The sphere of NGO-s, non-profit organizations and civic initiatives provides us with viable examples that new media technologies stand in a dynamic interaction with local social forces, neither subverting their operation, nor leaving them totally unaffected. The enabling potential of new media can appear in indirect forms, as a technology which helps expert groups in more efficiently serving the interests of local, non-user, communities. In this case, it is mainly the efficient digital distribution of expert knowledge (delivering softwares and know-how, providing consultancy and legal assistance) what may mobilize the local civil sphere. New media can affect local civil sphere, also, beyond the mediating work of politically progressive experts. As it is well-known, through the channels of computer mediated communication locally separated individuals with common interests can gather and representatives of civic initiatives can ally with fellow organizations in the virtual space. As an example the Hungarian website could be cited in which pregnant women discussed the doctoral services available and prices to be payed on the Hungarian semi-privatized childbirth market.

The communal web page of pregnant mothers exemplifies the biggest promises of the Internet. This panel will explore whether, and how, new civic communities are formed through horizontal communication channels. The possibilities of CMC based community formation are almost infinite: new public spheres come into being, informations become transparent and people organize themselves into self-made expert networks. However, the fact that the civil sphere, after all, faces an unquestionable decline throughout the world contradicts all these potentials.  Exploring the economic, cultural and political constraints civic activists face can contribute a lot to overcome the forces delimiting the Internet’s emancipatory power.

Panel leaders:
Joanne Richardson: Whose rhizome is it anyway?
Nicholas Jankowski: Discourse

Confirmed panel participants:
Vámosi Gyula (Roma Information Project)
Bruszt László (European University Institute): Shaping the Web of Civic Participation: Civil Society Websites in Eastern Europe
Marcell Mars (Multimedialnij institute)
Francesca Bria (Candida TV)

Paper  presenters:

Annamária Orbán: Organization and IT patterns in Regional Civil Society

Mary Angela Bock: Why Blogging’s Not Enough: The Case for Sites that Link People to the People's Busines

Miklós Sükösd: New Media and Transactional Activism in the Zengő movement: Greens Against NATO Locator Deployment in Hungary

Róbert Pintér: Hungarian NGOs in and for Information Society

Huub van Baar: Scaling the Romany Grassroots: Europeanization and Transnational Networking