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Page history last edited by Thomas Discepola 12 years, 9 months ago

Draft 1 of the Intro - June 15

 

Reading Notes for the Intro - June 14

The Digital Divide – General Overview

 

Information for Everyone

 

-A particular succinct definition is provided at the beginning of its promotional Youtube video: the digital divide is about providing access the Internet and teaching the skill necessary to use it

-The implications are very concrete: political (learning about Presidential candidates online) and economic (applying for jobs online)

-The organization also provides an example of the types of approaches to solving the digital divide that we will explore in this presentation. In this particular case, the tones are strong in advocating governmental. That is, choosing the right government / elected officials will provide a fundamental support to increasing digital information literacy

 

2007 Study Results Wiki from UIUC

 

-term develops in the 1990s

-made popular with the telecommunications act

-synonymous with “information inequality” and related to “computer literacy”

-historical roots of trying to bridge the divide – 1978, NTIA (http://www.ntia.doc.gov/Ntiahome/Fttn99/introduction.html)

-tension between government and private corporations – who’s role is it to bridge the dig div?

- private investment in the 1990s prior to the dot-com bust: billions of dollars spent, but for who?

-class issues merge – telecommunication companies are not willing to invest in service access for those who cannot afford it

-another consideration – when access is gained, computers and service are often obsolete

-one thing we might learn from this picture is that the digital divide isn’t so much a canyon separating the haves from the have nots. It’s rather like being held at the center of an expanding circle, the outer reaches of which represent the rapid pace of technology.

 

(http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Digital_Divide_and_Education#Introduction)

 

Digitalliteracy.gov

 

-an example of a publicly funded program to help access to those lacking digital information services

-developed by the Obama administration, the site is to serve as a teaching resource for professionals who provide training for individuals who need assistance navigating the universe of digital information

-the subtext here is the role that digital information literacy plays today for those seeking jobs are moving through the job market

-Resources include tutorials on teaching children how to use the Internet safely. This reinforces a point from the UIUC study, namely, that information literacy is tied up directly with tackling the digital divide. Other examples – guides to using Google Docs, storing data, starting a Twitter account, text messaging, etc. etc.

-Reading through this material can be a reminder of how much some of us might take for granted in using technology.

 

(http://www.digitalliteracy.gov/resources)

(http://www.digitalliteracy.gov/about)

 

 

Connected Nation

 

-this organization describes itself as a private-public approach to providing access to underserved communities

-Connected Nation places much focus on State wide research projects that study the effects of broadband access to promote business performance

-a characteristic conclusion (http://www.connectednation.com/research/economic_impact_study/): “the U.S. could realize an economic impact of $134 billion annually by accelerating broadband availability and use across all states.”

-studies are also conducted on how the access to ICT varies across demographics (http://www.connectednation.com/_documents/cn_minority_policybrief_final_031609.pdf)

-importantly, Connected Nation has also developed community programs in various states where access to ICT is particularly lagging. Through Computers 4 Kids in Tennessee and Kentucky, CN has secured thousands of computers and the funding to secure computers for thousands more children in schools across the states

-CN gives an example of a particular approach to the digital divide such that economics and political lobbying are at the heart of a solution. We might think of this as the Research and Congressional Pressure approach.

 

Pew Internet

 

-a “non partisan think thank” dedicated to studying the effects of the Internet on varies facets of life – familial, economic, social, political

-included in the organization’s work is a fair amount of attention to the dig div

-it’s particular approach could be described in terms of its demographic focus: the elderly, the disabled, minorities, and class and income

-statistical measures of internet usage among these groups (or non-usage as the case may be) are derived from datasets built by expert ICT specialists dedicated to researching a the Internet’s complex possibilities of use: mobile, news, video, social networking, government, politics, shopping, music and web 2.0

-one way of distinguishing Pew Internet from other organizations is its holistic approach to the digital divide. It’s not simply a matter of studying whether people have the tools for accessing digital information (of course, very important), but testing if such access cultivates equality to accessing the Internet’s rich cultural and practical resources

-“The Project aims to be an authoritative source on the evolution of the internet through surveys that examine how Americans use the internet and how their activities affect their lives.

 

The Digital Divide and Knowledge-Gap

 

-An example of access vs. use that raises the question, “is access enough.” The authors write, “Recognizing that political knowledge is a critical social resource associated with power and inclusion, this study empirically examines the relationship between the digital divide and the knowledge gap” (http://socinfogroup2.pbworks.com/f/does%20the%20digital%20divide%20matter%20more.pdf)

-Interestingly, the results of this paper indicate that there’s a greater knowledge-gap among users of digital information than that which exists between users of traditional media (newspapers, television).

-In that context, addressing the digital divide takes on particular sharp significance

 

The Role of Libraries

 

-Research institutions like the Pew Internet and government funded ones like Digital Literacy are doing their part to face the digital divide. But what about libraries? How can the particular services they provide help in providing access to digital information and the skills necessary to using it effectively?

-Chowdhury approaches the question from a global context, studying how global libraries can be used to introduce the underserved “to subject gateways, digital reference services, free access to e-journals and e-books in many areas, e-print archives and free digital libraries” (http://socinfogroup2.pbworks.com/f/librariesbridgethegap.pdf)

-I find this to be an interesting example of using the resources that currently exist to treat information literacy – libraries being an obvious example – and exploring strategies of pointing people to them as a matter of course in approaching the digital divide. It’s kind of like a revision of the Field of Dreams methodology: “it’s built, now make them go.”

 

Dig Div: A Human Rights Issue?

 

-An Atlantic report on the UN’s consideration of Internet access as a basic human right provides an example of the geopolitical importance that the digital divide plays in today’s society.

-Not having it, the UN implies, is a violation of a basic human interest; at the same time, the report notes, providing such access presents challenging questions for governments regarding surveillance and state protection:

“The UN report overwhelmingly supports the internet as a communication platform, a boon to all democratic societies, but it also warns how the internet's unique architecture threatens power brokers in those societies….”

It is also interesting to consider that

“La Rue calls on governments to decriminalize defamation, do away with real-name registration systems--including the parameters in Facebook's terms and conditions that allows governments to collect users' names and passwords--and restrict rights only in the face of an imminent threat.” (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/06/united-nations-wikileaks-internet-human-rights/38526/)

-It is very clear that the question of access to digital information goes much deeper than simply being able to use the Internet

 

Digital Access and Socio-Political Influence:

 

-The following report defines the digital divide as a question of providing influence to citizens in the context of their ability to influence public opinion

-Research suggests that the Internet can more and more be used as a tool for generating such influence, so those that have access /skill vs. those that do not only reinforces already well-known gaps in socio-political gaps (http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/06/07/digital-democracy/)

-The article also evidences work conducted by Pew Internet, giving the organization (described above) a little clearer context

 

General Points on the Digital Divide from a Political and Historical Perspective

 

Hey everyone -

 

Thanks for letting me hang back in the discussion a bit at our last meeting. I'm beginning to develop a sense of possible topics on the digital divide both from our discussion and the threaded diigo discussion on ecollege this week. I'd like to spout off a couple thoughts below. Please feel free to criticize or take them up in any way you like tomorrow night.

 

General Topics: 

 

  • The Digital Divide as a "Human Rights" concern
  • Where's the "divide"? Political turmoil and the use of digital media as a social mobilizer. 

 

                Someone raised an interesting point this week that suggested the following: the right to Internet access may make sense from a legal (free speech) standpoint, but what does it mean in the concrete when so many people do not have the material resources to access online information in the first place? This could be the starting point for the "historical" questions I expressed interest in (vaguely) at our last meeting. 

 

               There's an interesting counterpoint here. Human Rights are typically raised in the context of the developing world. (Talking heads / politicos in the United States especially like to use "Human Rights abuses" as a catch phrase to cover their own country's hide in the perpetuation of historical wrongs.) Internet access being restricted, for example, creating the divide between an apparent Western value ("free speech") and (this is the talking heads' notion, now) Eastern dictatorship. But perhaps the West is really at a loss to bridge the divide. After all, look at the use of social media among the oppressed peoples of Egypt, Syria, Tunisia and others in the Middle East to mobilize against reactionary forces.

 

Thoughts on organization of final presentation

 

I think there's a case to be made for saving all of what we input here - the planning - and archiving it with the final presentation. All prior discussion could be placed in a separate tab called "behind the scenes with Group 2" or something. I know that sounds cheesy, but here's why I'm for it -

 

1. It would be interesting to show other students how we fleshed out our ideas. There seems to be something at the core of Social Informatics that we'd be documenting in these preliminary stages. Anybody else see that? (Not being totally articulate, sorry.)

2. We've already set up PBWorks as a platform. Most of the work we complete here can be easily transferred to new links / pages. I'm just worried that setting up a new workspace (what service would we use anyway?) will complicate this project unnecessarily.

 

The project should be a multimedia production including Video (youtube videos, for example), text documents (like essays and annotated bibliographies) and even Powerpoint presentations.

Comments (3)

Rebecca Martin said

at 9:59 am on Jun 9, 2011

I don't think "Behind the scenes..." sound cheesy, and I think your point is an important one to consider. I think the concept of making our process, including interaction and development, transparent is a great one; for a similar reason, I suggested we create a group diigo account so that if our classmates were interested they could delve more deeply into the myriad number of articles, resources, videos that we chose not to include in the final version of our presentation, but were important to the development of it. Perhaps instead of diigo we could just make this workspace available for browsing.

I still think that having a pared down presentation, outside of PBWorks, would be best for the final project. I think a wiki is great for collaboration, but since we're supposed to be creating a straightforward presentation of information I think having a more traditional website format with clearer navigation could be a bit "cleaner" and easier to navigate. We could definitely upload our draft writings to this space, but have our final writings, videos, article cites, etc. on something like WordPress. I'd be happy to set something up for us to look at and play with without any commitment to using it until closer to the project deadline.

Rebecca Martin said

at 10:10 am on Jun 9, 2011

Also, I think investigating the digital divide as a human rights issue is definitely one that can be contextualized/situated in the US, and I'm glad you shed some light on the east-west/north-south debate over human rights more generally. If we look at the UN's recent statement about Internet access as a human right, and the existing Article 19 of the Declaration on freedom of opinion/expression regardless of media, in our own country the debate over net neutrality come directly into play as nonobservance of the declaration. Might be something we'd want to consider; especially if Maggie is going the global route, honing in on net neutrality in the US might be a good point of comparison and perspective.

Maggie Murphy said

at 10:13 am on Jun 9, 2011

I agree that we should have a cleanly edited final presentation outside of PBWorks. Transferring the content would really be as simple as copying-and-pasting, so pretty much no more complicated than setting up new pages within this wiki. If we wanted to link to this wiki from our presentation site for a "behind the scenes" type thing, we can just lift the log-in restrictions and make it visible to everyone. Rebecca, I would, for one, be grateful if you set up a Wordpress site for us to play around with. I'm actually not too familiar with the back-end of the Wordpress platform.

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