Creating and Using Social Technologies for Community Empowerment

Abstract

Powerlessness appears to be associated consistently with widespread problems of living. Recently, enhancing community empowerment has been suggested as an important emphasis for human service professionals. This manuscript illustrates a role for human service professionals in creating and using social technologies to facilitate empowerment. Seven case studies are presented that represent seven frequently cited goals of empowerment efforts. Finally. the ethics of the empowerment strategy are analyzed and other implications of designing and using empowerment technologies are considered.