From the report: "This paper examines the rapid and ad
hoc development and interactions of participative citizen communities during
acute events, using the examples of the 2011 floods in Queensland, Australia,
and the global controversy
surrounding Wikileaks and its spokesman,
Julian Assange. The self-organising community responses to such events which can
be observed in these cases bypass or leapfrog, at least temporarily, most
organisational or administrative hurdles which may otherwise frustrate the establishment
of online communities; they fast-track the processes of community development and structuration. By understanding
them as a form of rapid prototyping, e-democracy initiatives can draw important
lessons from observing the community activities around such
acute events." Read more
