L'impatto delle tecnologie dell'informazione e della comunicazione (ICT) sulla nascita di comunità e spazi ibridi

Information technology, the web in particular, has played and continue to play a crucial role in today's society. The Network becomes one of the structural elements of the post-modern man and it helps to activate and shape new forms of sociability and community, based on multiplicity, on plurality and on diversity management. "Society of flows" is a mobile society, also known to be "light" since the communication is very fast, where space and time seem to contract and expand, and the relationships with them. This research aims to investigate: how and to what extent technology supports the creation of a community? When does it become part of the thinking and acting in everyday life? Is there the need to "re-embedding", building communities founded on the territory? How do you create a culture of common practices that make such a community hybrid, through the sharing and exchange of knowledge on a virtual terrain? To answer these questions, the research path is articulated through a survey structured on four levels: a "secondary analysis" that is based on information coming from the network (websites) of the selected communities, a qualitative interviews with stakeholders, the 'participant' observation and a quantitative questionnaire on the case of Milan. Starting from the construction of a synthetic picture of the realities considered by analyzing the sites, the thesis aims, at first, to the creation of reference models for communities that can share knowledge and promote local initiatives, as well as self- sustain itself. This allows the creation of community types that can be useful for the first phase of the research of the tesis'. Once structured, these models proceed to the creation of an effective system of indicators and sustainability. Then it moved to the structuring of a ladder of questions to be used for the interviews to stakeholders and, finally, has been prepared and submitted to a quantitative questionnaire in order to obtain the user's profile. The focus of the survey leaves out a new relational dimension, in spaces defined "hybrid" by virtue of their being places of relationships that are, simultaneously, virtual and proximity. Open questions, which disclose the exploratory nature of the research work and on which the argument ends, emphasize the need and importance, especially for the public administration, of framing social innovation in terms of credible support to initiatives that lead to the creation of communities and community networks in order to operate with the vision.