[Air-l] ATTN: Race, Place, and Information Technology

Art McGee amcgee at virtualidentity.org
Tue Sep 16 11:21:43 PDT 2003


This is a paper being presented at the upcoming
Telecommunications Policy Research Conference:

Race, Place, and Information Technology
By Karen Mossberger and Caroline J. Tolbert
http://intel.si.umich.edu/tprc/archive-search-abstract.cfm?PaperID=184

Two points in the paper mirror what I've been saying and
experiencing forever:

1. "Social networks facilitate technology use, according
to our survey. Computers and the Internet are used far
more frequently at the homes of friends or relatives than
at public access sites. Twenty percent of all respondents
reported using computers and the Internet at the homes of
others, and twenty-four percent of respondents without home
computers relied on friends and relatives. This is about
10 percentage points higher than rates of usage of public
access computers at libraries (Mossberger, Tolbert, and
Stansbury 2003). Informal processes of learning about
computers and their uses may be as significant as public
access and formal training."

2. "Race and ethnicity influence attitudes toward
technology, in a surprising way. African-Americans had
more positive attitudes toward information technology than
similarly-situated white respondents, across a range of
questions. While over 2/3 of Americans view the Internet and
computers as important for keeping up with the times, or as
important for economic opportunity, African Americans are
significantly more likely to agree with these statements.
They are also more likely than whites to be willing to
learn new computer skills in a variety of ways, and are
more willing to use public access sites for computers and
the Internet. In terms of actual behavior, we found that
African-Americans are more likely than whites to have used
computers for job search or to have taken an online course.
Our findings agree with other survey research on Internet
job search (Pew 2000), but our analysis shows that these
racial differences are statistically significant even after
controlling for differences in income and education. Ethnic
differences are less pronounced, but Latinos are more likely
than whites to say that the Internet is necessary to keep up
with the times, and are more willing than white respondents
to take computer classes to learn new skills. Otherwise,
their attitudes differ little from white respondents in the
sample. Taken together, these statements show a fairly
consistent pattern of positive attitudes about information
technology for African Americans especially, as well as
Latinos. Some other studies have also shown that African-
Americans, Latinos, and urban residents are among the
Internet nonusers who are most likely to say they will use
the Internet someday (Lenhart 2003). Because apathy is an
insufficient explanation for racial and ethnic differences,
and individual income is also insufficient to account for
these differences, environmental influences may be at work."


Art McGee
Principal Consultant
Virtual Identity
Communications+Media+Technology
1-510-967-9381




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