimed effects of social media mobilizations in the 2011 Mediterranean East / North Africa (MENA) ‘Arab Spring’-this paper instead examines the digital practices of locally-oriented civic associations inside global cities.

The remainder of this paper consists of five parts. The first part briefly outlines the research methods and introduces a provisional theory of info-sociations. The second section provides basic context about civic environmentalism and associations in Hong Kong and Taipei. Third, the paper examines four individual cases of ICT-linked civic-cyber environmental practices. Fourth, the case studies are compared using an info-sociational approach. The concluding section, discusses the implications of using an info-sociational approach in studying civic-cyber associations.

The paper draws-upon case studies of local civic associations: two in Taipei and two in Hong Kong. These cases were selected because they demonstrated a requisite variety of civic activities and ICT-linked experimentation[4]-providing an empirical base for exploratory theorizing about info-sociations in two locally focused civic associations in two ‘global’ cities.[5] This paper employs comparative case study methods (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 1994; Stake, 1995; Czarniawska, 1998) and theory-building which draws-upon trans-disciplinary research literature on four fronts: sociology-communications; urban community informatics; science and technology studies (STS); and cyberactivism.[6]

The four civic-cyber associations selected here-DHK, AMOO, OURs, TEIA-despite their differing missions and activities all in varying degrees share a civic environmentalist agenda (Table 1). These four civic associations are also strategically situated in two of Asia’s global or ‘tiger’ cities: Hong Kong and Taipei.[7] Of interest here is how locally focused civic associations are operating in the context of these two globally networked communications hubs which feature amongst the highest ICT digital usage and penetration rates in Asia (e.g. Dutta & Mia, 2010; ITU, 2010). Under such conditions, Sassen (2004, p.654) posits the potential for the ‘local to be multiscalar’ in civic society practices-particularly for resource strapped associations. Are ICTs enabling scale-shifting changes in practices or novel types of alliances in the civic associations profiled in this study? To better address this question an info-sociational approach for comparing ICT-linked civil society practices is employed in this paper. This approach will be further articulated in the next section.

This section outlines a provisional theory of info-sociations, first by focusing on the dimensions of the info-sociational concept itself; and secondly by sketching an approach that focuses on three key info-sociational transformations. This approach represents an ensemble of theoretical hypotheses of how ICTs are configuring, and are being reconfigured by civic associations.

The practice of ascribing new or modified names-whether for ideas, artifacts or practices-occurs because traditional signifiers may no longer aptly represent a subject, object or phenomenon. Indeed, scholars have noted that traditional terms and typologies for understanding civil society are increasingly inadequate for an analytics of ICT uses in civic life (Latham & Sassen, 2005; Dean et al., 2006). In this paper, info-sociations, provisionally at least, represent an open heuristic for debating, analyzing and comparing complex ICT-linked practices in ‘traditional’ civic associations. In another sense the info-sociational concept draws inspiration from the open-source and collaborative software movements (e.g. Creative Commons), by treating this heuristic as an ‘open source’ signifier and a working theory in need of ongoing inputs and development. A comparison of ideal-types, shown in Table 2, contrasts a set of properties of ‘info-sociations’ with those of ‘traditional associations.’

The uses of social media for socio-political discourse and activism; the construction of local, regional or global online activist alliances; developing geographic information system (GIS) maps online for identifying local and regional spatial ‘hot spots’ or strategic activist issues; and employing blogs, email lists or ‘flashmobs’ for mobilizing grounded and virtual publics-all are illustrative of what this paper terms ‘info-sociational practices.’

Info-sociational practices suggest increasingly intertwined multimodal (employing an array of ICTs &/social media); multiplexed (blending virtual and physical practices) and multiscalar (varied geographical contexts and applications: from the local to the global)-even in seemingly ‘traditional’ highly localized settings. The compound term ‘info-sociations,’ introduced by the author in this paper-and elaborated in Sadoway (forthcoming)-provides a distinct theoretical framing device for studying the complex transformations involved with civic associational ICT practices (Figure 1).

Info-sociations, defined in brief, consist of non-profit civic associations that employ ICTs to achieve socio-political ends and which (potentially) operate at polycentric or multilevel geographic scales. Info-sociations are also fluid, politically contested interface zones formed via participation in both civil and cyber society (e.g. Sassen, 2001, p.32). As social and technical assemblages,[8] info-sociations represent a transformative concept because they are evolving sites or (cyber)spaces where diverse heterotopian[9] ideals, ideas and counterplans are being put into practice. Arguably this includes novel rights to free association in public cyberspaces.[10] Info-sociations enable formations of free digital associations and ‘cyberspaces of hope,’[11] or counterspaces to exclusionary and domineering modes of governance.[12]

Info-sociations, in other words, are transforming civic associations organizationally-as well as potentially being engines of social transformation. Like ‘traditional’ civic associations, info-sociational practices feature a diversity of ideals and ideas; missions

and members; as well as actions or projects. ICT-linked practices, however, distinguishes info-sociations as a novel subset of civic associational life or civil society. In this paper civic environmentalist groups are the particular type of civic associations where an info-sociational approach will be applied. However, these cases could just as well have been info-sociational studies of community housing activist associations; disenabled peoples’ rights groups; or neighbourhood elders’ associations-suggesting the potential versatility of such an analytical approach.

The info-sociational approach employed here features three hypothesized transformations for assessing and comparing how ICTs and civic associations are co-evolving in interrelated domains-in civic organizational internal and external matters; in civic participation and mobilized activism in the public (cyber)sphere; as well as in spatial practices, such as an awareness of on-the-ground environmental and land use issues inside city-regions, as well as for digital local, regional or global inter-connectivity and alliance-building.

Studies of ICT uses in locally-focused non-profit associations (e.g. Burt & Taylor, 2003; Denison & Johanson, 2007; Jensen et al., 2007) have typically not employed this type of integrated, cross-cutting analysis in examining how associational uses of ICTs effect organizational, participatory and spatial practices. An info-sociational approach focuses on how these three key transformations are manifest in civic-cyber associations (Table 3). This troika of interlinked transformations is not exhaustive, but rather represents a provisional comparison of ICT-linked effects in civic associations. Studying changing info-sociational practices amongst civic environmentalists therefore not only provides helpful comparative insights amongst non-profit groups-it also supports integrated theory-building about the dynamics of civic-cyber associations inside global cities.

It is also worth noting that some civic environmentalists remain deeply skeptical of the transformative promise of ICTs and express concerns about their commercial and consumptive impacts and the anti-democratic threat of state-corporate surveillance facilitated by ICTs. Such critiques includes concerns about how the digital interpenetration of civic associational life is disconnecting people from their natural environs and their responsibilities as active citizens (e.g. Shutkin 2000, p.241; Galusky 2003; Pickerill, 2003, pp. 36-57). These critiques prompt several questions in relation to the info-sociational approach proposed above. First, in balance do ICT practices improve the internal and external goals of civic organizations, or do they undermine these? Second, can ICTs deepen democratic civic participation, or do they pose threats to it? Finally, are ICTs accelerating existing urban spatial problems-such as socio-economic divides and livability threats-or might they help in ameliorating these?

Indeed critiques of ICTs touch on an important breadth and depth of concerns including: how digital access and learning divides can sometimes mirror and potentially reinforce pre-existing societal inequities in global cities (Graham & Marvin 2001; Graham 2004); that genuine community ‘social capital and solidarity’ functions may be undermined by ICT uses (Evans 2004); that social media can aggregate and appropriate information on publics through insidious market or state surveillance potentially muffling democratic dissent and activism (Dean 2010); as well as crucially, that ICT-dependent non-profit associations can become excessively conscious of their online public relations, marketing imagery to the detriment of their traditional practices and critical debate (Tatarchevskiy 2011). Such issues remind us of the importance of avoiding technological determinism (Graham 2004) and ICT ‘hype’ or boosterism including misplaced hope when studying these human crafted socio-technological tools (Evans 2004; Dean 2010). These critiques also suggest a need to continuously check that ICTs are being employed as tools for civic empowerment and environmental justice (Galusky 2003; Schulman et al.,(2005) for truly assisting communities rather than simply serving as modes of ‘greenwash’ or commercialization drives.

The info-sociational concept attempts to embed the critiques of ICTs listed above and their social, spatial and environmental ramifications, particularly as articulated in (urban) community informatics approaches (Graham & Marvin, 2001; Keeble & Loader, 2001; Schuler and Day, 2004; Gurstein, 2007, 2010). Such pro-civic approaches suggest the need for an ongoing ‘critical hope’, which is neither a dismissive techno-pessimism, nor ICT hype.

In sum, info-sociations as potential ‘cyberspaces of hope’ underscores the need for continuous critical (re)appraisals of civic-cyber practices and theory-including examining under what conditions the ICT practices of civic associations might actually be advancing urban livability and strengthening civic life.[13] This suggests continuously asking if ICTs are being shaped and applied to meet civic environmental associational core missions of bettering their home environs. Before applying this info-sociational approach to case studies, the section that follows will provide some context on civic environmentalism and civic-cyber practices in Hong Kong and Taipei.

Access to and exchange of information has long been recognized as being of vital importance in civic environmentalism (John 1994, pp.282-296). Environmentalists have been involved from the earliest days of public Internet use in experimental mobilization, networked activism and forms of community-building with ICTs (Castells, 1997, p.129; Warkentin, 2001,p.77; Pickerill 2003, pp.2-3). Since these early practices the growth of social media (Web 2.0); the increasing proliferation of digital commercialization; and the rise of an online state security and corporate market/monitoring apparatus-have all considerably altered the ICT landscape for civic associations including in civic environmental groups. And like ICTs, environmentalism can also be characterized as a fluid phenomenon. For instance, Mulvihill (2009, pp.504-505) posits that contemporary environmentalism has become increasingly diversified, decentralized, heterotopian (embedding mixed ideals and ideas), multi-scalar and global in nature-compared to a traditionally monolithic, western-influenced utopian movement.

Civic environmental associations are non-profit, voluntary member associations whose focus includes natural or built environmental and spatial issues primarily in the context of cities or urban-regions. Civic activism-from the formal to informal-can also be understood as localized expressions of counterpower (Castells, 2008). Civic environmentalism advocates community collaborative and integrated approaches-in contrast to top-down, technocratic approaches-for addressing complex socio-ecological problems (Tang, 2003; Yang, 2010; Karnoven, 2010). Proponents of sustainable cities, eco-cities or livable cities suggest that civic empowerment and engagement are necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for realizing urban sustainability or livability.

Civic environmentalism-as it is defined here-represents citizen knowledge linked to actions that protects, restores or enhances natural and built environs. Civic environmentalism includes democratic practices in action on several fronts, including: socio-ecological justice and public health; eco-education; home place-based respect and local stewardship; integrated, interdisciplinary governance and planning for sustainability; full life cycle urban design; and community livability initiatives (Roseland, 1998; Shutkin, 2000, p.14, p.240; Shulman et al., 2005). But how are civic environmentalists employing ICTs in their local practices? This paper focuses on the civic-cyber practices of local environmental groups in Hong Kong and Taipei, as the next section discusses.

Civic environmentalism provides a useful frame for examining three intersecting issues particular to Hong Kong and Taipei, namely: ongoing urban environmental concerns; the rise of urban civil society; and relatively accessible and affordable ICTs for potential uses in civic activism. In East Asian cities the implicit force of state governmentality has historically tempered associational life. As a result, civil society actors have at times been thought of as being in the shadows or even complacent compared to local state powers and, more recently, business and elite alliances.[14] Studying info-sociational life in Hong Kong and Taipei also raises challenges about understanding how East Asian variants of civil society might be translated inter-culturally. This includes diverse concepts such as: minjian shehui (~popular/non-official/common peoples’ society), wenming shehui (~civilized/enlightened society), shimin shehui (~city/townspeople’s society) and gongmin shehui (~citizens’/public peoples’ society) (Des Forges, 1997, p.71 citing Wang, 1992; Weller, 1999, p.28; Chen, 2010b, p.237; Yang, 2010, p.126).

Interestingly, evidence from over the past decade suggests that civil society and associational life has been strong or growing in Hong Kong and Taipei with civic groups in both cities demonstrating diverse activist tactics in politicizing issues related to the planning and sustainability of urban spaces (Chan, 2007; Poon, 2007; Sadoway, 2009), including employing ICT practices (Lai, 2004a,b; Chen, 2008). For instance, the so-called ‘Generation Y’-or ‘Post-80s’ generational activists in Hong Kong-have employed online social networking, citizen e-journalism, online radio, and micro-blogging to fight for social and environmental justice, and urban heritage, or peri-urban community conservation issues (Tsang, 2010; Lai, 2009). This has also involved a growing subculture of new media and e-activism linked to longstanding grassroots concerns in Hong Kong (Da Rimini, 2010, pp. 46-110; Lam & Ip, 2011).

Meanwhile, in Taiwan, sweeping governance reforms linked to the critical shift-away from authoritarian rule in 1987; the introduction of multi-party democracy and non-government organization legislation (i.e. revised Civic Organization Law, 1987); and a rise in alternative media-have all invigorated and broadened civic associational life (Hsiao & Liu, 2002; Ho, 2006). More recently in Taipei, the so-called ‘wild strawberry’ student movement and its savvy use of in-situ protest blogging has highlighted important local socio-economic and political-ecological issues and highlights the evolving nature of ICT-linked activism in Taiwan (Lin, 2010a,b; Zheng, 2011, p.87).[15] Although space is limited for further elaborations, the key point is that diverse forms of associational activism and dissent do exist inside urban East Asia, with on-the-ground activities increasingly being supplemented by ICT-linked strategies and tactics. The four cases introduced in the next section further demonstrate some of these multimodal, multiplexed and multiscalar info-sociational practices.

Evidence of info-sociations, as the author has argued thus far, may be found in civic-cyber associational practices-particularly in the ICT-linked activities and experiments of civic environmental associations. This section discusses some of the digital practices of four civic environmentalist groups in two tiger city settings: Designing Hong Kong (DHK); A Map of Our Own (AMOO), Hong Kong; Organization of Urban REs (OURs), Taipei; and Taiwan Environmental Information Association (TEIA), Taipei. Each of these civic associations is respectively profiled in the four case studies that follow.

Concerns about the impacts of development and reclamation projects alongside Hong Kong’s world famous Victoria Harbour spurned a group of community-minded individuals to establish Designing Hong Kong Harbour District (DHKHD) in 2003. One of the many civic groups involved in this process evolved into a formal non-profit group-Designing Hong Kong (DHK)[17]-with a widened focus beyond the harbour to include local land use, heritage, open space, and the contentious politics of spatial and infrastructure development in Hong Kong (interview with CEO, 12/23/09).

DHKs Chief Executive Officer (CEO) suggests that its website has served as a multilingual public media portal for aggregating news, city images, maps, designs, studies and civil society links related to public space and planning issues (interview with CEO, 7/27/09). DHKs efforts may be characterized as informational/educational, lobbying/organizing and watchdog efforts that complement the work of other civic groups in Hong Kong. One set of activities includes informing citizens via email newsletters, weekly face-to-face forums, press conferences, research papers and reactive/proactive submissions. Another involves keeping tabs on statutory planning processes, strategic and site-specific development plans and proposals (interview, 7/27/09; interview, 12/23/2009).

As a small and relatively recently founded civic group, DHK has drawn upon the existing professional and grassroots networks of its four founders in conjunction with the growth of the Internet-using what its CEO metaphorically refers to as, ‘a spider web’ process or networking approach (interview, 12/23/09). This includes both on and offline networking approaches. Since DHKs founders hail from various environmental, professional, business and civil society backgrounds (DHK website, 2011), they provide a wide web of contacts in associations and beyond. Situation-driven network building therefore occurs when triggered by local land use issues or key critical events.[18]

The CEO further explained this ‘spider web’ process: “[…]there’s a rapid network on the Internet in the background where all of us connect with each other. And you know, somebody leads a particular topic, not by choice, but just that person leads the topic and its ahead of the others; massive stuff starts flowing around and other people chime in, and sometimes there are points of reaction …” (interview, 12/23/09). He cited examples of where connectivity was prompted by responses to government consultations and where messages were subsequently disseminated on email networks and lists.

DHK partially determines what it can or cannot do using the ‘spider web’ and to what extent it should play a supportive or leadership role-particularly in relation to other civic groups. The CEO suggested, “you can’t do everything; you have limited resources, so if an issue is being picked-up by somebody else then you are happy to leave it there…”(Ibid.). He cited examples of allied local associations taking on specific issues-Civic Exchange on air quality; Conservancy Association on degradation of rural land; The Friends of Tsai Kung and Tung Chung Concern Network-including many local district or community concern groups around Hong Kong.

The concept of the ‘spider web’ of linkages was also related to the debate about open space issues in Hong Kong, particularly in 2008. This was precipitated by a ‘public access/space in private developments’ legal dispute at Hong Kong’s Times Square and highlighted by activist and arts groups such as Local Action and FM Theatre Power (SCMP, March 5, 2008). According to the CEO as the issue of access to public space in locales other than Times Square arose in discussions-including in a DHK-sponsored forum in 2008-in-person and online publicity helped generate broader debates about public space issues in Hong Kong (interview, 12/23/09). As the Hong Kong Government’s Development Bureau responded to the public space issue by calling for a study, DHK continued to encourage public deliberations. For example, DHK hosted a ‘CitySpeak XIV’ public forum on the urban space issue and videos from this series have been posted online, serving as an important civic e-archive. Also linked to the public space discourse has been a section of the DHK website: Hong Kong Public Space which features a photo gallery that encourages registered users to upload, share, comment and vote on digital images that reflect ‘beautiful’ and ‘ugly’ public spaces in Hong Kong (DHK website, 2011). Launched in 2009, this online site was also linked to an in person CitySpeak forum and a photo exhibition in a public gallery.

DHKs CEO also talked about the transitions between on/offline networking platforms and trust-building mechanisms: “The Internet, email [is] used the most, because it is efficient, immediate and quick […] but, that’s not where you meet somebody.” He went on to note the importance of networking recommendations: “you meet through the Internet because somebody put you into a cc. list and therefore you start communicating on that platform […] but you trust them because they’ve been put on the cc. list by somebody else” (interview, 12/23/ 09). Thus the process of eventually connecting in face-to-face for sharing ideas (the author suggested memes) remains critical, as does networking at conferences and forums in an urban environment like Hong Kong: “because this is such a dense city that [sharing memes] is extremely powerful,” the CEO suggested (Ibid.).

While many associations and NGOs have flexible loose tight, non-hierarchical group structures, it is notable that ICTs have allowed for DHK to project a strong network and public presence, despite their relatively recent genesis and small size. The association was intentionally founded as a small organization-according to DHKs CEO-to retain flexibility; and because of the expertise, networks and resources that its four founding directors brought with them (interview, 7/27/09). DHKs limited size also has meant that it has opted for joining or starting networking initiatives and launching spin-off projects with limited timeframes. From DHKs inception the Internet has remained its primary mode of media transmission since it was seen as allowing for rapid, cost-effective dissemination of news about projects and public events like CitySpeak (a regular face-to-face urban affairs gathering), as well as including archive-like online postings of video, links and resources related to urban spatial issues of the day. DHK has also employed between 2009 and 2011 various pre-formatted e-letter appeal campaigns to target government agencies-along the lines what Lai (2004b:100) describes as ‘one-person-one-letter’ digital campaign tactics.

While not longer in use, The Designing Hong Kong Map-an experimental Google Maps mash-up-linked spatial data to text and web links about Hong Kong land use issues (interview, 11/19/2010). After experimenting with the map, however, DHK chose to take on the role of a supporting organization-along with four allied civic associational partners-in a similar GIS land use map, watchdog initiative called Citizen Map. This effort is hosted by a Hong Kong commercial media group, and at the time of writing was prominently linked on DHKs website (See: citizenmap.scmp.com. Last accessed 3 December 2011).

The Citizen Map and website also supports map mark-ups; user image uploads; posting comments, as well as subscriber email alerts about particular sites of concern. The focus remains on environmental destruction and land use issues throughout Hong Kong’s urban and rural environs (interview, 11/19/2010). The examples cited above, illustrate how success in ICT experiments remains heavily dependent on user interests and participation, as well as on the initiatives of local civic associational allies.

The International Central Waterfront Design Competition-a half-year project launched in May 2007-provides an example of DHKs involvement in scalar toggling. This limited timeframe initiative involved the participation of 311 design teams in a HK$1million juried publicly exhibited international competition. The aim was to create counterplans to what was seen as the HKSAR government’s pre-ordained or locked-in design agenda for the waterfront (interview, 7/27/09). In creating a civic space for public engagement on urban design-both in virtual and grounded spaces-alternative visions for Hong Kong’s waterfront emerged from around the globe including for energy efficient, people and environmentally friendly designs (Figure 2). This event was also linked to an online campaign for detailed amendments to waterfront zoning. The CEO suggested they would like to further experiment with computer-generated urban design visualization-such as 3D scenarios-although time and financial resources remain limitations (Ibid.).

DHKs CEO also claimed that the 2007 Waterfront Design Competition might have helped spur the increased use of community-based design consultation within government processes. It was also suggested that despite weaknesses in Hong Kong government civic engagement, that such processes were to some extent enabling networking amongst civic environmentalists: “Everybody has their own networks […] some of the green groups they don’t even want to talk to each other […] What is good actually is the increasing number of public consultations helps bring more of these people in the same room; you keep meeting people, certain people, all the time, because every time you go to one of those consultations they show up as well; so that helps the network” (interview, 12/23/09).

The case of DHK highlights the importance of networked relations-dubbed the ‘spider web’ by their CEO and evident in three respects. First, networks involved toggling between online formats (email lists, websites, etc.) and face-to-face forums around the city. DHKs networking typically involved local alliances with like-minded organizations that supported or publicized their events. Second, networks were enhanced by online mediation and publicly accessibility websites, resource pages, visuals, and video or text records/digital archives. Third, DHK still emphasized the power of traditional face-to-face contacts, alliances, discussions and debates all in the densely networked global city setting of Hong Kong. These points also highlights DHKs initial strategic focus on networking and building alliances and retaining a small organization which in turn dovetailed with the deepening use of ICTs in Hong Kong. Regarding land use issues, DHKs work-appealing to civic-minded middle class professionals, academics and expatriates through in-person forums, newsletters and spin-off projects-arguably complements the street-level tactics and agendas of more ‘radical’ local grassroots activist groups. Via their website, e-mail newsletters, blogs, digital letters, linked ‘spider web’ of virtual and physical connections-including a focus on public space-DHK fosters and contributes to public and political discourse about urban sustainability and livability in Hong Kong.

The DHK case (Sec.4A above) briefly identified the role of artists in Hong Kong’s public space activism. A Map of Our Own [AMOO]: Kwun Tong Culture and History-serves as an interesting digital example of an artistic commitment to tracking the impacts of Hong Kong’s largest housing redevelopment. Conceived of by artists and activists, the Kwun Tong Map Project, (referred to here as, “AMOO”), represents a unique urban ethnographic website which was developed in 2007-08. Its purpose was to chronicle the effects of massive redevelopment plans that would dramatically alter a working-class East Kowloon neighbourhood in Hong Kong, known as Kwun Tong.

AMOOs Founder was first involved with the vibrant community and heritage activist scene in Hong Kong during the mid-2000s. The activist focus at that time was on redevelopment and development threats to neighbourhoods including heritage issues (interview with AMOO Founder, 10/13/2010). These included physical flashpoints of threatened communities and civic heritage like at Lee Tung (Wedding Card Street), Star Ferry (2004), and Queen’s Pier (2007). These fluid protest movements also dovetailed with online networking from an organizing and discursive perspective. AMOOs Founder the linkages between physical and cyberactivism during this period of time: “Anybody can join. Because there is a place or site-specific movement anyway-so people, if they are interested, then you can go there and you can join. And then we basically communicated by emails; and we do also talk and have meetings…” (Ibid.). Some of these groups-like h15 Concern Group, Local Action, V-Artivist and InMediaHK-

included a circle of artists, cultural activists and scholars who interspersed art, activism, on/offline video work and online texts with networked community activities. Their interlinking concerns were about development, urban renewal, conservation of built or natural spaces and the loss of community in Hong Kong (Ibid.). AMOOs Founder was passionate about “actions and movements” and suggested that these informal, situationist movements, were not just about heritage activism but, “the knowledge of history and the relations of people and place” (interview, 10/13/2010).

The importance of place, space and linked stories in Hong Kong’s vibrant post-millennial civic movements inspired AMOOs Founder to focus on the massive redevelopment in Kwun Tong. The Founder’s personal interests stemmed from living in the neighbourhood: “I lived in Kwun Tong until I was a teenager; so I think I really want to do something there” (interview, 10/13/2010). Returning to Hong Kong after studies abroad in 2006, AMOOs Founder wanted to document the history of Kwun Tong and gather the memories of remaining residents. The urban site will involve Hong Kong largest planned redevelopment and ultimately result in a massive relocation of residents. The phased project takes place over a 22-year period from 2009-2021, and is spearheaded by Hong Kong’s statutory Urban Renewal Authority (CCHK, 2009; URA, 2011).

“[a] participatory web-based interactive and locative archive on Kwun Tong culture. It supports multiple contributors and various types of media works (sound, still image and moving image). Visitors can interact with this archive in various ways including search on map/time-line/categories; sharing of media works in other web 2.0 platforms; audio-visual mix and rendering of itineraries for Kwun Tong walk.” (http://www.kwuntongculture.hk/en/home.php. Last accessed 3 December 2011).

This bilingual (Chinese/English) website is partially a living history and digital storytelling project; partially a time-series analysis of land use morphology; and an open-ended platform for residents, artists and visitors to share and express opinions (Figure 3).

User-generated content encourages discussion about the spatial changes in Kwung Tung resulting from the impacts of this large-scale redevelopment. AMOOs Project Director suggests that tracking the changing landscapes and map-marking might: “generate various critical point of views to the changes, and the ideas of urban renewal plans in Hong Kong” (AMOO website, 2009). Users are encouraged to add map-linked location mark-ups/tags of images, audio-video works, along with favorite walks in the neighbourhood, as well as to learn about land development in the district and Hong Kong in general. Illustrative of alliance formations and scalar toggling, the AMOO site provides useful historical and allied activist links, including to a sister blog site that acts as a venue for community digital story and image-sharing (digital oral histories) and in-situ discussion of public space and redevelopment issues.[20]

The website-started by AMOOs Founder in 2007 with the help of a small seed grant from the HK Arts Development Council-was originally conceived as, “something very straightforward” (interview, 10/13/2010). The initial idea was to archive the stories and histories of residents in the Kwung Tung neighbourhood by having a map, “with a time and place element, because we have a timeline” (Ibid.) The Founder noted how the idea expanded to, “build up a web-based platform where other people can also join,” after hiring a part-time university researcher and software engineer in 2008 (Ibid.).

The website uses a modified open source blogging platform (available to the public) and the linkage or ‘mash-up’ to Google Maps was added in 2009 (Ibid.). User contributions to the site can opt for one of six types of Creative Commons licenses (Creative Commons, 2011). The online map permits time-toggling between identified local (Kwung Tung) and Hong Kong historical developments tied to virtual timeline and a map mash-up of the neighborhood. This scalar-temporal toggling illustrates spatial re-territorialization because it allows non-neigbourhood Hong Kongers (and those beyond) to zoom into and learn about or even engage in local issues. In addition to revealing the rich stratigraphy of the community’s former cultural and civic life, AMOO aims to track accrued urban land use changes for up to 12-years. Organizers propose to do this by archiving a time series of map screen shots of the Kwung Tung neighbourhood on at least a half-yearly basis.

The Kwun Tong mapping project is arguably a multiplexed personal-public multi-mediated project-partially linked to the Founder’s personal activism, experiences and visions for public engagement; and partially emergent from an ongoing collaborative online construction of living urban history, alongside civic monitoring of a neighbourhood’s redevelopment. Rather than being a formal non-profit association, the AMOO project seeks to attract digital and physical volunteers who visit the neighbourhood and act as contributors (although apparently fewer than hoped to date). A major difficulty remains contacting and tracking local residents and merchants to record their place-based knowledge and stories-especially before the relocations. Building a virtual place-based history under such intensive transformation spatial developmental pressures therefore remains a difficult task.

In sum, the AMOO project represents the start of a digital testament to the life and history of a working class neighbourhood. AMOOs inception occurred during a time of the recognition of the importance of living history, heritage and place-based knowledge amongst civic activist movements and counter-publics in Hong Kong. This urban activism in the mid-2000s was focused on a novel set of interconnected issues related to Hong Kong’s urban environment and redevelopment-living heritage, community and social capital protection; and the desire for humane planning and participation. Although these issues remain distinct from ‘traditional’ environmental issues, they are closely linked to urban sustainability, livability and democratic participation. AMOO also scales horizontally and vertically by linking to allied neighbourhood bloggers, artist and cultural activism and broader, city-wide (re)development issues. Arguably, these novel forms of e-activism fuse the traditional with the technological-illustrated in AMOOs focus on creating an open ICT platform for inviting and remediating local stories, histories, sights and sounds as tangible memories of a place; and for witnessing changes to the urban fabric. Nor is AMOO simply a virtual museum-its activist roots and digital links speak to a desire for a just city more actively aware of the human and spatial impacts of (re)development.

At the end of Taiwan’s Martial Law Period (1949-87) social movements mobilized against the legacy of an authoritarian system on a number of fronts including political, socio-economic and environmental.[22] In this formative era for civic associational life in Taiwan and Taipei, the non-profit organization, OURs-the ‘Organization of Urban Re-s: re-design, re-plan, re-build, re-view and re-volution’-emerged with a focus on urban planning reforms, participatory community design and grassroots empowerment.[23] Founded in 1989 in Taipei by design academics and professionals, OURs has continued to connect residents with designers-often in participatory workshop formats-to address land use issues and threats facing local communities.[24] More recently this traditional community-based organization has employed ICTs in some of its activism, as the discussion below emphasizes.

OURs classic approach has been to organize multi-day participatory design workshops that connects local residents to research and generates counter-plans-often in response to government (re)development plans. Civic environmental issues are also raised by OURs in face-to-face community forums. Two brief examples illustrate OURs continued diversity of community organizing tactics. First, the recent Taipei Floral Expo (2010-11) raised concerns by OURs and other civic activists about threats to Taipei open and green spaces. In response, OURs organized an Eco-Forum in May 2010 and an online social media educational and satirical Facebook site to raise awareness about these issues (interview with staffer, 10/27/2010). Second, several OURs members combined on-the-ground support with a ‘boomerang tactic’-an international heritage conservation campaign, including ICT mediation-with some of its members joining Taipei civic group alliances to assist the threatened residents of the Losheng Lepers’ Sanatorium in greater Taipei. A planned relocation and destruction of Losheng because of MRT (Taipei Metro/Rapid Transit System) construction and the story of this longstanding self-managed community and heritage space received attention including via new media and online campaigning amongst allied activists (interview with staffer & director, 04/02/2009). Although OURs was not a direct organizer its support for a public forum and some its members involvement in this social and spatial justice alliance illustrates the increasingly network-oriented nature of activism in Taipei and Taiwan.

While OURs emphasis remains on face-to-face events, creative activism, and public meetings, it has continued to adopt and adapt ICTs for its varied needs. It reports having utilized email (and discussion lists) for over a decade; a news blogs and social media (Facebook) for approximately 5 years; and YouTube in the past 2-3 years to: “record some issues on the street in the community” (interview, 10/27/2010). OURs also uses ICTs for internal organizing and logistical uses, such as cloud-based survey software for handling event email invitations, otherwise, a staffer suggested: “you have to check the email all day” (Ibid.).

Drawing-upon the activist traditions of satire and poking fun at authority as ‘interrupting’ tactics, OURs created a mock official styled 2010 Taipei International Floral Expo Facebook Fan Club to flag its concerns about this 171 day ‘mega-event.’[25] “We use the face club to gather people, first. And we report much interesting news about what the EcoCity is-how can we make the Floral Expo better. Actually, we can have more and more alternative ways to do it […] You can see the Floral Expo is full of business, you can see the pop singers, you can see the big corporations, citizens disappeared; you just see people buying tickets and shopping…” suggested the staffer (interview, 10/27/2010). ‘Eco-city’ represents OURs alternative vision for watershed thinking and an ecological friendly form of urbanization (also see: Taipei Biennial, 2008). The staffer noted that OURs: “set up this fan club earlier than the city government.” Adding, “…and so when [the] city government finally [noticed] there was a fan club and called a very official name […] they are very angry, so they have a [press conference-transl.] to say we are fake.” (Ibid.). The approach represents an interesting example of online social media satire, civic environmentalist education, and a pro-public space digital discourse tactic.

A network and multi-media ICT e-tool that OURs has been fostering since the Spring, 2009 is referred to as Burning Map.[26] Originating from an academic Board member’s idea, the OURs staffer suggested that this e-platform featured both virtual and grounded components. “We have information networking, so you can see the Google Map, there are many issues and NGOs there. And we have real social networking-we also call that the Burning Map Network in the real world” (interview, 10/27/2010). Burning Map Network affiliates include approximately twenty Taipei-area community development councils (quasi-non-governmental organizations); local community groups (such as Losheng); and others, such as the Green Party of Taiwan. The idea that a map-in this case a Google map mash-up-could build-upon existing relationships amongst NGOs in order to draw attention to crosscutting urban spatial issues was considered, “very experimental” (Ibid.). A translated introduction from the original beta site, Burning Map site notes:

“The map was sponsored by OURs to show environmental issues in Taipei and to have an Internet map platform to indicate urban planning/governance crises in the area. The map also intends to support civil/public-oriented policy and planning discourse. The hope is that through this professionally integrated platform users can connect to Taipei area civil society / public interest, voluntary and educational groups” (http://www.burningmap.blogspot.com/. Last accessed 1 December 2011).

The Chinese-language site is open for all to register and to tag (or mark) the map and add comments or images on burning (i.e. important) spatial issues (Figure 4). “We want people to see the bigger and deeper problems in the Taipei basin. So its boundaries are natural boundaries, you can see the mountains, you can see the rivers. You have to face the fact Taipei is a basin, the heat island effect is very, very serious, maybe the most serious in the world” (interview, 10/27/2010).[27] According to the OURs staffer: “…we want to have a transition to teach people how to live; how to help our city to translate to an eco-city in your daily life” (Ibid.). The staffer suggested, “…Burning Map can be the hope map, any kind of hope; if you want to see the butterflies everywhere in the city, you can create your butterfly map to replace the burning map; and maybe you can create the organic food or the green shop map-everyone can have your personal map.” The staffer added: “We think it’s an alternative way of urban planning and really from the community (Ibid.).” [28]

At the time of the interview one staffer reported spending under 10% of their time managing the map and that two staff assisted with ongoing editing and uploading (Ibid.). The staffer suggested that future improvements to the approach could include: involving civic reporters in generating content; addressing map layout issues and tag crowding problems; adding GIS layers (like electoral districts) linked to local issues; and promoting accomplishments and resource needs of local civic associations (Ibid.). More recently an OURs staffer suggested that Burning Map had received few visitors and had not been kept updated partially due to the sheer volume of spatial issues occurring in Taipei (interview 8/24/2011). In keeping with their idealism however, OURs was, the staffer reported, considering developing a Burning Map 2.0 that would touch on climate-change related impacts in the Taipei Basin (Ibid.).

Saving time and money, and increasing publicity were seen as key reasons why OURs identified increasing their ICTs uses. “So we have to learn the ICT skills, it’s not about interesting; it’s about survival,” the OURs staffer added that until now they used ICT skills for communicating with members and NGO partners. However for: “...common people we have a long way to go-to use ICT skills to communicate with them and do it well” (interview, 10/27/2010). The staffer also noted how society and media in Taiwan were very different than the 1980s, when OURs started: “so if you think an issue is very important you want media to [report] it, but it’s very hard so we have to use the ICT skills, the blog…”(Ibid.). Indeed, organizational digital practices had, the staffer suggested, clearly affected personal time-exemplified by a felt need to respond to social media public comments posted on the association’s Facebook site, sometimes at unusual hours.

In the past OURs had hired based on interdisciplinary skills-that is, staff must have had an interest in their core activism-but recently they hired an exclusive ICT specialist was not directly involved in OURs policy themes (interview, 10/27/2010). Despite such professionalization, the staffer interviewee did not see ICTs as disrupting their traditional organizational work. Instead ICTs were viewed as extending the diversity of methods for communicating, recording and sharing with more people. On the other hand for staff: “ICTs skills means we have more work, actually, to do; because you have to send email, and you have to call to check again, and you have to send email” (Ibid.).

The OURs staffer also talked about how mobility ICTs alters organizational culture-from the office as anchor, to permitting more in-person meetings outside. Still, “face-to-face is the key value in OURs,” noted the staffer. The OURs case illustrates the situation of a longstanding non-profit association that has attempted to fit ICTs into their local design activist and community-building modes of communication and tactical repertoires. Besides using ICTs for improving internal communications and organizing, OURs has developed Burning Map and the Burning Map Network as a type of hybrid, or mixed on/offline, experimental space. At OURs the design and integration of ICTs appears to have been closely linked to a longstanding focus on urban spatial activism and catalyzing alternative visions for the city.

An NGO that has-within a decade-come to play a prominent role in Taiwan’s environmental community had its origins as a humble Chinese-language electronic newsletter and website. TEIA was initiated to address serious gaps in governmental and media information about the environment (interview with TEIA Founder and Secretary-General [SG], 10/28/2010). These included too little, improper or last minute information on development projects, particularly via government agencies (Ibid.).

TEIA issued its first newsletter in April of 2000, and a little more than a year later became a registered NGO (Ibid.). TEIAs early e-newsletters gained popularity because they broke with the practice of disseminating information via paper publications or faxes common amongst the Taiwan environmentalist community at that time. The crucial change-TEIAs SG suggested-was that while environmental groups were once isolated: “maybe fifteen years ago they should face the problems [he noted waste and nuclear power] by themselves,” but now people could obtain information and allies by connecting locally and beyond. The SG added that knowledge-sharing, information exchange and cooperation were three key goals of TEIA (Ibid.).

According to a TEIA staffer, the organization devoted its early focus on establishing a viable Internet news service and making its website a collaborative space for wider public involvement (interview with TEIA staffer, 04/07/2009). TEIA has more recently created a partner, Environmental Trust Fund and Trust Centre, for undertaking on the ground environmental projects, and it is a member of the International Trust Alliance.[30] Working with allied civic associations in 2010, TEIA employed the trust concept as a platform to attempt the purchase of a threatened wetlands habitat near Kuokuang, Southern Taiwan (interview, 10/28/2010; Loa, 2010).

TEIAs core focus has remained on raising awareness through the dissemination of news and information about conservation, sustainability and eco-lifestyle issues. Indeed, its Founder suggested: “our association is like media, environmental media” (interview 10/28/2010). TEIAs origins as a ‘green new media’ group dovetailed with the early days of Internet popularity amongst Taiwan’s civic associations, and the original staff team-an editor, Internet engineer, translator, webmaster/financial person, land trust research-attempted to work entirely virtually, (separated and home-based) as a collaborative e-organization (interview, 10/28/2010). This initial experiment in 2001, according to the SG, only lasted for six months, however, due to home-based distractions and internal communications issues which meant that: “we do not really discuss [in] real time.” He argued that after this experience it was realized that: “we should work together and face-to-face with any problems we could discuss […] to allow the job to go smoothly” (Ibid.). In 2001 TEIA began renting a house as an office, signaling the end to the individual home-based e-working experiment-and it has subsequently rented office spaces.

TEIAs web-based work is centred upon a freely accessible news platform-unique because it aggregates submissions from approximately fifty environmental NGOs in Taiwan-and from trained citizen-reporters and editors (interview, 04/07/2009). It is also unique because of detailed daily coverage of environmental and conservation issues in Taiwan and beyond (Figure 5). Since 2010, TEIA has supported 30-40 smaller civic groups (in Taipei and Taiwan) by assisting with website creation and hosting (Ibid.). TEIA has the ability to assign staff or volunteer reporters to cover issues that mainstream media would otherwise bypass. As an example of g/local scalar toggling, TEIA was the only media organization in Taiwan to have a reporter stationed in Bali during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC-COP) conference in 2007 (Ibid.). Their e-reporter also networked with other NGOs at the conference-an example of g/local associational alliance building. Besides covering global environmental issues, TEIA has also broadened its e-news coverage to include justice issues and support for the woman’s, labour, public health, indigenous peoples, and social welfare-movements and associations.[31] TEIA has also reached out to international green groups, linking with the Earth Day Network and groups in Japan, the U.S., U.K., and Ireland, for example (Ibid.).

TEIAs e-mail / online newspaper remains central to their daily organizational rhythm, especially since all staff double as writers-with two core staff focused on layout, editing, emails and software issues (interview, 10/25/2010). E-newspapers are sent to a 12,000-subscriber circulation list. TEIA also relies upon a volunteer network of community-based reporters and editors. Since 2006, the association organized annual camps to mentor and train residents in news reporting and writing skills (interview, 04/07/2009). TEIA also acts as an eco-watchdog using its website to highlight issues such as climate change and campaigns of allied environmental groups. TEIA serves as a coordinating hub for news content submissions from NGOs, community groups and voluntary reporters (Ibid.). With around 10-15,000 daily visits, TEIA, is treated as a newswire content provider by Yahoo Taiwan; and it also produces a short weekly radio bulletins, organizes face-to-face forums and environmental-themed news talk shows (Ibid.).

TEIA has chosen to supplement its limited donation revenue with digital contract work for government agencies-such as developing environmentally oriented websites and eco-electronic newsletters (interview, 04/07/2009). While one time or short-term contracts can shift energies away from their core activist projects, they can provide staff with additional ICT and project management skills. Not unlike other non-profit groups, TEIA reports that retaining staff remains a difficulty because of burnout and sporadic funding-to the point that the SG and directors sometimes have had to provide personal supplementary financial support (interviews, 04/07/2009 & 10/28/2010; also see: Liu, 2010).[32]

As with any organization, but perhaps more so with TEIA-because of its intensely virtual beginnings-ICTs practices appear to be translated from a pragmatic experimental perspective. For example, besides the early e-organization experiment, TEIA has been using 3G smart phones in their office since 2008; has shifted from their own longstanding server, to a cloud-based server and non-profit software suite from Google; and utilizes organizational YouTube, Facebook and a Flickr accounts (interviews, 10/25/2010; 10/28/2010). TEIA has also joined Yahoo Taiwan’s web service portal for fundraising-apparently one of the only environmental associations in Taiwan with this status (interview, 10/28/2010).

Despite TEIAs obvious comfort with ICTs, in many ways in-person voice and face-to-face have become increasingly important as information and activities have proliferated inside their organization. For example, a single staffer noted receiving 500-700 emails daily and suggested that unless a verbal confirmation was made, that requests could not be acted upon: “After many years [of] work, my thought is that even [if] we have better technology to exchange the document to collaborate with each other, we also rely on vocal expression–face-to-face communication-very much, because information is explosive” (interview, 10/25/2010).

To summarize, as a decade old organization, TEIA has shifted away from a fully virtual organizational model to one that increasingly involves grounded practices. Three factors have shaped this ongoing evolution. First, given its staff and volunteer dynamics-wedged between the pressures of a passion for environmental justice and tight financial pressures-TEIA uses ICTs pragmatically and experimentally. Staff and volunteer turnover, however, remain key issues for maintaining solidarity, continuity and organizational memory. Second, TEIAs retains a solid commitment to providing vital online news to the environmental and allied movements. TEIA actively uses ICTs to cover, gather and mediate environmental information. Third, TEIAs experimentation with ICTs-starting as an entirely e-organization; to increasingly emphasizing on face-to-face communications styles yet continuing to experiment with social media and technical approaches to further its aims-appears to involve a unique trajectory. In some ways TEIA has increasingly followed a path back to ‘traditional’ (pre-ICT) non-profit civic environmental associations-with an open physical office, and increasingly intense face-to-face collaboration between staff and volunteers. This apparent trajectory includes their Environmental Trust initiative and other outreach activities, including a growing emphasis on earth-based projects and grounded values like habitat protection and in-person environmental education.

This section discusses findings from the application of an info-sociational approach to the ‘tiger city’ civic environmental association cases. Recall that the info-sociational approach claims that ICT-linked transformations in civic associations hypothetically involve: (a) organizationally-related, multimodal ICT-linked changes in internal and external practices; (b) participatory, multiplexed ICT-linked reconfigurations of the public (cyber)sphere and cyberactivist mobilization; and (c) spatially-related multiscalar toggling and alliance formations.

Besides featuring ICT practices as varied as green new media; urban environmental ‘hot spot’ GIS map mash-ups; digital neighbourhood storytelling; participatory e-platforms; and networked activism-the four associational cases featured in this paper each demonstrated associations that varied considerably in their histories, activist tactics and resource endowments. Some of these differences and similarities can be relationally mapped across the cases (and cities) as comparisons against the three key info-sociational transformations (Table 4).

While a common thread in these civic associations was a local environmentalist or urban livability focus, the case studies suggested that the info-sociational paths for achieving this end vary considerably. The overall (or general) findings and the specific findings (summarized in Table 5) stem from the links between the info-sociational concepts (discussed earlier in the paper) and the empirical evidence from the case studies. Perhaps unsurprisingly, info-sociational practices appear to vary in relation to the differences amongst each association’s core activity-repertoire and organizational duration or age. For example, the case of TEIA, the decade old green new media non-profit-where ICTs were central in their e-organizational start-up, and yet where face-to-face contact and grounded initiatives have become increasingly important as their activities diversified over the years-provides an interesting organizational comparison to the 22 year old OURs.[33] In the case of OURs-a group with longstanding grassroots activist and face-to-face approaches-their attempts to intertwine physical forums and actions with their online participatory mapping and social media experimentation suggested originally diverse core activities are spurning increasingly diverse ICT practices despite an initially low level of usage compared with TEIAs origins as a ‘virtual organization.’

And in the case of DHK-whose start-up heavily relied upon ICTs-illustrated how a small organization multiplexes physical and virtual networks (‘spider web’) linking ICT-(re)mediated information and frequent face-to-face forums on urban issues. Building on Hong Kong’s high density physical face-to-face networks, DHK strategically ‘dove-into’ civic issues, digitally (net)working (horizontally) with Hong Kong publics and activists. Such a diversity of tactics and practices were also evident in the artistic and culturally-inspired neighbouhood art-activism of AMOOs ‘Kwun Tong digital map project’-which has focused on the importance of place-based collective memories by serving as an ‘unofficial’ multi-modal, multi-mediated map and memory archive for a disappearing community. This Hong Kong case also illustrated how ICTs can serve as digital platforms and repositories for tracking and sharing local knowledge and stories; as well as virtual ‘cyberspaces of hope’ for provoking civic space discussions about alternatives to ‘business as usual’ forms of urbanism.

The varied work of civic-cyber associations-as evident in the four case studies above-reminded us that an active citizenry concerned about the fate of their local environs builds civilized, livable cities. Such a diversity of civic-cyber practices contrasts with narrow conceptions of global cities as being singularly driven by a short-term competitive, commercial logic. The findings here also resonate with claims by community informatics advocates of ‘civic intelligence’ (Schuler, 2001) and ‘traditional knowledge’ systems (Standley et al, 2009). These claims suggest that local knowledge and its collaborative civic application (including via ICT praxis) provide important means and memes for socio-economic and environmental problem solving-challenges facing many of today’s global cities. The final section, which follows, aims to build on these ideals and ideas by discussing the theoretical and research implications of an info-sociation approach.

The concept of info-sociations-or information-associations-was introduced as an open heuristic for understanding how civic associations are co-evolving alongside an array of ICTs that they employ. In particular, the provisional info-sociational concept unpacked three ICT-linked transformations-in civic organizations, in public participation and in spatial practices. The cases in this paper suggested that civic environmentalists were not only using ICTs for cost effectiveness or internal efficiencies-but because they provided novel experimental platforms for extending public discourse, deliberation, mobilization, knowledge-sharing, cyber-alliance building, self-mediated activism, and for transcending geographic scale, both locally and beyond. An info-sociational approach is therefore of interest to those concerned about the intersections of civic and global issues-like the environment and social justice-as well as analyzing the potentialities and pitfalls of ICT-linked experimentation.

Advancing a theory of info-sociations, at this stage could take two distinct, yet complementary directions: the first, an applied, pragmatic path focusing on metrics of info-sociation; the second, a heterotopian or idealistic path, suggesting a need for articulating ‘cyberspaces of hope,’ in relation to info-sociation. The discussion that follows sketches both a pragmatist and idealist teleology, suggesting the complementarities in these two pathways.

Info-sociation can serve as a multidimensional theoretical heuristic for understanding the dialectics between civic associations and ICT practices. A cluster of case comparisons, however, cannot make theory anew. Deepening the utility of an info-sociational approach would witness its application in other civic associational and geographic contexts. While this paper’s ‘beta’ or provisional approach may be useful for mapping and comparing civic-cyber practices, a pressing (though perhaps reductionist) analytical question still remains: “how might one measure info-sociations?” Here we may look to the empirical cases in this paper for suggestions of how to develop an ensemble of metrics for info-sociations. Three possible directions might include further exploring:

Further research into the challenges of ‘associational leapfrogging’ or ICT-triggered civic organizational growth, along with an array of critical issues would deepen a theory of info-sociations. This could include examining the issues related to commercial path dependencies (e.g. power of hegemonic ICT providers); state-corporate threats to the ‘civicness’ of the public (cyber)sphere (e.g. monitoring, tracking, censorship/defamation and so forth); and the implications of digital life in physical community, including civic conviviality, political discourse and connections to the natural world.

B. Info-sociations as ‘cyberspaces of hope’ for catalyzing ideals and ideas

Free civic info-sociations-not unlike traditional non-profit associations-can potentially serve as checks and balances against autocratic or corrupt governance and corporate misdeeds. The cases in this paper demonstrated to some degree how this was being done when info-sociations draw-upon (and draw-in) networked publics in watchdog and accountability functions; when they create a multiplex of cyberspaces for public dialogue; and when they articulate imaginative counter-plans.

As the cases in this paper suggested-not unlike Castells et als.’ (2007) and Juris’s (2008) research on digitally networked mobilizations; or Pickerill’s (2003), Horton (2004) and Lai’s (2004b) works on cyber-environmentalism-civic environmental digital practices appear to be complementing, rather than displacing longstanding localized and grounded approaches to addressing environmental problems. The cases also affirmed the suggestion that info-sociations are not merely neutral (cyber)spaces-but rather politically-charged spaces of contestation following Sassen’s (2001) and Dean et als., (2006) earlier work. In this respect the critical positions of civic associations in ongoing debates about the future (and limitations) of ICTs in civil society-including socio-economic and environmental injustices, digital rights and civic-cyber openness-needs to be heard. In relation to these issues, three possible directions for further research are proposed:

In some respects looking to the past, to the histories of the earliest cities, to associational life and to the long duration of technological praxis (e.g. Mumford 1961, 1967) might also stimulate thinking about future civic spaces-both physical and virtual. In doing so we might recall that any technology can be viewed as metaphorical tools for human and ecological betterment. This includes recalling technological spaces and tools that community activists have long employed, such as: the pen, the poster, the pamphlet, the pub and the public square, the coffeehouse, and the cha chaan teng (teahouse), amongst many others.

Civic life will continue to draw inspiration from a mixed repertoire of collective human ingenuity. Studying info-sociations therefore not only provides insights into civic associational life and ICT practices, it also encourages an ongoing examination of the dialectics between civil and cyber society, including the criticality in face-to-face interchanges. Besides being a mode of analysis, an info-sociational perspective represents a call for citizens working as members, volunteers or staffers in civic associations to forge common knowledge alliances and linked communities of practice. Civic life is now deeply intertwined within informational webs and nets of our own human creation, for better or worse. Despite some of the promising transformative potential identified in the cases inside this paper, the question remains: are civic associations ably shaping the uses and applications of information communications technologies towards the just and livable city for all?

The author wishes to recognize the helpful feedback on this ‘open source’ theory of info-sociations, from Dr. Richard Smith, Liu Kaizhi, Dakota Smith, and two anonymous JoCI reviewers. Thanks also to Beau Chen, Tommy Xiao, and Hugo Chan-for translation and interpretation assistance. In addition, thanks for the encouragement of Professors Mee Kam Ng and Liisa Horelli. This paper would not have been possible without the kind assistance of the University of Hong Kong and Academia Sinica (Taiwan). Most of all thanks to the staff, directors and volunteers in the Hong Kong and Taipei civic environmental associations who kindly contributed their time, energy and patience.

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[2] Translation, in actor-network theory (ANT)-and the broader umbrella of science and technology studies (STS)-specifically refers to: “the methods in which an actor enrols others” (Callon et al., 1986: xvii.). An ANT reading of ICT uses in civic groups suggests a need to focus on how technological practices have been negotiated over time including how assemblages of people, technologies and nature (actor-networks) adopt (or reject), and stabilize their ICT practices inside civic associations (Callon, 1986; Czarniawska & Hernes, 2005).

[3] The WikiLeaks website states that the organization is a “non-profit organization” (WikiLeaks, 2011). This association was apparently founded in 2006 (Reuters, 13 December, 2010, www.reuters.com/article/2010/12/13/us-wikileaks-splinter-idUSTRE6BC23E20101213. Last accessed 1 December 2011). In July, 2010, WikiLeaks released over 76,000 war logs linked to U.S. efforts in the war in Afghanistan (O’Loughlin et al., 2010, p.472). In late November of that same year WikiLeaks.org, began re-publishing a series of leaked ‘embassy cables’ a portion of apparently 251,287 digital transmissions amongst 274 American diplomats around the world (Pras et al., 2010, p.1; WikiLeaks, 2011).

[4] Besides their availability for interviews, and the need to find a balance between Hong Kong and Taipei examples, the selection the four cases in this paper involved three criterion: concerns about local natural or built conservation and civic environmental / urban livability issues; variations amongst organizational typologies-from older to newer formations and from formal to informal organizational formats; varying uses of ICTs for advancing their missions or goals, including the fact that all groups featured aims related to information exchange and knowledge / education.

[5] The cases in this paper were extracted from the empirical data in a larger multi-year, multi-city investigation being conducted by the author that involves civic associations in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei (Sadoway, forthcoming). The data used in this paper draws upon in-person (and telephone), semi-structured, digitally recorded interviews with DHK, AMOO, TEIA, OURs staff or directors undertaken by the author between 2009 to 2011 (with the partial use of Chinese Mandarin to English translations in one case in this paper).

[6] Urban and community informatics in this paper is treated as an amalgam of crosscutting efforts in: community informatics, urban informatics and urban new media studies. See: Keeble & Loader (2001, p.3); Graham (2004, p.17); Gurstein (2007, p.11; 2010) and Foth (2009, p. xxix).

[7] The original reference was to ‘tiger’ economies or the ‘little dragons’, namely the high growth, ‘role model’ economies during the 1970s-1990s in Asia (i.e. Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore) (Rohlen, 2002; Douglass, 2006). In this paper the author refers to ‘e-Tigers’, given Hong Kong and Taipei’s (and Taiwan’s) consideration as ‘advanced’ global digital jurisdictions (Dutta & Mia, 2010; ITU, 2010).

[8] Info-sociations are co-constituted in socio-technical assemblages-that is, they are ‘located in’ and ‘produced by’ ICTs or (cyber)spaces. The term ‘assemblage(s)’ is drawn from actor-network-theory (ANT) (Latour, 2005) and refers to, “complex and heterogeneous assemblies of both social and technological actors, strung out across time and space and linked through processes of human and technological agency” (Graham & Marvin, 2001, p.185). Law (2004, p.41) emphasizes that an ‘assemblage’-as an abstract noun-is an active, uncertain and unfolding process which is, “ad hoc [and] not necessarily very coherent.”

[9]Soja (1996, p.15) references Michel Foucault’s description of heterotopias as: “the space in which we live, which draws us out of ourselves, in which the erosion of our lives, our time and our history occurs.” Harvey (2000, p.184), though ultimately critical of the teleology of Foucault’s heterotopias, suggests that the concept: “allows us to think of the multiple utopian schemas (spatial plays) that have come down to us in materialized forms as not mutually exclusive. It encourages the idea of a simultaneity of spatial plays that highlights choice, diversity, and difference.”

[10] The rights of netizens, particularly communicative rights amongst citizens in cyberspace have been debated amongst community informatics scholars and ICT activists (e.g. Hamelink, 2004; Kahn & Kellner, 2004, p. 86; McIver, 2004). Also see (U.N., 2011), the Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, to the United Nations Human Rights Council (A/HRC/17/27), 16 May 2011.

[11] This concept-a cyber-adaptation of geographer David Harvey’s book, Spaces of Hope (2000)-is treated as one of a possible outcome from info-sociations. Harvey’s work (2000) argues for reinvigorated utopian thought in spatial and geographical practices as an approach for addressing class injustices. References to technology-linked utopian / heterotopian alternatives should also come with reminders about the dangers of ‘utopian’ social engineering schemes (historically evident in, for example: Nazism in Germany; Stalinism in the former Soviet Union; and Fascism in Italy, Japan and Spain; or Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge). Harvey’s work interestingly focuses on a critique of (and the need for hopeful alternatives to) contemporary market-oriented and neoliberal utopian thought shaping global cities and their spatial governance since the end of the Cold War.

[12] Such spaces are illustrated in Lefebvre (1991) as: “either the space of a counter-culture, or a counter-space in the sense of an initially utopian alternative to actually existing ‘real’ space” (Ibid., p.349; pp.381-383) .

[13] Such critiques can draw upon scholarship and debates about ICTs threats to the public sphere / interest including: the commercialized of civic discourse; insidious market monitoring of online publics; and tightly controlled techno-managerial practices; not to mention the threats to civic democracies from media convergence and commercial oligopolies (e.g. Hamelink, 2004; Dean, 2010; Tatarchevskiy 2010, p.12; Foster & McChesney, 2011).

[14] Scholars identify myriad influences shaping the dynamics of Asian civil society and associational life, including: family, school and workplace associations or networks; Confucian-Buddhist-Taoist philosophical traditions, such as idealized consensual relations in society; a historical legacy of strong state authority along with a legacy of colonial and/or authoritarian state rule; developmental statist-corporatist regimes; and transitions to democratic, or quasi-democratic regimes (e.g. Weller, 1999, 2006).

[15] The ‘wild strawberry’ student movement refers to activists and activism amongst the so-called ‘strawberry generation’ (elsewhere referred to as ‘Generation Y’ or ‘Post-90s’ generation) (see: Lin 2010a,b). In popular parlance the ‘strawberry generation’ moniker was employed in a classical generational divide discourse as this group relatively ‘having it easy’ in post-development state Taiwan compared to their predecessor generations (including the so-called ‘yam/sweet potato generation’ which faced subsistence issues). Thus the moniker ‘strawberry’ was apparently meant to suggest an ‘over sensitivity’ to hardships, a ‘bruising easily’ in the face of adversity with a need for pampering or coddling. ‘Wild’ strawberry activism suggests a subset of activists within the strawberry generation-a cohort that grew up with relative ICT ubiquity in the case of Taiwan.

[16] Based primarily on three interviews with Designing Hong Kong Co-Founder (subsequently DHK, CEO) including: a telephone interview (07/27/2009); an in-person interview (12/23/2009); an in-person conversation (11/19/2010). DHK is officially incorporated as a Hong Kong Limited Company (by guarantee) with a non-profit mandate and has expressed the intention to seek charitable organization status.

[17] Crucial efforts involved City Envisioning@Harbour (CE@HK)-a broad-based alliance of civil society groups, eco-designers, neighborhood groups, professionals and academics that advocated the creation of a Harbour Ordinance to protect the waterfront from further infill / reclamations and ill-conceived developments (Chan & Chan, 2007, pp.87-88).

[18] An example of a local cyber-alliance, is the case of the Tung Chung blog hosted by DHK-which focuses on issues related to the proposed Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao bridge-where 8 allied groups come together (12/23/09, interview with CEO). Also see: the DHK-hosted blog, 15 March 2010, http://dhk-tungchung.blogspot.com/. Last accessed 1 December 2011.

[21] Based primarily upon an in-person interview with an OURs staffer and director (04/02/2009) and a follow-up interview with an OURs staffer (10/27/2010); conducted, on both occasions, with the assistance of a Chinese-English translator. More recent information on the status of Burning Map was derived from an interview with an OURs staffer (8/24/2011).

[22] In 1989 one particularly large campaign in Taipei City, “Citizen solidarity against urban speculation,” focused on housing rights, poverty and displacement issues. This action, which resulted in the formal formation of OURs involved a mass mobilization of over ten thousand protesters in support of homeless and displaced residents (OURs, undated; Ng, 2007, p.366).

[25] Refer to the OURs Facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/ourstw, or their ‘International Floral Show’ link, https://www.facebook.com/board.php?uid=164806477745&start=30. Both sites accessed 31 October 2011.

[26] Burning Map was apparently intended to have a double meaning when understood in Chinese, according to the OURs staffer. One meaning refers to urban heat island and climate change effects; and the other refers to burning people or people burning, suggesting the potential catastrophic outcomes of heating (interview, 10/27/2010).

[27] The staffer went on to describe how they link the research of Dr. Shaw Chen Liu (Academia Sinica, Research Center for Environmental Changes) on urban heat island effects in Taiwan’s cities to their activist mapping (see: Chen, 2010a)

[28] The staffer also noted: “Burning Map is an [entrance website-transl.] for environmental issues. But second, you can see it’s media and you can be the media by [using] Burning Map, yourself” (interview with staffer, 10/27/2010). OURs intends to encourage local associations, citizen monitoring and reporting on the blog/website; and visitors are also directed to post comments or join linked OURs-sponsored face-to-face public events. OURs sees their map as a broader educational resource about urban environmental issues or what they refer to as “eco-city” issues.

[29] Based primarily on separate in-person interviews with a TEIA staffer by the author in Taipei (04/07/2009) and (10/25/2010); along with the TEIA General-Secretary (10/28/2010).

[30] This is a British-based group with member organizations from 60 countries. TEIA also retains contacts with groups in England, Japan and Korea and shares cases on land trusts. In addition TEIA has been involved in a forest trust in Taidong, Penghu Islands and a wetland trust in Tainan-Shihu (interview, 10/29/2010).

[31] For example, TEIA helped organize outdoor hiking trips focusing on history and ecology issues and at the same time has invited “mentally and physically challenged” individuals to join (Loa, 2007). TEIA has also organized volunteer eco-working holidays-reportedly involving over 1000 volunteers since 2004. These combine work and education on ecological projects-such as invasive species removal, coral reef protection, or community/cultural restoration projects (Wu, 2009).

[32] TEIA recently received targeted financial support for a coral reef survey and squid protection program announced in the summer of 2010 (Taipei Times, July 24, 2010).

[33] For instance, intensive early e-organizational formations / ICT dependent start-ups in relatively young associations-in the cases of TEIA (10 years in age) and AMOO (4 years in age); and to a lesser extent in DHK (8 years in age)-could be compared to the experiences of the 22 year-old OURs civic association. This hypothetical ‘info-sociational equilibrium’ or age vs. ICT use polyvalence does not, however, account for the influences of other internal or external organizational factors (e.g. age or training of staff; ICT uptake in the civic organization; and so forth).

Case Association	Mission / Key focus	ICT-linked activities
Designing Hong Kong (DHK) [founded 2003] [non-profit limited company][ENG/CH]	- urban affairs focused on urban planning, design and conservation	- website & key project links - e-newsletter and online event videos - digital letter activism for key issues
A Map of Our Own (AMOO) Hong Kong [founded 2003] [collaborative project][CH/ENG]	- neighbourhood oriented e-art activism through an emphasis on digital narratives and digital history	- bilingual multi-media GIS map - DIY user driven digital storytelling - e-history and community links
Taiwan Environmental Information Association (TEIA) Taipei [founded 2001][NGO & Trust] [CH]	- serving as an environmental information and new media hub & Environment Trust initiatives	- daily e-newspaper and exchange for civic associations enviro-news - ICT support for small civic associations
Organization of Urban REs (OURs) Taipei [founded 1989] [NGO] [CH]	- community-based urban planning and spatial justice issues (including eco-city concepts)	-website, blog, social media activism -experimental GIS-map (Burning Map network)

Comparative properties	‘Traditional’ civic associational practices	‘Info-sociational’ practices
involvement in governance	local-regional grounded alliances	multiplexed & latent g/local alliances
organizational trajectories	consolidation / professionalization	knowledge networks / communities of practice
public participatory mode	solidarity group / civic utopian	collaborative / heterotopian counterpublics
spatial characteristics	grounded & physically proximate	blended / multiplexed (grounded & virtual)
politicization of ICT praxis	neutral / organizational tools	contested / integral to civic activism
management of ICT uses	passive / reactive / adaptive	proactive / steering / potentially innovative
network characteristics	dense face-to-face networks	mixed face-to-face & virtual nets / multimodal
media & publicity	external press / public events	DIY & crowd-sourced / on-offline events

	Dimensions of info-sociations	Properties / Criteria of info-sociations	Key evaluative queries for tracing info-sociations and link to the research literature
ICT-LINKED ORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICES	Multimodal ICT-linked internal and external organizational actor-network practices, processes or structures. Includes identifying how ICTs are ‘translated’ in civic associational practices; ‘obligatory passage points’; ‘knowledge communities’ and ‘issue networks’	(A). Internal Organizational Practices [IOP] Internal organizational changes due to ICT-linked practices (e.g. member, staff, volunteer, director networking via email, etc.) (B). External Organizational Practices [EOP] External organizational changes in community relations due to ICT-linked practices (i.e. media multiplication & interlocking global-local alliances, etc.)	- How are ICTs being ‘translated’ in co-evolving civic associations and who are the key actors or ‘obligatory passage points’? And is their use supporting novel ‘knowledge community’ formations? (Bach & Stark 2005) -Have ICTs ‘digitized’ the internal workings of the organization, including staff or office work arrangements and work culture? (Laguerre 2005) -Are associations using ICTs to politicize issues-such as building affinity networks and green ‘issue networks’ linked to grounded civic activist strategies? (Marres 2006) -How and why have websites and e-mail news, reinforcement emails or other types of e-mail uses functioned in civic environmental groups? (Horton 2004)
ICT-LINKED PARTICIPATORY PRACTICES	Multiplexed reconfigurations in the new/green public (cyber)sphere and ICT-linked activism / mobilization. Includes multiplexed or blended (virtual / or non-virtual) civic participation, deliberation, and civic associational activism	(A). Public Sphere Reconfigurations [PSR] Associational uses of (cyber) public sphere e-participatory approaches & ICT tools (i.e. new media, online forums, blogs, etc.) (B). Cyberactivism [CA] Cyberactivist strategies & tactics (i.e. mobilization or online activism employing new/social media, SMS or e-mail, etc.)	-Has civic-cyber society employed ICTs in enabling forms of the ‘new global’ or ‘green public’ sphere? (Yang & Calhoun 2007; Castells 2008) -To what extent are civic-cyber groups employing ICTs to form counterpower mobilizations and/or employ a range of cyberactivist tactics? (Pickerill 2003)
ICT-LINKED SPATIAL PRACTICES	Multiscalar g/local spatial practices & alliances due to the geographic re-territorialization of ICT-linked activities. Includes altered perception, conception of associational scale / reach; and new “communities of practice” and community or “civic intelligence”	(A). Global-Local Spatial Transformations [GLST] ICT-related shifts in local-regional-global geographic scale or territoriality of practices (B). Associational Alliance Formations [AAF] ICT-supported or induced local-regional-global alliances & coalition formations	-Do affordable ICTs enhance civic associational ‘geographic scalar reach’ or ‘scale shifting’; and have associations used scale conscious strategizing? (Sassen 2001; 2004) -Are associations forming ICT-supported alliances and ‘communities of practice’ (Gurstein 2001; Sassen 2004; Horton 2004), as well as shared forms of ‘civic intelligence’ (Schuler 2001) that build-upon local or community collective knowledge?

		Designing Hong Kong [DHK] [Hong Kong]	A Map of Our Own- Kwun Tong Project [AMOO] [Hong Kong]	Organization of Urban REs [OURs] [Taipei]	Taiwan Environmental Information Association [TEIA] [Taipei]
ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATIONS	IOP	DHK engages in the ‘spider web’ of mutually reinforcing face-to-face & virtual networks	AMOO developed as a collaborative online ‘memory map’ project with an open source platform & Creative Commons licensing	OURs staff time has increasingly been spent on social media features & e-tools (prompting the hiring of an ICT specialist)	TEIA started as a virtual organization, but has increasingly emphasized in-person contacts & grounded eco-projects
ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATIONS	EOP	DHK employs e-newsletters with multimodal links (text / video clips) and ties to physical public events / activities	AMOO is a digital formation that invites DIY / self-posted audio, video & text mark-ups for placement onto e-map	OURs public video and text inputs are linked into a GIS map mash-up which invites social media public commentaries	TEIA publicizes a daily e-newspaper & its website is a key portal for g/local environmental information of relevance to Taiwan
PARTICIPATORY TRANSFORMATIONS	PSR	DHKs website invites the public to upload images; to vote & to discuss Hong Kong public space issues	AMOOs participatory digital map platform serves as a multi-lingual public memory forum & historical archive	OURs Burning Map Network combines GIS mapping & commentary with online & in-person networking & public events	TEIAs volunteer reporters & editors fill the gap in media ‘blind spots’, particularly on civic environmental issues in Taiwan
PARTICIPATORY TRANSFORMATIONS	CA	DHK encourages multiplexed debate & dialogue on urban politics; land use, infrastructure & sustainability issues	AMOOs website includes links to Hong Kong-wide land & conservation issues along with links to sites articulating alternative visions for urban development	OURs has links community-based activism to Burning Map, as well as to social media satire / online activism about urban environmental issues	TEIA trains civic reporters or editors; it also combines online education & awareness on issues such as local habitat protection; or links to its Environmental Trust
SPATIAL TRANSFORMATIONS	GLST	DHK enabled global interest in its multiplexed (online / physical) Harbourfront International Design Competition	AMOO encourages ‘scaling-up’ to broader city-wide conservation & development issues; & temporal scaling with a digital neighbourhood ‘timeline’ feature	OURs Burning Map links to broader urban (bio)regional issues in the Taipei basin including climate change; a staffer was also active in g/local Losheng campaign	TEIAs Environmental Trust has helped to build global alliances & its volunteer reporters provided digital coverage COP14 Climate Conference in Bali, Indonesia
SPATIAL TRANSFORMATIONS	AAF	DHK joined a multiplexed alliance to raise awareness of HK Times Square public space issues	AMOO cultivates partnerships with Kwun Tong bloggers; with artists & heritage activist groups	OURs-besides an ongoing grounded focus-has built alliances within the Burning Map Network, (e.g. with local civic associations)	TEIA remediates regional and global green NGO news; & it provides web/ICT support to smaller environmental & other civic associations

	Synopsis of overall findings	Synopsis of specific findings
ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATIONS	Interviews and website analyses indicated that external-oriented organizational practices (EOP) using ICT tools/platforms were considered more important by civic associations than in comparison to internal-oriented organizational (IOP) practices	- Resource constraints-such as funding, staffing or physical limits-were overcome in several cases through ICT-linked networking, crowd-sourced information or e-reporting - Organizations drew-upon the relative ICT affordability, accessibility & familiarity in Hong Kong & Taipei for mobilization, networking & media multiplication practices - Street activism, face-to-face public forums & staff meetings remained important in organizational culture, however, ICT uses complemented these associational strengths
PARTICIPATORY TRANSFORMATIONS	Interviews and website analyses indicated that public sphere oriented practices and processes (PSR) played a more significant role in comparison to cyberactivist practices (CA) across the cases	- ICT-linked experimentation with civic engagement was common across the cases and reported regardless of an association’s age or lifespan - Cyberactivism across the cases featured mixed virtual-grounded or hybrid practices including-mediated activism using online messages; e-news, video, GIS maps linked to street-based activism & to grounded civic projects - Associations are producing novel interactive cyber-civic (info-sociational) participatory spaces such as-social media & integrated multi-media sites; online public resources / links; & non-commercial environmental or green media platforms
SPATIAL TRANSFORMATIONS	Interviews and website analysis indicated that associations were prioritizing ICT uses in associational alliance formations (AAF) (and primarily local) over their g/local scalar transformational activities (GLST)	- ICT-linked spatial tools such as GIS maps were employed in 3 of the 4 cases and they incorporate unique ‘ways of seeing or knowing’ via-multi-mediation (audio, video, text) & digitized interactive map mash-ups tools with dialogue & eco threat alerts (e.g. online mapping practices) - Both fully virtual & mixed virtual-physical network alliances across the cases have extended local campaign involvement & helped to (re)frame problems & provide linkages to other local civic issues - Hybrid on-offline forums & projects have deepened local-regional discourses, & in some cases demonstrated potential to ‘go global’ or ‘boomerang;’ as well as the possibilities of ‘cyberspaces of hope’