M. Strano, H. Hrachovec, F. Sudweeks and C. Ess (eds). Proceedings Cultural Attitudes Towards
Technology and Communication 2012, Murdoch University, Australia, 359-371.

REFLECTING UPON THE CHALLENGES OF BUILDING ONLINE
COMMUNITY, OR: ‘A TECHIE’S GUIDE TO THE HELP DUMMIES
NEED’
LEESA COSTELLO AND LELIA GREEN
Edith Cowan University
270 Joondalup Drive, Joondalup, Western Australia

Abstract. This paper is less about the potentially therapeutic use of online
community and more about communication between members of a research team:
between those with digital/technical expertise, and those without. Academics are
usually good at collaborating, and at seeking help, so it is not generally seen as a
problem if an inter-disciplinary team needs to be assembled in pursuit of a shared
research goal. Such collaboration requires a common language, however, and this
paper is about the realisation that a shared language such that lay people can talk
to technologists, and technologists to lay people, is not easily acquired. Indeed,
this is an account of cultural attitudes towards technology and communication in
the microcosm of the relationship between a social science researcher without web
design skills and expert digital support staff who are technically excellent and
used to working with researchers in their field. At the core of the discussion lies
the notion of the competent brief, and the question about whose competency is
reflected in that brief. Is it sufficient that the brief be conceptual and descriptive to
a level that would persuade a granting agency to part with their money, for
example, since that was the level at which the social science researcher began? Or
does the brief have to be as highly technically literate as the website-constructing
audience who plan to work from it? Is it appropriate to expect a digital
professional to work from a descriptive brief and translate it into a technological
one? If not, where can the parties concerned find an appropriate translator ready
and skilled enough to correct the misalignment of expectations? This paper
addresses that story.

1. Introduction
For well over a decade the internet has been an important tool for delivering health
interventions, often associated with broad-ranging policy and research initiatives (e.g.
Cassell et al., 1998; Webb, et al., 2010; Fox & Purcell, 2010). Our specific research interest
has historically centred upon the idea of the ‘online community’ and the therapeutic
benefits that such a community might provide for people who live with the effects of
heart disease (Bonniface & Green, 2007). More recently it has expanded to include
social networks.

360

L. COSTELLO AND L. GREEN

In the mid-2000s, the research organisation involved in the case study reported
here, Edith Cowan University, successfully established a partnership with the National
Heart Foundation (WA) to win grant funding from the Australian Research Council to
investigate the possible value of an online community to recovering heart patients. The
National Heart Foundation of Australia (WA) provided an ideal context for this research
given their interest in delivering alternative forms of support for, and communication
with, key stakeholders – including heart patients, carers and financial donors. This paper
is not so much about community, however, or heart health, but is a retrospective
investigation into the miscommunication between different parties and people with
distinct and separate knowledge frameworks who were working together to turn a vision
into reality. The main perspective, the ‘I’, is that of a social scientist, with a research
Masters in Social Marketing, whose role on the project was to provide the data for a
PhD in the construction of community.
Heartened by evidence that communities can flourish online (e.g. see Howard
Rheingold’s 1993 account of The WELL) we set about providing a website for heart
patients in order to determine if participants would construct their own community
experience. Driven by the National Heart Foundation’s mission and current objectives,
the success of the website was to be measured against two critical outcomes: 1) an
increase in heart-healthy behaviours, and, 2) an increase in positive philanthropic
attitudes and behaviours. The first priority of the research, however, was to investigate
if online participants would construct an online community; one that ultimately
increased their perception of support and reduced their feeling of isolation. While a
Netnographic methodology (see Kozinets, 2010) guided the research process and
enabled the research objectives to be successfully investigated, the establishment of the
website - which would provide the opportunity for a community to flourish - was one of
the more challenging aspects of undertaking the research.

2. The Concept of Community
Back in 1993, Howard Rheingold (1993) defined virtual communities as “social
aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those public
discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal
relationships in cyberspace” (p. 5). The subjectivity implicit in the phrase “sufficient
human feeling” is self-evident, and as such it may be easier to experience community
than to define or measure it. Further, what might be experienced as community by one
person might be something very different to another. Where people described their
online experiences in terms of community, however, the notion of online community
gathered credence.
Simply referring to any aggregation of people who gather together online as a
community overlooks the emotional attachment necessary for communities to flourish
(e.g. Wilbur, 1997). The tendency to treat all online groups as communities was spurred
on by the popular media’s loose labelling (Papadakis, 2003). Researchers have also
been known to overuse the term. For example, Anders suggested that engaging in
conversation via a discussion group creates an “instant virtual community” (2001 p. 22).

A TECHIE’S GUIDE TO THE HELP DUMMIES NEED

361

This over-simplifies the situation - to reiterate our position: online communication about
common interests is necessary but not sufficient to build community; it takes
communion (Watson, 1997) for true community. True community must be legitimised
as something beyond the gathering together of people online: having gathered together,
the people concerned must form bonds (Green 2010, pp. 139-58).
Our task with HeartNET was to create and authenticate an online community
through the provision of a best-practice website design. Although we acknowledged the
importance of the web interface in helping foster a sense of community, the research
was not concerned with the testing of different website models to achieve community.
Instead, the research was partly to test whether community would emerge as a result of
interaction: How would we know it was working? What would be the benefits for
participants? Thus, we set out to provide a user-friendly ‘cyber place’ for heart patients
to interact and, hopefully, form bonds so that the website would become self-generating
and vibrant. That is, users would visit the website because of the communion they
sought with one another. Although we recognised that any best practice website model
would need to be tailored to the specific user group, we decided this was best achieved
by enlisting an Internet and Multimedia (IMM) technology specialist to develop a
suitable website according to established principles of online community.

3. The Research Team
There was a strong sense of optimism at the commencement of the project since a wellqualified research team had been assembled to conduct the research. Two senior
academics represented the two major disciplines which underpinned the project. One
specialised in IMM research and practice; the other in communication and cultural
studies. I was responsible for carrying out the research and am qualified to interrogate
the idea of community and track the expected outcomes. My understanding of the
qualitative methodology and the health behaviour theories that framed the research
design also complemented the research team. However, as a social scientist, my
knowledge of web-design was limited at best and, given the research was reliant on a
best-practice website design, two in-house IMM technologists were recruited to build
the site which would allow exploration of the research objectives. Our industry partner
also provided key knowledge: The CEO of the National Heart Foundation (WA), Mr
Maurice Swanson, was an expert on heart disease and secondary prevention; while the
PR Manager Tami McMahon had extensive experience in patient/donor relations.
Essentially, the project was team-driven and a continuous good relationship existed
between all members of the research team.
Given the broad nature of the research (comprising technology, health promotion,
support and communication), the research team was characterised by positive
collaborations between social scientists, technologists and practitioners. As it transpired,
during the process of web development, my role as a social scientist came under
pressure as a result of my incapacity to identify the technical characteristics desired of
the online community website. This paper outlines the misalignment of expectations
and the struggle to communicate across misperceptions which occurred primarily

362

L. COSTELLO AND L. GREEN

between the technologists employed to design the website and me – the primary social
researcher. Such struggles have been (Davies & Harvey, 1994) and remain (Dutton et
al., 2006; Gelbstein 2004) a characteristic of interactive design since early CMC
environments, but seem less acknowledged and less anticipated than may be expected.
More recently, however, it appears that some researchers are addressing the problem by
providing tools and models (e.g. Camara & Abdelnour-Nocéra, 2010) which might help
to bridge the gap between technologists and social scientists like me. At the time, these
tools were either not available or unknown to the researcher and, if they were known to
the technologists, they did not offer their use.
In the early stages of the research proposal, it was taken for granted that the
website construction would be unproblematic. The approach of the technologists was
that what can be imagined can be constructed, assuming that someone somewhere has
already done something along the same lines. This approach freed up the social
scientists to get on with the research design, literature searches, and sampling plans,
having been reassured that the website could be built to achieve the research objectives.
I understood that my role was to interrogate the idea of community, and any
related health-benefit outcomes, in an online setting. I was to see the project get off the
ground by communicating with all project stakeholders: the National Heart Foundation,
research participants, supervising academics, the media, health practitioners,
cardiologists and the technologists. The technologists would provide the expertise –
knowing what interface and content management system would best allow for the goal
of creating community. That is, the technologists would assume the role of the service
provider while the social scientists assumed the role of the client, representing and
acting on behalf of all other stakeholders.

4. Problems with Developing a Website
The initial meetings between the social scientists and the technologists (at this stage,
including both the web designer and the academic specialist in web development) gave
the first indications of communication confusion. I expected the web-technologist to be
able to work to the brief which had been included in the bid to win competitive research
funding presented to the competitive research body at the point where the research was
funded. This outlined the purpose of the project. That is, I assumed that webtechnologists would provide solutions to the core task (of providing a best-practice
website to foster community). On the other hand, the technologist charged with
developing the site, expected me to provide a full technical brief – instructing him as to
what was required in terms of design and functionality, security and access, public and
private forums etc... That is, leaving to one side the agreed aims and objectives of the
research, the technologists wanted a complete outline of the type and style of website
required. However, this information was outside my established social science
expertise. The first meeting was very short-lived – the technologists requested I tell
them exactly what they were required to build, while I asked them to build what was
needed.

A TECHIE’S GUIDE TO THE HELP DUMMIES NEED

363

Following this impasse, I consulted the technological literature as to what type of
website design might foster the desired outcome – a sense of community. Although this
was not part of the original research proposal, there now seemed to be a pressing need
to glean technical information about website design from key references. Having
reviewed the then-key texts, such as Figallo’s (1998), Hosting web communities, and
still feeling out of depth, I turned to the increasingly popular book series (all suffixed by
the popular catch-phrase “for dummies;”) which are targeted at ‘do-it-yourselfers’ or
‘self-helpers’ eager to learn a new skill. The title “How to build a website: for
dummies” seemed like a fitting selection! I also re-reviewed health-related websites to
identify the specific functions that seemed appropriate for our project (initially these
were used to show IMM technologists some examples of sites which might be seen to
be broadly equivalent to the one desired).
Armed with this new information, I was able to develop a more detailed set of
instructions, indeed a ‘wish list’, for the website designer to inform the initial
development stage. That is, I outlined (by way of a story-board) the functionality I
thought was needed (with new-found, albeit still limited, knowledge and experience) to
foster a sense of community, or an actual community, based on observations made from
other established websites and key texts.
This intervention saw the beginning of a lengthy development stage which caused
frustration to all parties. Once a basic web layout had been constructed by one of the
technologists, another technologist began fine-tuning the design and usability. Although
this sounds reasonable, what was estimated to take four weeks to complete, took
approximately six months to reach launch standard. In part, this was because of
challenges in the recruitment of participants, our raw material for the hoped-for
community. Each dynamic helped exacerbate the negative cycle. That is to say, given
that other research activities were proving to be more complicated than originally
anticipated, more time could be given to website development. Likewise, given that the
website was proving problematic, there was more time to enlist the help of cardiologists
and others to solve recruitment problems. Neither recruitment nor web development was
powered by the readiness of the other. Nonetheless, the main reason for the delay in
web development was due to a misalignment of expectations between the technologists
and the Social Scientists, each of whom believed the other should be driving the
building of the site, and both of whom believed that the other was better placed to
specify how the website should work.
This delay in web development was further complicated when I realised the need
for what was eventually termed the ‘back-door’ functionality. This was required to
support the collection, storage and formatting of data for analysis and was a necessary
part of a research project, although not all these specifications would have been required
for a site that aimed only to support an online community. As I had no experience with
virtual data collection, the development of the back door to create an accessible and
usable data set was done by trial and error. My frustration is evident in the following
research diary excerpt:

364

L. COSTELLO AND L. GREEN

I don’t know anything about building websites! The research is not about
investigating web interfaces – it’s about the community which might result
from the best design available. Sure, the website is important - that’s why
I need the professionals to advise on the best design available. Now I’m
being asked to tell the web developers what I want….I don’t know what I
want…I just know what I need – a website for heart patients which
enables them to communicate with each other! Isn’t this their area of
expertise – isn’t this what they have trained for? I know what I have
trained for! Surely I can’t learn a whole new area of web design? That
would be a whole new research topic! I’m finding that because I don’t
really understand how things work behind the scenes...what I think I’m
asking for is not what I need in reality. Surely they can help me out by
asking the right questions?

5. Problems with the Developed Website
At the official launch of the website, some 8 months after the first meeting, it became
clear that there were problems with the design. Three main communication tools had
been provided for users: The Members’ Network, a Discussion Board (otherwise known
as a forum or bulletin board) and a Chat Room. Discussion Boards are fairly wellknown and allow users to comment on various topics asynchronously. Chat, on the
other hand, is like a virtual conversation which occurs between two or more people
synchronously (at the same time).
The Members’ Network was a much more current use of communication
technology. Initially, it was designed to be used like a web log (blog). That is, each
member was allocated a ‘page’ on which to post their thoughts and comments while
other members could post replies or follow-up messages. Upon joining the site a new
member was directed to the Members’ Network and invited to write about and share the
story of their heart health. It was anticipated that other members would respond with
their own stories and with words of encouragement or sympathy.
People use communication tools for their own purposes, however, and not for the
purposes they are supplied for. Very quickly the new HeartNET members began to use
the Members’ Network like an internal messaging system. That is, rather than replying
to open messages at their point of origin, members would post ‘private’ replies by
selecting the appropriate name from the list of blogs on the Members’ Network. This
led to difficulties since conversations could not be read as one thread and there was no
logical flow. In turn, this worked as a brake on group communication. According to
Cook et al. (2010), project failures arise from “a lack of effective communication
between the user (or the user’s caregiver) and the design team” (p. 46). In this case,
given the users were not consulted during the design or testing of the Members’
Network, its misuse was the first sign of the site’s impending failure.
In more recent times, there has been an increasing focus on ‘participatory’ web
design. One example of this concerns the role of the “produser” in web development
(Bruns, 2008; Bruns & Schmidt, 2011) where users are seen as producers and users of

A TECHIE’S GUIDE TO THE HELP DUMMIES NEED

365

the content they help to create – through their establishing of an online community for
example. While it was intended that users of the HeartNET site would ultimately
‘produse’ their own community, this concept was not embedded in the design and
development of the website itself. If the design team had embraced this philosophy from
the outset, it is likely that the process of designing would have been more “iterative in
[...its] reliance on participation and knowledge sharing” (Russo, 2011).
It is also worth noting that all users at the start of the research were baby boomers
(born between 1946 and 1964), many of whom were unfamiliar with blogging practices.
Even so, a few members understood the process of ‘blogging’ and posted appropriately.
Paradoxically, however, even the proper usage became difficult because members had
to visit approximately 68 (at the time) blogs to get to know all the other members,
which was time consuming and labour-intensive. In hindsight, this structure stunted the
community’s growth because members could not easily make contact to form
relationships with each other. Indeed, one rationale for writing up these experiences at
this point, as the research project is finally about to wind up, is as a reminder of just
how far research and practice in the field have progressed since 2004-5.
To make the Members’ Network more ‘user friendly,’ a search tool was added so
that members could locate users with whom they particularly wanted to communicate.
That is, rather than having to wade through 68 records about ‘my heart story’, users
could employ a key word search to find people with similar conditions, or who had
undergone similar medical procedures. However, the users seemed unwilling to unlearn
their established ways of interacting with the Members’ Network. Eventually,
interactions declined dramatically. Thus, whilst the Members’ Network was initially
considered to be useful, it ultimately proved problematic when members used their
Network in an unexpected way and siphoned what might have been communitybuilding exchanges into semi-private correspondence.
As a result of the focus on the Members’ Network, the Discussion Board was
overlooked. Although HeartNET members seemed to enjoy the more ‘private’ form of
communication on the Members’ Network, which they used a little like a distorted
email service, it is possible that if they had been initially introduced to the Discussion
Board, they would have recognised the value and convenience of this group-wide style
of communication.
After recognising that this initial design produced limited interaction on the site, it
was decided that a re-design of the website, which was to be known as ‘Phase II’, was
necessary to develop the functionality of the Discussion Board and eliminate the
Members’ Network. Meanwhile the failure of what was to be known as ‘Phase I’ of the
research, the twelve weeks following the first launch of the site, was written up
(Bonniface et al., 2006). Once again, technologists were consulted to provide feedback
and solutions for the problems identified in Phase 1. Despite my efforts to bridge the
knowledge gap by attempting to learn about web design (maybe because it was for
dummies!), the site had not provided the best possible opportunity for an online
community to flourish.
At this stage I consulted other IMM academics for their opinion of the
development process of the website to date. They invariably thought development
should have begun with an instructional designer to “scope out” the site in order to

366

L. COSTELLO AND L. GREEN

determine its requirements. This feedback strengthened my resolve to turn again to the
web technologists in the hope of enlisting their knowledge and expertise for the purpose
of “scoping out” Phase II of the research.
During the first redevelopment meeting, I explained why the original website
design had proven inadequate, explaining the problems with the way that participants
had used the Members’ Network and subsequently turned away from possible
Discussion Board interactions. Despite making it clear that this was partly a result of my
lack of experience in the area, I was told to outline exactly what was now required for
the adjustments to be made. So, again I retreated to review health-related and other
websites, identifying those which seemed to foster a community spirit (or at least some
easy-going communication!). This time, I painstakingly planned a framework for each
web page as a user would encounter these and click through to the next level, describing
the login processes, layout, and ‘back-door’ requirements. Finally, I presented a number
of story boards to the technologists that mapped out these new requirements. The
website was then re-built. Given that the ‘community’ was on hold and waiting, and it
was clear that the project was in crisis, this restructure was completed in approximately
two weeks. One other change: the site was made open to anyone who wanted to join: it
was no longer restricted to the people who had so carefully been recruited to take part in
the research (Bonniface et al., 2005).
Although the new design was much more comprehensive than the first and seemed
to be more conducive to promoting both interdisciplinary communication and an online
community, problems were still evident. For example, the system was not designed for
users other than heart patients or administrators. While we had talked in the briefing
meetings about different people playing a part on HeartNET (e.g. special guests, hosts,
cardiologists, visitors) the possibility of a variety of membership or interaction roles had
not been factored into the website design. When I realised that there was no way to
distinguish between users, I reported this problem promptly to the IMM technologist. I
had assumed the problem was simply another ‘bug’ (a term I had become familiar with,
meaning a glitch in computer programming). However, I was quickly deflated: “You’re
talking about user levels. You should have told us about the number of user levels you
required before we built the database”. Not knowing that ‘user levels’ were somehow
determinants of databases, and that databases were somewhat difficult and time
consuming to re-jig, I blithely requested this be fixed. But, given the work load of the
IMM technologist involved, and the priority that had been given to the site’s rebuild,
this request was met with resistance.
Another aspect of the re-design related to the login process. Initially, new
members requested access to the website (electronically) with the aim of granting
membership within 24 hours. This was to allow some control over who was given
access to the site. This ‘personal approval’ system quickly came under pressure when
the site suddenly received an increased number of ‘hits’ and requests for access.
Further, although many potential users requested membership, they never revisited the
site once access had been granted. Naturally, I wondered whether we were losing
interested parties simply because we were not providing immediate access. The login
process was changed again and new users were given immediate access by way of a

A TECHIE’S GUIDE TO THE HELP DUMMIES NEED

367

username and password. Fortunately, this resulted in a marked increase in both active
membership and participation.
Having temporarily solved some of the design problems still evident at the start of
Phase II, and having opened up the website for immediate access by all interested
parties, there was a dramatic uptake in participation. The Discussion Board began to be
(and still is being) used regularly. This increase was clearly evident within four weeks
of the site’s relaunch (in Week 18 of the Research) when weekly posts increased to 60;
prior to this there had been up to 12 posts made per week (see also Bonniface et al.,
2005). The following graph (Figure 1) illustrates the changes in Discussion Board
interaction for the first 39 weeks of the research. Week 37 is particularly noteworthy
showing a trebling of posts made compared to a fortnight earlier.

Forum Interactions between After Website Relaunch
350
Number of Posts

300
250
200
150
100
50

W
ee
k
W 12
ee
k
W 14
ee
k
W 16
ee
k
W 18
ee
k
W 20
ee
k
W 22
ee
k
W 24
ee
k
W 26
ee
k
W 28
ee
k
W 30
ee
k
W 32
ee
k
W 34
ee
k
W 36
ee
k
38

0

Figure 1. Phase II discussion board interaction.
Apart from the increase in discussions, there was also a new private messaging
service which was also growing in popularity. Phase II members seemingly understood
that the discussion board was the best way to communicate publicly, while private
messaging was for personal messages to individual members.
HeartNET membership continued to grow for several years, to the end of the first
set of research monies (and the completion of my PhD) and to the start of a successful
bid for follow-up competitive funding. It would appear that, although the website
development was very much a hit and miss process, a suitable web interface was
eventually achieved – offering a good opportunity for community development. A range
of posts testified that the surge in membership and interaction marked the start of a new
quality of engagement between heart patients online:

368

L. COSTELLO AND L. GREEN

Crackers: This heartNet was an excellent idea, Australia needs it,
definitely. There's the Heartkids websites, but this website works so well
and I can also keep an eye who is popping in and [out] myself
Jogstar: I'll add my vote of thanks to Leesa too. The site has really taken
off thanks to your hard work and Gerry’s also. Big thank you.
Sicman: I would give Leesa more than 3 cheers. This site has been
wonderful and of a very big help to me.
TomCat: Thanks again for an amazing vehicle for us to use. It really does
make such a difference.
Genesis: I am now back on deck and hope to be a regular participant on
this site. I have just spent an hour navigating around the site and have
found it very user friendly from the aspect of a non competant user.

6. Discussion
Faults in the original website design contributed to the lack of interaction identified in
Phase I. Perhaps if the site had been adequately ‘scoped-out’ by expert technologists in
the first instance, it would not have required a complete overhaul in Phase II. However,
the technologists argue that re-design, or at least ongoing ‘tweaking’, is inevitable and
as such there is no best-practice model to work from. Still, a better first take might have
been achieved if the technologists and the social scientists had been able to negotiate the
web development process as a team.
While there is a large body of literature which provides insight into the benefits of
teamwork in various disciplines and for various outcomes, research is emerging which
suggests the ‘soft skills’ needed for successful teamwork are not prioritised in IMM
training (Lingard & Barkataki, 2011); perhaps due to the level of proficiency required
for acquiring high-end technical competency. On the other hand, while teamwork is a
skill which requires careful communication, some have argued that its benefits need to
be weighed against its costs – one of which may be the impeding of creativity for the
designer (Beatty & Ball, 2010). Assuming creativity is highly regarded and defended by
the majority of IMM technologists, there is a mutual responsibility for nontechnologists to understand and respect technicians’ creativity, and for technicians to
understand non-technologists’ desire to describe and outline wishes, if teams are to
function effectively. While this does not appear to have been the reason why
communication broke down in the designing of the HeartNET website, a greater
awareness of the soft skills required for teamwork might have made it easier for each
party to identify what was expected of the other and then provide solutions to help
bridge the inadequacies or shortfalls of each.
Instead of interoperability and a shared vision of team membership, the
technologists constructed the social scientists as being able to give a clear, concise,
authoritative, competent and instructive brief as to the specifics of the site requirements.

A TECHIE’S GUIDE TO THE HELP DUMMIES NEED

369

On the other hand, the social scientists constructed the technologist as being able to
transform a lay person’s perspective into a workable site solution. However, in this case,
the researcher and site manager was unable to provide the information the technologists
sought, and as such was judged to be lacking in competency. As a result, the social
scientists retreated to find the missing knowledge in order to re-present to technologists.
One way of looking at this case study is that the technologists held the balance of
power given that the social scientists did not “know enough” to communicate adequate
instructions. Davies and Harvey (1994) report on the power struggles that can occur
where technology is concerned, depending on who is ‘knowledge rich’. In their example
they describe how the more practical knowledge of student technologists threatened the
professionals who were plugged into the business end of university organisation. The
balance of power was held by the professionals and, as a result, the students were
blocked from being involved in decision making. Those with technical knowledge were
considered to be knowledge-poor because they did not understand the politics involved,
even if they had a better grasp of the technology.
This case study offers an opposite example where I was considered to be lacking
in technical knowledge despite my involvement in the bigger picture – having
understood the politics of the key stakeholders. Instead, the balance of power was
awarded to the technologists in that they required me to specify what they needed to
achieve before they would proceed. In effect, I understood the politics of the research
stakeholders, but not the politics of communicating with technologists. Danermark and
Germundsson (2011) note that the way in which collaborative work is arranged
“influences the development of social representations and power relationships” (p. 33).
The organisational arrangement in our design team meant that my need for ‘help’
translated to a powerless position until I could acquire and communicate more
knowledge about technical requirements.
The experience shared here has focused on the grass-root issues around designing
and developing a fairly modest website for the purposes of building and sustaining an
online community. Since this time, there has been much discussion of the new Web 2.0
environment which relies upon user-generated content rather than content designed and
delivered by a group of authors which was common for Web 1.0. Although the notion
of ‘user-generated’ seems to imply that the balance of power is now being awarded to
the users, Ankerson (2010) reminds us that Web 2.0 logics are not “unconnected to the
power struggles of the recent past” and that by understanding the history of the internet,
new generations will be able to appreciate that the way technology works, or how it
looks, is not “obvious” or “natural” (p. 189). This paper has intended to add to that
discussion, particularly for the benefit of new social researchers undertaking research
which rely upon internet technologies.
Still, upon reflection of my experience, I am left wondering: Would it have been
possible to negotiate the power relationship in a way that was mutually beneficial and
which could help bridge the knowledge gap for both parties? Was it simply a case of
false expectations or was it a straightforward communication problem? Maybe the
solution would have been to read “effective communication for dummies” rather than
“websites for dummies” …

370

L. COSTELLO AND L. GREEN

Perhaps there needs to be some kind of middle-language, where technologists and
non-technologists can communicate what is required to each other. Although new tools
and models are being developed which support this need (e.g. Camara & AbdelnourNocéra, 2010) they will not necessarily solve the problem. The social scientist who
relies on technology experts to deliver the ‘answer’ will remain stuck, unless the
support models and strategies can be supplied in a more consumer-driven, ‘tool box’
type format. Had such tools been available and known to me, however, I might not have
been asked to produce what I didn’t know, and the technologists might have known how
to ask the right questions … of a dummy.

Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the users of the HeartNET website (www.heartnet.com.au) for which this site
was developed. We also acknowledge the support of our Industry Partner, The National Heart
Foundation (WA) and of the Australian Research Council who funded the project.

References
Anders, K. T. (2001). A virtual community of caregivers: Online access to caregiving
information. Contemporary Long Term Care, 24(7), 22-28.
Ankerson, M. S. (2010). Web industries, economies, aesthetics: Mapping the look of the Web in
the dot.com era. In N. Brugger (Ed.), Web history (pp. 173-194). New York: Peter Lang
Publishing Inc.
Beatty, E. L., & Ball, L. J. (2010). Gaining insights from poetic collaboration as a way to inform
teamwork in technological design. Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on
Design Creativity (ICDC 2010). Kobe, Japan.
Bonniface, L., & Green, L. (2007). Finding a new kind of knowledge on the HeartNET website.
Health Information and Libraries Journal, 24(s1), 67-76.
Bonniface, L., Green, L., & Swanson, M. (2005). Affect and an effective Online therapeutic
community. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 8(6), ‘Affect’, http://journal.mediaculture.org.au/0512/05-bonnifacegreenswanson.php.
Bonniface, L., Green, L., & Swanson, M. (2006). Communication on a health-related website
offering therapeutic support: Phase 1 of the HeartNET intervention. Australian Journal of
Communication, 33(2,3), 89-108.
Bruns, A. (2008). Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and beyond: From production to produsage.
New York: Peter Lang.
Bruns, A., & Schmidt, J. (2011). Produsage: A closer look at continuing developments. New
Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, (Editorial, Special Issue: Exploring Produsage)
17(1), 3-7.
Camara, S. B., & Abdelnour-Nocéra, J. (2010). A socio-technical approach to making explicit
interculturality in collaborative multi-disciplinary settings. Proceedings of the 3rd ACM
International Conference on Intercultural collaboration (ICIC ’10), Copenhagen, Denmark.
Cassell, M., Jackson, C., & Cheuvront, B. (1998). Health communication on the Internet. An
effective channel for health behavior change? Journal of Health Communication, 3, 71-79.
Cook, A., Pogler, J., & Livingstone, N. (2010). Need- and task-based design and evaluation. In
M. M. Oishi, I. M. Mitchell, & M. H. Van der Loos (Eds.), Design and use of assistive

A TECHIE’S GUIDE TO THE HELP DUMMIES NEED

371

technology: Social, technical, ethical and economic challenges (pp. 41-48). New York:
Springer.
Danermark, B., & Germundsson, P. (2011). Social representations and power. In M. Chaib, B.
Danermark, & S. Selander (Eds.), Education, professionalization, and social
representations: On the transformation of social knowledge (pp. 33-43). New York, USA:
Routledge.
Davies, L., & Harvey, W. (1994). Electronic neighbourhoods: Communication power in
computer-based networks. In L. Green & R. Guinery (Eds.), Framing Technology: Society,
choice and change (pp. 131-142). St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin.
Dutton, W., Carusi, A., & Peltu, M. (2006). Fostering multidisciplinary engagement:
Communication challenges for social research on emerging digital technologies,
Prometheus 24(2), 129-149.
Figallo, C. (1998). Hosting web communities: building relationships, increasing customer loyalty,
and maintaining a competitive edge. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Fox, S., & Purcell K.. (2010). Chronic disease and the Internet. Washington, DC: Pew Internet &
American Life Project, http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Chronic-Disease.aspx
Gelbstein, E. (2004). A case study in inter-professional miscommunication. In H. Slavik, (Ed.),
Intercultural communication and diplomacy (pp. 307-329). Geneva: DiploFoundation.
Green, L. (2010). The Internet: An introduction to New Media. Oxford, UK: Berg.
Kozinets, R. (2010). Netnography: Doing ethnographic research online. Thousand Oaks, CAs:
Sage.
Lingard, R., & Barkataki, S. (2011). Teaching teamwork in engineering and computer science.
Proceedings of the Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), Rapid City, SD, USA.
Papadakis, M. (2003). Computer-mediated communities: The implications of information,
communication, and computational technologies for creating community online [Final
Report]. Arlington, Virginia: SRI International.
Rheingold, H. (1993). The virtual community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier. Reading,
Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley.
Russo, A. (2011). Transformations in cultural communication: Social media, cultural exchange,
and creative connections, Curator: The Museum Journal, 54(3), 327-346.
Watson, N. (1997). Why we argue about virtual community: A case study of the Phish.net fan
community. In S. G. Jones (Ed.), Virtual culture: Identity and communication in
cybersociety (pp. 102-132). London: Sage Publications.
Webb, T., Joseph, J., Yarley, L. & Michie, S. (2010). Using the Internet to promote health
behavior change: A systematic review and meta-analysis of the impact of theoretical basis,
use of behavior change techniques, and mode of delivery on efficacy. Journal of Medical
Internet Research, Jan-March, 12(1), e4
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2836773/
Wilbur, S. P. (1997). An archaeology of cyberspaces: Virtuality, community and identity. In D.
Porter (Ed.), Internet culture (pp. 5-22). New York: Routledge.