Difference-managing and difference-reducing community storytelling in urban neighborhoods: a communication infrastructure theory perspective

Abstract

This study is to understand how urban residents experience and address difference through communicative actions in urban neighborhoods. The first purpose of this study was to test the scales of difference-managing community storytelling (DMCS) and difference-reducing community storytelling (DRCS) as two communicative actions for addressing differences in urban neighborhoods. The second was to identify socioeconomic and community engagement variables correlated with the two scales. We used both qualitative and quantitative data collected in Seoul by adopting a mixed-method research design, and the study was theoretically guided by communication infrastructure theory. Based on exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, we confirmed the two-dimensional model of community storytelling, with DMCS being positively related to integrated connectedness to a community storytelling network (ICSN) and all of the community engagement variables included in the current study. In comparison, DRCS was negatively related to ICSN and neighborhood participation and was positively related to informal social control.