Networked Neighborhood: Hyperlocal Media and Community Engagement in Columbia Heights, D.C.

To finish my M.A. in Communication, Culture, and Technology at Georgetown University in 2011, I first had to complete my honors thesis, Networked Neighborhood: Hyperlocal Media and Community Engagement in Columbia Heights, D.C. Through a combination of content analysis, social network analysis, polling, and ethnography, I studied how residents of the Columbia Heights neighborhood use hyperlocal media for civic engagement, including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and list-servs.

Given the subject matter, I chose to present it in the form of a website with dynamic content that would make the site a useful resource for the community long after my thesis defense. I integrated several features into the site:

• Newsfeed of latest content from sources included in the study, created with Dipity’s timeline tool

• Twitter feed of the accounts in the study

• RSS feed of related articles

• Blogroll of sites included in the study

• Timeline of the history of the neighborhood, created with Timeglider

• Flickr gallery with photos captured during my research

Based on my research, I also published this op-ed on StreetFight, applying my findings to audience development for hyperlocal news sites.