Social innovation through disruptive interactions based on new media as a design strategy for empowering socially challenged communities

This article explores potential roles of social media in community upliftment and empowement, based on a study of a non-profit NGO in a socially challenged suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. In particular, it focuses on the relation between online and offline behaviour, and how the use of social media can counteract negative influences in the community, e.g. drug abuse and gangsterism. Interviews with staff and participants reveal that social media use differ from what is reported in earlier research, in particular regarding how people connect, and relations between online and offline activities. These differences may arguably inform design for disruptive interaction to address negative influences, such as drugs and gangsterism, in socially challenged communities.