I started looking for new reports on the DD last week.. It seems like there hasn't been a large study in some time, those it is still discussed quite in a bit in the literature. Have you read the Congressional Research Service Report from 02/09? That is worth checking out, if only to get a better feel for the institutional perspective on the divide. Here's the summary I typed up about the DD in the American context: " According to a Congressional Research Service Report (2/2009), only 10% of household lack *access* to broadband service. Although current access is based on geographic and economic divides, a number of political developments suggests that broadband *access* will become universal in the near future: the FCC gave out $7.2 billion dollars to states to spread broadbant as part of the recovery process; the FCC is also integrating broadband into its Universal Service Fund in order to try and control broadband pricing; the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service is providing increasing numbers of loan guarantees to expand broadband access to those in rural, underserved, and unserved locations; NTIA is providing broadband and wireless deployment grants. " Of course, a number of authors emphasize (in the vein of Henry Jenkins, Mimo Ito, and others) that *access* is not as important as participation. An article by Helbig et al from 2009 is quite good at summarizing different perspectives on the debate. They ultimate take a view similar to this: “As the technology penetrates into every crevice of society, the pressing question will be *not* who can find a network connection at home, work, or in a library or community center from which to log on, but instead, what are people doing, and what are they *able to do*, when they go on-line?” (DiMaggio and Hargittai, 2001). There is also the Internet for Everyone campaign. It seems mostly focused on ethnographic-type stories, as opposed to large statistical analysis, but might also be worth checking out: http://www.internetforeveryone.org/americaoffline/nc Let me know if you find any recent studies, as I would be incredibly interested! warmly, ralph On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 10:04 AM, Gonzalo Bacigalupe <bacigalupe@gmail.com>wrote:
This digital divide data is from a report dated 2005 ( www.civilrights.org/publications/nation-online/digitaldivide.pdf). It has been cited in later reports. Digital divide has decreased but what may be more interested to analyze is the digital literacy levels. Access does not mean use or access to the information. Does anyone knows of new reports?
Gonzalo Bacigalupe @bacigalupe Associate Professor University of Massachusetts Boston
On Dec 18, 2009, at 6:00 PM, air-l-request@listserv.aoir.org wrote:
Message: 7 Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:27:12 +0200 From: gustavo <gustavo@soc.haifa.ac.il> To: <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Subject: Re: [Air-L] facebook ethnic diversity? Message-ID: <dca47d810f3bcd2f6b31d68db3239b13@soc.haifa.ac.il> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
More on this issue, selection bias is present. According to the 2009 Report for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund by Robert W. Fairlie University of California, Santa Cruz and National Poverty Center, University of Michigan
"The Digital Divide in the US is large and does not appear to be disappearing soon. Blacks and Latinos are much less likely to have access to home computers than are white, non-Latinos (50.6 and 48.7 percent compared to 74.6 percent). They are also less likely to have Internet access at home (40.5 and 38.1 percent compared to 67.3 percent). ? Asians have home computer and Internet access rates that are higher than white, non-Latino rates (77.7 and 70.3 percent), and Native Americans have lower rates (51.6 and 40.9 percent)."
From here the study of Facebook has an implicit sample selection bias. Minorities are less likely to have access. Individuals that belong to minorities groups and have access are a selected group of highly skilled and educated that are not different in their social characteristics to the whites having access. Facebook results do not reflect the state of social and digital inequalities in the population. Furthermore, is blurres the real divisions in society.
Gustavo Mesch, Associate Professor University of Haifa. Chair, Communication and Information Technologies Section American Sociological Association
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