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

Maximilian C. Forte mcforte at kacike.org
Tue Sep 16 22:01:04 PDT 2003


These are very interesting findings, and I am saying this without having
read the complete paper yet. Some of the passages under point #2 below
remind me of some of the things said in Daniel Miller and Don Slater's _The
Internet: An Ethnographic Approach_, based on research in Trinidad & Tobago,
where I have also lived and conducted my research. I was able to generally
and impressionistically corroborate their findings that Trinidadians, of all
classes, viewed the Internet as an important element in socio-economic
advancement. I have also been able to witness library patrons in some of the
smaller and economically depressed towns of Trinidad lining up to be the
first into the library when it opened, and rushing to sign in for use of the
Internet terminals. Internet cafes, whose number seems to always grow,
sometimes two or three side by side on one short street, are becoming
ubiquitous, and very heavily used. There has been little or no apparent
rejection, as far as I can tell, of the Internet as a "white man's
technology", as extraneous and irrelevant to local cultural life, or as an
overpriced commodity imported from abroad (and that it definitely is). This
of course speaks to the particularities of Trinidad, and I would not expect
similar findings in all parts of whatever one may call it, the Third World,
the lesser developed countries, ex-colonies, etc., etc.

Thanks,

Max.

Dr. Maximilian C. Forte
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Anthropology and Sociology
University College of Cape Breton
1250 Grand Lake Road
P.O. Box 5300
Sydney, NS B1P-6L2, Canada
E-mail: max_forte at uccb.ca
Faculty Web page: http://faculty.uccb.ns.ca/mforte/
Office B.273
Telephone: 902-563-1947

----- Original Message -----
From: "Art McGee" <amcgee at virtualidentity.org>
To: "Association of Internet Researchers" <air-l at aoir.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2003 3:51 AM
Subject: [Air-l] ATTN: Race, Place, and Information Technology


> 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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